There's Spanish and then there's Chilean Spanish....

Hello from Chile! Right now, I am in the middle of downtown santiago.
It´s kind of nice here - lots of old buildings and things. It´s a
holiday here, so we are going to go to a museum. It rained for two
days straight here, so now we can see the mountains. I still can only
understand about half of what people say. Our ward mission leader
Hermano Muñoz told me that there´s spanish, and then there´s chilean
spanish. I just want to understand something. But sometimes it´s
better to not understand. For example, when you knock a door, and the
guy is drunk. I had no idea what he was saying, but I looked and
listened intentively and then we left. No clue what he said. But we
gave him a pass along card. I guess that´s about the best that I can
really do. I know that eventually I´m going to pick up the language,
but it´s hard. I´ve never had a really hard time learning something
before. But this is different. I want it now. But it´s not my time
frame. I miss you all so much, and I can´t believe that I still have
94 weeks to go. It feels like I´ve had a lifetime of experiences
already.

With love from Chile,
Elder Hjelm