Hola mi familia,

Wow so much has happened. I´m glad you received the picture from the president but it was a crazy day as you can probably tell from my crazy hair. We arrived in Chile on Tuesday morning. It was a process to get through security because our group of about 20 had to all stay together.  We all hopped on the bus and headed off for Viña. When we got there we went sight seeing to two different locations and in the second location we were told that we would be getting a companion for a little bit, someone who is native and then we were to give out a book of mormon and ask for directions for the mission home. All we were left with was a book of mormon and the address of the mission home and we were all dropped off at different locations. It was seriously the most scary thing I have ever done in my whole life. We had just arrived and are put with a native who we can’t understand. It was really hard. But we did it! I´m so thankful for that experience. When we were at the mission home we went into meetings with the President and the nurse and then we were allowed to just sit and chill for a long time. After lunch, the sisters were all taken to a hotel nearby and got to sleep the rest of the day and into the night. It was really nice to get the time to sleep, it was much needed after much travel and a hard and scary day. The elders were all sent to different apartment buildings with other elders and had to sleep there for the night.

The next day we had an orientation about all the rules and things like that. It was really long but afterwards we went into the church building for a meeting. It was exchanges and we had a short meeting and then President Kahnlein called us up one by one and we were assigned a new companion. That was it, once you got your companion you went to get your bags and you were gone. No goodbyes to anyone, which was sad because my district never really got to say goodbye to each other. We then grabbed all of our bags and headed for a bus. The buses here are insane. You have to hurry on them because they just pick you up and leave while your getting in the door.  We traveled to another bus stop and hopped onto a bigger bus which took us to our home In Casablanca. We didn’t get there until around 9 and when we got there, there was a little family waiting for us and they took us to our apartment building. Our apartment was a shock to me. It was really small but actually very gross too. There was stuff all over the floor from previous elders living there and it just was gross. We went to the members house that picked us up for some dinner and then headed back to go straight to bed. I did not have a pillow so I slept with just my blankets and sheets. I have been using that head pillow from the airplane. It´s actually really comfortable and Im really glad that I have it.

The next day we cleaned and did a lot of unpacking and studying. My companion is such a doll. Her name is Hermana Paz, she is 22 years old, is from Mexico, has been in the mission for 3 months and only speaks Spanish. I could not understand her at all, I still can’t sometimes but she is very patient with me and talks really slowly so that I can understand. I don´t understand any of the people here. They all slur their words together. I´m trying really hard and sometimes I get a few sentences here and there, but not very often. The people here are amazing! They are so kind and they love the missionaries. They want to do everything for the missionaries and they do. They give us so much food and we are fed really well each day. The main meal each day is lunch, or almuerzo. It´s huge and then for dinner they have café, but the members drink something different. I can´t explain it. It´s not coffee but it´s so good I love it. The food here isn´t very different, it´s actually really good especially the rice. I love the rice haha shocker there right mom? The weather here is amazing. It´s so hot during the day and cold in the morning and the night.  In our apartment there is a window without the glass, it´s broken but we let President Kahnlein know and I think we should be getting that fixed sometime. 

So my first week here... I love it. But my first few days were extremely rough and I cried  To heat our water we have this thing in the corner of the apartment and we have to light a match while holding down a dial to let out the gas. Once that catches fire we turn the nob so that we can get hot water and it usually takes us a good 10 min to get that going. We don´t leave the hot water on all the time because it will use up all the gas we have and we need to save that, so when we clean our dishes it´s hand washed in cold water. 

Yesterday we met up with a reference we have and her name is Javiera. She is 16 and has had to get permission from her parents to come to church and activities for the church as well as to be baptized if she wants. We taught her yesterday and she responded really well. We asked her to be baptized and she said yes so we set a date for March 9th. I´m really excited and so is she. 

The members know that I´m new and I don´t speak much Spanish but they still are just so loving and willing to help me even when I don´t understand much. So today for P-day we went to Valparaiso. We had most of the day with the district because.... I actually don´t know why. But we spent a lot of time with them playing games.  Valpo is an hour away from Casablanca and it´s 4 dollars every time we travel here and 4 dollars every time we travel back. So we spend a lot of money in buses because we have to come to Valpo for everything (meetings with the district and zone, etc.) so it takes up most of our p-day. 

I love you all and I´m so happy here even when there are hard times. Hermana Paz and I have had some good laughs, I love her so much even though I can´t talk to her very much. 

I love you all so much!! Love,

Hermana Tycksen