There and Back Again, a Sister Missionary's Tale : April 28, 2013

Hola Familia!

Greetings from Recreo.
This week was pretty dang epic!!! Hm.. so last Monday night, i got to give the fhe lesson for noche de hogar (fhe). It went pretty good! Hermana Sonia, our relief society president who isn´t really interested in learning english told me she could understand me and that I am sounding a lot better than I did. Sooo that is definitely good.

We tried contacting some streets with a lot of menos activos this week. Our ward really has like 400 people and only like 50 are active. From the few we have gotten a hold of, a lot of it is that they are working on Sundays. Time to teach some lessons about faith I'm thinking. We will see!

One of the menos activos was English speaking because he worked for NASA in the United States for a few years. Usually every time we talk to someone, I will ask my comp what they were talking about if I am completely lost. You know you´re in Spanglish limbo when someone is talking to you in English and it is almost as hard as understanding Spanish. He was moving, but wants us to come back this week again. His wife is very sick and we offered to sing her a song, but he said something was wrong for her hearing right now. We invited him to church and he said, you know I will come to church!. I don't know if he meant this week or last week, but he didn't come last week.

On Sunday last week, we were walking to La Capilla and guess what song i heard? Brightly Beams our Father's mercy. It made me think of my favorite boys! Grandpa, dad, Matt, (and Justin of course.)

We were walking down a street this week and i don't know what is going on down there, but it smelled like Chloe's breath. bleh dont miss that! haha. On that note, we did see a guy dumpster diving this week too. literally diving. epic.

After our district meeting, there was a member playing the piano in the chapel. He was really good! He then started playing 'the olive tree' which is seriously the best song ever. I like that sound especially in the words because it reminds me of my purpose as a missionary. I encourage everyone to listen to that song and it's lyrics. Its one definitely one of my favorites! My companion and I also love the armor of God song. Our favorite definitely.

Some crazy shennanigans went down this week too. To visit one of our investigators, we have to walk down into this trench like ditch. Lots of houses are kinda one on top of the other, so you take steps to get to each one. It's crazy. Every time we walk down one of them there´s seriously like a Satan dog down there who I'm pretty sure wants to rip us to shreds and has the look in its eye of 'I want to eat you.' We then discovered two other dogs who are not on leashes. They´re probably the nastiest dogs I've ever seen and try to chase us. I think they bite actually. (my comp kinda scared them off my pretending to throw a rock) I took a picture of them for you to enjoy...haha.

I am nt going to touch another animal here. They're cute, but seriously. Any animal here would probably give you fleas.

We´ve contacted lots this week. We found a really good contact named Eduardo. He's probably in his 20's and at first seemed annoyed by us coming to his house, but then said we can share for 10 minutes. He was really nice and invited us to come back this Thursday. I think he felt the spirit and seemed interested in reading the Book of Mormon! One of the members here is named Pati. I think shes about 22 and she really wants to serve a mission. She tells us she would love to go to the Temple Square Mission. I think it would be so cool for her! She came contacting with us last night. I think she will be a great missionary and I really hope she goes!

We visited two older women from the ward this week as well. One was sick and can't really go to church. She seemed so excited that we were there. It turned out that it was the other one's birthday so she gave us chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is not very common down here so that was a treat.

We had another lesson with our investigator named Juan. It went very well! He said most of it made sense perfectly, and we asked him about how he sees prayers to be. He said he thinks they should be like a conversation with God. I thought that was really cool because not everyone believes speaking with God really is like a conversation.

We invite a lot of people to ask for themselves. In fact, I invite anyone who reads this to ask God if the Book of Mormon is true. The more I study the Savior and about His life, the more real He becomes to me. I feel more sad when people don´t want to even listen to us. I can´t even comprehend how amazing this all really is.

Serving a mission is awesome. I love Chile. I think its super cool when we bear testimony to a person, you can kinda see in their eyes if they feel the spirit. Everyone really has the light of Christ in them and we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father.

Before I close....can i just say....CHILE HAS THE BEST SWEATERS IN THE WORLD. goodness gracious. you better believe i will be filling my suitcases with these gems here. man i am in heaven!

anyways. i love you all! Flea bites are much better. I'm using the oils, avoid animals, and use a bit of bugspray. yay.

PAZ Y BENDICIONES. (ill let you learn your spanish for este dia)

-Hermana Hanks

Soo last p-day i had the amazing discovery that my bed is exactly next to the window that opens up! Likewise, iIopened up that window and enjoyed such freedom. We are on the third floor too. Pretty much i can sit on my bed and stick my feet out over 30 feet above the ground. Chile is so legit.