January 25, 2015
​I hope everyone has an awesome week this week! And Happy Birthday Mom!!​

Here's a picture of the sweet house we're working on. Construction here is a little different. It's a little more "I saw my uncle build a house once when I was 12, so I can probably build a house," and a little less exactthen I would prefer. But it's coming along, and it shouldn't be too shabby by the time it's finished.

Here's a picture of the four Hospital Elders eating some humitas the other day at an investigator's house. They were pretty 

scrum-diddley-umptious if you ask me.

Fun Fact: Milk in Chile is sold in cardboard boxes that don't need to be refrigerated. I have a suspicion that it's not milk in the boxes... Its tastes funny.

                                                       January 18, 2106

Elder Mendez and I had another great week here in Hospital. It's been ridiculously hot for the past few days, and we've been having fun jumping from shade to shade on the way to appointments. It's been about 35 degrees celcius every day, but it's been alright- the other day like 6 people gave us a ride to where we were going. The people here are really nice sometimes. Especially when it's super hot! They pull over and ask us where we're going, and then tell us to get in, and drop us off right where we need to go! So that's not too shabby.

     We're still having a hard time finding some people to teach, because everyone is either at the beach or at some public pool! But we are loving it here in Hospital. We've been eating so much watermelon, and now the nectarine tree in our front yard has some perfect nectarines on it!

     Thanks for the emails, and I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Hamilton

My companion caught a serious case of Deacon Collar Syndrome the other day.

And the sunsets here are pretty pretty sometimes.

                                                 January 11, 2016

This week was pretty interesting because it seems like everyone that lives in or close to Hospital is not home... We've been talking with the other missionaries here, and we're pretty sure that everyone went on vacation at the exact same time, so we've had to change things up a little. We've been doing lots of service and speaking with everyone we can, and it's pretty fun. The other day we went over to a member's house for the whole day and helped him build a part of his house. 

     We went to a family home evening a few nights ago with the other missionaries, and when it was time to leave, the dad said, "Hey, throw your bikes here up on this thing and I'll take you into town." So we went into town in style in a horse-drawn cart thing. And I even got to drive! It was kind of sketchy because the horse obviously doesn't have headlights, and there were minimum streetlights out there in the middle of nowhere, but it was super fun, haha. We took a picture of it, so I'll send that right now.

     It's still pretty hot, but a major plus is that it is officially watermelon season. And the watermelons from Hospital are nationally recognized as the best watermelons in Chile. Watermelon is the official summer dessert here, so we're not terribly sa about that.

     I hope everyone has an awesome week this week, and thanks for the emails!

Elder Hamilton

We heard a funny noise for like 5 minutes as we were riding our bikes one evening in the country. We assumed there was something loose, but 5 minutes had passed and all of the sudden my comp was riding on his back rim, haha. So he threw his bike up onto his shoulder and walked like a stud all the way to our house, which was like a 40 minute walk!

Here's the sweet carriage I drove into town the other night. We were wearing some gnarly reflective vests, but had to take them off for the picture.

                                                   January 4, 2015

We had a pretty calm week this week, because everyone in Hospital either went to someone elses house, or a bunch of people came over to their house, and no one could really meet with us. But we did do a lot of service, so we used our time pretty well. One of the services we did this week was destroy a room that a family had built a few years ago. They decided they didnt want it to exist anymore, so they called us over and we took care of it. While we were tearing down a wall, a lizard crawled over my hand and I kind of freaked out because I thought it was a spider haha. 

     We had to go home early on New Years Eve, and were in bed at 12:00, but we heard all the fireworks and stuff, and all of the people freaking out from far away. Our New Year was pretty chill, but we had a good time cooking some food in the house.

     Today for a P day activity we went to BUIN ZOO! Haha it was pretty cool, and I took some sweet pictures, so Ill send a few of the best ones!

     I hope everyone has an awesome week!

Elder Hamilton

Here is a picture of the apricot cobbler I made the other day. We have about  million apricots at home thanks to a giant apricot tree in our front yard. I already made apricot salsa, apricot jam, and apricot cobbler. So if anyone has any good recipes with apricot, feel free to hook it up.

And here is a picture of a lake/reservior thing close to a mambers house where we eat lunch on Saturdays. It was pretty gorgeous, but apparently a few years ago the water was up to where we were standing.

    Heres a picture of our house, and a picture of the "fruit tree forest" that hides our house from people on the street. There apricot trees, peach trees, apple trees, pear trees, plum trees, walnut trees, almond trees, cherry trees, and a few other bushes like blackberry and raspberry. I love this house.

Everyone said I found one of my long lost cousins  here in the Buin Zoo today. 

And heres me in front of the sign.

                                                    December 28, 2015
I wrote my letter this morning to save a little time on the computer today, and respond to a few more emails, so here it is! We had a great Christmas here in Hospital, and enjoyed Skyping with our families! I hope everyone has an awesome new year!

Here's a picture from the service we did the other day. There were a lot of jokes about being white that day, haha.

SKYPE!

                                                     December 21, 2015

Needless to say, we are really excited for Christmas this week, and for the opportunity we are going to have to Skype with our families! We had a good week this week; kind of crazy because everyone is getting ready for the holidays, but it was still a fun week. 

      We did a lot of service this week, and we had a great time. I love how service just makes you automatically friends with someone. The other day we were outside shoveling for like 3 hours with a guy we didnt know, but at the end, we were best friends, and it was awesome!

     I hope everyone has an awesome week, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Elder Hamilton

Feliz Navidad de Elder Hamilton y Elder Mendez.

                                                  December 14, 2015

So we got the call from the zone leaders on Saturday night about the transfers, and Elder Mendez and I are both staying here in Hospital for 6 more weeks! We have been working really well together, and are looking forward to having Christmas together here in Hospital!

     So Ill tell you a little about our week:

     On Monday to end P day, my companion made some tacos al pastor. I have some pictures that Ill send, but basically its tacos with pineappple cooked in with the meat. They were delicious. Definitely a plus of having a Mexican companion that knows basic cooking skills.

     On Thursday we had an awesome Christmas conference with  zones in Rancagua, with almost 100 missionaries. It was super fun, and we got to play some fun sports other than futbol, woohoooo!!!!!! And Hermana Warne made us some really good food for lunch, so we went back to our areas afterwards with full bellies and went back to work with a newfound energy to share the new Christmas video.

     Saturday was a day that marked my life, because while we were doing some service for a member out on his ranch that he just bought, I learned how to cartwheel. We were done moving all the stuff out of the house, and were waiting for the member to come back from dumping all the stuff out of his truck, so I took advantage of the free time and can totally cartwheel almost perfectly. 

     Haha, so that was basically our week! This week is going to be awesome, and then we get to Skype with our families on Christmas! I hope everyone has a great week this week!

     Shoutout to my dad, who turns 45 tomorrow! Happy Birthday!

Elder Hamilton

Heres a picture of me and my companion melting away in the sun the other day. We were screaming "alo" outside of some houses and one of them had a mirror to see over the gate, so we took a little photo shoot. 

Heres the table when we made tacos al pastor, and here is a delicious taco al pastor. Enjoy.

                                                      December 7, 2015

I hope everyone had an awesome week this week, because Elder Mendez and I had an another amazing week here in Hospital. It's definitely been a week of miracles. Earlier this week the office elders took our bikes to rancagua for some maintainance, so we've been on foot in a MASSIVE sector. SO the soles of our shoes have been melting a little from all the heat. But every time it was super hot, and we were super tired, walking out in the middle of nowhere, getting toasted, a car pulled over and told us to jump in and drove us to wherever we needed to go. Every time. #miracles.

     The chilean saying for the week this week is "no tienen ni piojos," as it says in the title of this week's email. It means "they don't even have lice." It's said when you're talking about someone SUPER POOR. Like so poor that they don't even have lice. Hahaha, a funny old guy taught it to us this week, and I'll send a great picture I have with him.

     We're all getting super excited for the Christmas season, even though it's like a million degrees all the time! It's still weird to have Christmas in summer, but that's no excuse to not be excited haha. This week we're going to have a big Christmas conference with President Warne and like 5 zones, so it shoule be pretty fun!

     Thanks for the emails, and have a great week!

Elder Hamilton

Here's a picture of Henrique Vidal. He's the stud who taught us this week's chilean saying. He's 76 years old, and he has about 1 million stories to tell us, and knows 99% of the population of Hospital.

                                                   November 30, 2015

It's been a hot week here in Hospital with Elder Mendez. There's a saying here in Chile that goes like this: "Están cayendo los patos asados." Which means that "barbequed ducks are falling"

It really is that hot, hahaha, but we're having a good time talking to all the people here- they're all really nice and give us a big glass of water right away.

     I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving on Thursday! We didn't do anything special, but me and the other American elder here talked about what our families always did for Thanksgiving, so it was almost like having Thanksgiving, hahaha.

     I've been working really hard lately on all the Chilean sayings, and I'm creating a small library of all the sayings that everyone says, so I'm sounding more and more Chilean every day, and less and less white, so I feel like I'm still progressing quite a bit with my Spanish. I'm progressing so much that people ask me if I'm from Ozorno (where there's a German colony) hahaha.

     Elder Mendez and I are looking forward to this next week, and entering December! There's going to be trucks and trucks full of watermelon pretty soon. Right now there are more cherries than we know what to do with!

     And the time is going by so fast. Today is my 16 month mark, and I honestly don't know where all the time has gone. I feel like I just got here a few months ago! I'm seeing a lot of missionaries that I knew at the beginning of my mission go home, and there are a lot of new missionaries that I don't know!

     Well, I hope everyone has a great beginning of December, and if it's cold over there, just remember that its like 36 degrees celcius over here, and that there are barbequed ducks falling!

Elder Hamilton

We were at luch at a member's house the other day, and her kid comes out of the house with a baby duck! So we had a little photo shoot before lunch was served.

                                                 November 23, 2015

Elder Mendez and I had a great week again here in Hospital, and we did a BUNCH of service. I'll send some pictures, but basically word got around that we were good at digging holes, and we dug some good sized holes this week.

     Ealier today we met as a zone in a place called Alto Jahuel, and we climbed a mountain. It was really fun, and the view from the top was spectacular. We saw a little bit of Hospital, Buin, Paine, Linderos, and it was all nice and green since they started irrigating not too long ago. I'll send some pictures of that too. We had fun, got nice and dirty on the way up, and got even dirtier sliding down all the dusty trails on the way down, but we all agreed that it was a great zone activity.

     This week we had a bunch of people - like WAY more than normal - tell us hi from their cars as they drove by- we're basically famous here in Hospital, and we kind of know everyone. It's pretty entertaining, because it doesn't matter who we talk to, we ALWAYS know someone in common.

     I hope everyone has a great week, and thanks for all the emails! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Elder Hamilton

Here's a picture with a little Mapuche lady that we did service for. We dug up some dirt and made some soil for her to plant with. We mixed in some hay and some cow poop, and filled up a bunch of little flower pots and stuff. And this was the cow that made the cow poop for the soil.

Here's a HUGE hole we dug earlier this week. We'er pretty dang good at digging holes.