A week in Talagante!

It was hard for me to know what to share from this weeks letter. Elder Walz had limited time and some mild frustration as he tried to upload some pictures, which included photos of letters he'd hand written, to a computer with all Spanish instructions. I think he pretty much lost all of his pictures and I could tell he was frustrated. He is officially living in Talagante and experiencing a "Chilean" Spanish immersion! I'm told that "Chilean" Spanish is way different than textbook Spanish. I was also counseled that his first weeks and months can be extremely challenging as he attempts to transition from English studying to full time, 24 hours a day, SPANISH!! My heart ached for him as he expressed the need for a good blanket and some snacks, a better jacket and some English study material. He is truly at a point where he will learn to rely on the spirit for more than just inspiration to teach the gospel. He will be praying for temporal help as well as spiritual. He will feel and experience what some of the struggling people of the area feel which I'm sure will help him learn to appreciate and love them in an entirely different way. Letters of love and encouragement will be appreciated!!

Elder Walz wasn't able to write much of a letter about the mission, but I want to include this in the blog for the sake of memories, observation of transition, and something to laugh about in a few years. I usually clean up the typos which are caused by the Spanish spell check, but I want Talon to be able to look back on this day as it was, haha!:)

10:13am Talagante!

Okay so the things ineed are

my blue columbia jacket from dad

a blanket :) Mine are trash here.

Oil canester

Ensign or liahona in english

Any snacks

Missioany reference book

Fine point pens from Pigma Micron 03  .35 m ina lot of black and then a few colors. I hear they are on amazon

Arizona temple postcards of the onesin az in deseret book if they are cheap :)

I also wanted you to call pvcc and ask if they need you to pick up my diploma cuz i never did haah

Oh and put ctholic jesus sttickrs on the package to make it get here sooner :)

Okay so sorry im writing so bad. Ihav like no time now. Onehour to writemy pres, you, dad, and tanner. I did write a letter for you and took pics so im going to try and send those pictures.! Im glad the pres got the letters to you :) He was pretty cool.

Well i just some how deleted allmy photos onthe memory card! :( Im kind of upset haha I had a lot of things. But anyways i will send the picture next week of the letter i guess. I am almost out of time :( I had a really bad first week but hopefullyitwillget better. I couldnt understand anyone i was teaching I just would bear mytestimony here and there. And then i just delteted my photos because i couldnt read what was going on.

Anywys i am trying to keep my head up. Love you mom. Your the best! Have a great week! I hopeyou understandthe list but if not i can clarify when i have moe time next week.

Love Elder Walz

10:19am Just Breath:)

Everything will be fine Talon. You will get this. Sorry about the pictures, stupid computer!;) I'll get your things sent!❤️❤️❤️

10:20am re: Just Breath:)

Haha thank you so much! I just said a paryer and looked up and saw this! :) So you understood everything for the

most part. I have a second longer because they are trying to makemymemory card work againso i can take photos

of my emails haha Butthanks I really do just need to breath! haha

Love you mom :)

My first area...Talagante!

Elder Walz was able to write a hand written letter in the midst of transfers..I have typed it out..

Hello!

I am officially out of the MTC! We just got to our Mission President's house and took pictures and got to know them a little. Now we get to write letters to you while waiting to be interviewed. It is already so cool here. Their house is huge and super nice. They are also pretty young. They have four kids ranging from 16-8. Another cool thing about them is that they have traveled a lot. President grew up in LA and his wife grew up in San Francisco. But after they got married, they have lived in Provo, Miami, DC, Canada, Holland, Argentina, and China. Each one of their kids was born in a different country.

So as of now, I don't know who my trainer is. We found out our P-day will be on Mondays. I am very excited to hear where I will go. My teacher in the MTC said there will be new missionaries in his ward. The President's assistants said some of us will go to the coast. I am so excited to be on a mission. Everyday I feel a stronger feeling telling me I am where I'm supposed to be. I'm so grateful I was able to be raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I finished reading the Book of Mormon this week. I loved reading it. I don't know why it was so hard to read back home. Well, I have to go. I sure love you guys. I wouldn't be here without ya! Have a great week and I will see your emails Monday! 

<3 Elder Walz



The following is a very special and sacred letter we received today from the mission president. I am so grateful for his prayerful support of Talon. When Talon was set apart as a missionary, his good Stake President taught us how not only is Talon called to serve in a place, he is called to serve with and learn from a specific mission president and his wife. I can already feel confirmation of that.

24 August 2016

Dear Brother and Sister Walz,

Sister Woodward and I were pleased to welcome your son, Elder Walz, to one of the finest missions in the world, the Chile Santiago West Mission.  He is well and happy, and we are impressed with his enthusiasm for the work.  After departing from the MTC, he arrived at our mission home and I interviewed your son. He is a wonderful worthy person. We had lunch together and afterward, we went to the mission office which is the Stake Center of Maipú. My Assistants and office missionaries then gave him a brief orientation of the mission. He met his new companion, and they departed for his first area!

Elder Walz has been assigned to work with Elder Agostinelli, who will serve as his training companion.  Trainers are chosen for their competence, patience and dedication, and are selected after prayerful consideration.  With this letter we are including a photograph taken of your son and his new companion with Sister Woodward and myself.

Please accept our deep appreciation for raising such a fine son.  We feel a genuine fellowship with you in supporting and providing him this opportunity to grow spiritually as he labors to bring souls unto Christ.  It is my prayer that the Lord will inspire us all to sustain him in this challenging assignment. He will experience some of the most difficult as well as the most rewarding moments of his life here. Please write him frequently, weekly if possible.  Express your love, support, and confidence in him.  You will witness miraculous changes in his life as he engages fully in the service of others.

If you have any questions or if we can assist you in any way, please do not hesitate to write.

Sincerely,

President Christopher G. Woodward

Chile Santiago West Mission

Mission President

Mission president and new companion

Pokemon GO

Well, I can't believe its my last P day here! This week one of the talks we watched was Elder Holland on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It is a powerful one! I loved it!

So this week I got to go on splits for 4 hours! It was so great. I worked with Elder Lima and he is from Brazil. He spoke pretty good English though so he was able to teach me a lot. We took the metro to the East Mission and started walking through his area. We tried knocking on some investigator doors but no one was home so he said, "lets sit down and say a prayer and ask the holy ghost to help us out" because we couldn't find anyone to teach. He asked me to say it and in Spanish of course. Then not even 5 minutes later we contacted someone at a street light and they were interested and he set up an appointment! We then closed it with a prayer. She asked us to pray for some of her emotional problems and then Elder Lima said absolutely! And told me to say it! I was like uh oh! But the prayer actually turned out pretty good. But then it gets better. About 15 minutes later, we found a 16 year old kid at a park playing Pokemon Go! My companion told me to contact him. So I went over and asked him how he was doing and stuff and then told him my family played Pokemon go before I left to come here for my mission. He thought that was cool and then my companion took over. After about 2-3 minutes, I was lost but then the kid started getting teary eyed. My companion pulled out a Book of Mormon and gave it to him. In the paper copies of the Book of Mormon, they have pictures in the front. Elder Lima explained the Book in a cool way. He opened it to the first picture which was of Christ and explained that the book was another testament of Jesus Christ. And then the next picture was of Lehi leaving Jerusalem and then a picture of them on the boat coming to the Americas. Then he just said the rest is about the trials of the people here trying to live the gospel and that there were prophets that kept records. Then he hands the book to him and gives me the eyes! I was super nervous again but I just bore my testimony on the reason I was here and that it was because of that book. The teachings in the Book of Mormon have made me the person I am and it has brought me much happiness. And then I told him if he lives by the teachings in there the same will come to him. It was such a cool experience. The rest of the contacts were pretty quick but they almost all made appointment times! It was such a testimony builder! It was hard to understand investigators. Well I pretty much didn't understand hardly any actually, haha! But my companion was awesome and helped me out. Then when we got back we got Papa Johns for dinner! It was great! Other than that, everything was pretty much the same. We had a total Spanish day yesterday again and they are always a little quieter because we don't know what to say haha. This was the last week of going to the temple every Wednesday. It has been great starting off the days with such a great feeling that you get while in the temple!

Finally some REAL FOOD!

Hey Hey! 

Well the new missionaries arrived! They call us veterans except we barely know anything! 

Okay so a few cool things about this week! 

The cafeteria is getting redone so we have been eating in the gym of the church on the grounds and GOOD NEWS, the food has been so much better!! We have had lasagna, chicken salads with ranch, meatballs and potatoes, and pizza! Yesterday for lunch we got Papa Johns! It was great! 

We also had a clean room challenge this week and we won that. So the president's wife made us chocolate chip cookies! That was the night of the pizza so yesterday was just great! 

We ended up not going proselyting last week, so we have that tomorrow! We did get to go contacting and my companion and I gave out our first Book of Mormon haha! It was to a 17 year old kid. He let us practice our Spanish with him and then after a while we got into church stuff and he was interested so we gave him a book! It was super cool. But yeah tomorrow I will be going on splits with a missionary from the east mission for 4 hours! Pretty scary but now i can at least understand Spanish. My Spanish is still slow though, especially past and future tense. Yesterday we did a solo Spanish day so that was difficult but super beneficial! 

I've been reading in Alma this whole week and I'm to chapter 40! Its been pretty awesome! He is like the best missionary ever haha! He gives up being the top guy almost to go around preaching the gospel. He doesn't care how many people shut him down, he keeps teaching and just loving all the people! It is really cool to read. My favorite scripture and the one I memorized in Spanish this week is Ether 12:27. It's crazy, I'll be out in the mission field in 2 weeks!

This is for Turner and Tyson! Pokemon Go just released here this week and everyone is going nuts. Even our teachers when they walk out of class haha! Then everyone when we went contacting at a park were just roaming with friends playing it. 

Okay here are some pics:

My roommates finally got me to put up the flag last week. 

Me being silly in front of the flag 

We decided we had to take a pic in front of my flag!

I found some clay tennis courts!:)

 Here in Chile they have a grand mac! I only got the super mac!

We got mcdonalds last week! So good!

A fake bose mini sound link for only $30. It sounds pretty good!

Half way through the MTC!

Hey everyone!

A cool spiritual story from this week was about the brother of Jared. We got a new teacher for the second half of the MTC and he is great so far. We read Ether 3:1-6 over like 20 minutes. Its about when the brother of Jared went to carve the 16 rocks out of the mountain and then take them up to the top of the hill. That is all I would think about the story before but he had us slow down and think about it. He  probably didn't have any climbing gear, nor tools to carve out the rock. So he probably fell a few times and hurt his hands many times and was probably frustrated but he still eventually climbed all the way up the mountain. When he got up there, he still was so humble that he asked for forgiveness for his weaknesses or something like that before he asked the Lord for help making the rocks glow. I don't have my scriptures with me, otherwise i would summarize it better but read those 6 verses again with the mentality of putting yourself in the situation of climbing a mountain by yourself and having the pressure of your people needing you to do that for them! It was pretty cool :) 

Also there is a talk by James Hamula about having a sober mind. If you haven't heard it, look it up! haha It talks a lot about the fact that we were chosen to be here at this time and then also that we were able to defeat Satan and temptation in the world before this. So we still have all the same personalities we just need to find them again. This was really cool to me because i finally got my patriarchal blessing printed off this week and it says at one point that I was valiant and a leader to people in the spirit world. Its super cool that I read that the day before I heard that talk! 

On Friday we go on splits with the missionaries in Este! haha Its going to be crazy. We are going out for 3 hours and I still don't feel great about my Spanish. It is certainly coming along but not all the way. So I am half scared but also excited. My Spanish is typically better in lessons so that is nice and also a testimony of the gift of tongues from the spirit. 

We also got to hear from Elder Zaballos which is one of the 70! He was super cool but i forgot my notes on the talk. :( 

This last Sunday our district sang He Sent His Son in Sacrament Meeting. That was scary but everyone said we did good!

SO its crazy that I am half way through the MTC!! I feel like i just got here. haha 

Well I dont have a whole lot for you this week. Nothing too crazy happened except the 3 weekers all left for their missions and we got a whole bunch of new Elders today. I also have no pics because we wrote before we left to go out to the city. :( Usually i can take pics while I am out and then send them when I get back. So sorry about that. 

I love you so much Mom! 

Love Elder Walz

 Show original message

Made it through Week 2!!

Made it through week 2! 

Hello everyone! 

The CCM (missionary training center) is great. In two weeks I can now understand the gist of what fluent people are saying. On Monday's, our morning teacher doesn't speak any English now so its rough but really good for us. Our afternoon teacher does translate a little still though. 

This week was a lot like the last except I got sick. Our teacher was getting a little sick and I think I got it from him but now a lot of us are sick. Not super bad but we all have runny noses. I'm feeling much better today but it could be because it is P day! :) The food is still bad... but I am getting a little accustomed to it. I bought some Tabasco today at Walmart so that should help a lot! Tomorrow we have a general authority coming to speak to us. I don't know his name but he is Chilean. So that is exciting but I hope he speaks in English at least a little bit! Okay so something spiritual real quick. I read Jacob 5 one day this last week. It is a long parable but it is super good. You guys should read it. I would explain it but I'm still getting this computer thing down and I don't want to take too much time! But it basically says no matter what we do and how long we have been doing it, the Lords hand is still stretched out waiting for us to ask for help. Haha I thought it was pretty cool. Oh I also would like you (mom) to send me an email with all the scripture mastery references from each testament please. :) Oh and also 2 Nephi 29 is cool to read! So each week i decided i am going to try and memorize a scripture in Spanish and write it to you! 

Joseph Smith 1:16-17 Vi un columna de luz, mas brillante que el sol, directamente arriba de mi cabeza, y esta luz gradualmente descendio hasta descansar sobre mi. Al reposar sobre mi la luz. Vi en el airre arriba de mi a dos personajes, cuyo fulgor y gloria no admiten descripcion. Uno de ellos me hable llamandome por mi nombre y dijo senalando al otra; Este es mi hijo amado escuchalo.

Okay so a few crazy things that happened this week:

We had an earthquake already! Our teacher said we will have one every month haha! And then a bad one every 2 years which it has been about 2 years since the last one so it could be any week! :) It was in the morning on our way to breakfast. It was pretty cool!

I have been playing soccer every morning and it has been a blast but yesterday morning I split open my chin! Its not that bad (I'll send a picture) but it was kind of freaky at first. I headed a ball and got my feet taken out and landed chin first on the cement. But i am okay! The Doc here at the CCM said a stitch would be good but he isn't licensed to give me them in Chile since he is also from the US. He said I could go to the hospital but that we should just try using the steri strip things and surprisingly they have helped a lot. It already looks really good. So I am still going to keep playing soccer :)

So since the food is so weird here every one has had trouble pooping! Luckily myself its been going right through me haha! But a few of my friends didn't poop for like 4 days and had to take some pills. It has been pretty funny to joke about it. 

People have told me days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days and I have found it to be true! Days are so long but then I feel like i was just writing like yesterday so that has been cool!

Oh another soccer story! So the courts are the size of outdoor basketball courts. I took a shot from about half court and it drilled the sidebar then hit the goalie in the face and the sidebar and the goalies face again!!!! So funny. I felt bad but it was hilarious. It was actually the other Elder that came from Phoenix haha That was like 15 minutes before i split open my chin.  

Did I tell you Elder Fuller is my district leader? Haha he is a super cool kid from Logan. I don't remember if I told you the names of everyone so I'll tell you again. Driscoll is from Georgia, Roberts is from Utah, Harper is Utah, and then Hansen is from Idaho-Connecticut. They are really awesome. We have had some good bonding!

Well that is about all i can think of right now. Oh today for p day i finally had a legit cheeseburger! Tasted so good to finally have real food :) 

Love you so much Mom. Thanks for the email. You are the best. Talk to you in a week. And I'll send some pics in a little. Oh if you know Tanner's address send it to me asap. :)

My first week!

Momma!!

My first week has been great! I have learned so much in a week it is absolutely insane! My Espanol isn't great yet but I can pray in Spanish and I have already taught like 5 lessons in Spanish! They have been pretty bad but it is cool that I am doing it. So today I am going to just write as fast as I can because I only have an hour and I don't know if that is plenty of time or not yet. So I am sorry for the grammar if its bad ;) The computer underlines every word because it thinks I should be typing Spanish so I don't know if I misspell something.

So I wrote down some things I wanted to tell you:

1. Our MTC is the only one in the world that we can leave on our Pday which was today. It was really quick because we wanted to see so much. But yeah we can walk the city for two hours. Then we have an hour to write. Every morning we can also leave for an hour to go to a park to play soccer! Its cool, they have tons of mini soccer courts at the park. It is a super fun way to start of the day. Oh also our MTC only has like 55 people in it.

2. My companion is Elder Roberts and he is from Utah about 5 minutes from the Timpanogas temple. He is a sweet guy and we get along great. We have 6 people in the district and we all get along great. He is in a YouTube video called kid history episode 3 and he is the completo guy. He was only 12 in the video but it is a pretty funny video.

3. We went to the temple this morning! That was super cool. It was even in English which was nice.

4. So every class here is taught in Spanish but luckily some have translators haha! On Sunday we have to prepare a 4 minute talk in Spanish, but after that the rest of the day is in English. We have like 2 specific Spanish classes and then the rest are teaching classes in Spanish. It is pretty overwhelming but when I look back now I see that I have made a lot of progress.

5. The food here at the MTC isn't great unfortunately but we make it work. They pretty much have the same ingredients used for each meal. Ham, rice, pork, pasta, and then all their veggies are really cold like corn or broccoli. There is always good salad but no dressing! haha They have this super good salsa that I put on everything including my salad. The other good thing is the bread which I do really like! But yeah back to the ham and pork. The ham is like bologna which i don't really like and the pork just looks gross! So I don't need to worry about me gaining too much weight at the MTC. Oh also the way they make their eggs are runny! haha So gross!

6. It has been pretty cold! Im glad you got me that bigger jacket and also that bigger bag has been perfect. I love it haha I pretty much have everything that we need here so that is really good! 

All in all this first week has just been a great time. I'm the first one up every morning at 6:30 which is kind of funny. Right when I here the alarm I sit up and pray and then get down of the top bunk and get ready. Everyone else sleeps at least 15 more minutes. Then we go to personal study for an hour and then we have breakfast followed by physical activity which means soccer haha! Then the rest of the day is teaching fake investigators or Spanish class or learning how to teach haha Then we go back to our rooms at 9:30 and lights out at 10:30.

I memorized a scripture and our missionary purpose in Spanish:

Y por el poder del espiritu santo podreis conocer la verdad de todas las cosas.

That is Moroni 10:5 I think! haha sorry these computers keys are different so I haven't figured out many of the symbols. 

Well I only have a half hour left and I have only written you and I have a few more emails to read so I got to go. I love you so much mom. You are so great! Have an amazing week.

I'll send pics in another email! haha

Love Elder Walz

Walking the city

Me and Elder Roberts in front of the Santiago Temple

I'm told all the dogs have fleas.. :(