There and Back Again, a Sister Missionary's Tale : May 6, 2013

Hola!!

I´m glad you liked los fotos. The dogs here seriously kill me. We had some pretty epic experiences this week!

the weather is a little bipolar day by day. Some days (like today) are super nice and warm and the beach looks ever so nice, but other days its really cold and kinda misty. My coats are both adequate and keep me warm. the gloves with the tips off the fingers are especially handy too. Lets see now...

We woke up once this week and heard the closet pounding like someone was knocking on it. I thought it was the neighbors or something, but my companion said it was a temblor. aka the ground shook. it only lasted about 7 seconds or so, but still awesome.

Our schedule: we wake up at 7, exercise, shower, studies for 4 hours, then we have almuerzo con un miembro. Our almuerzos (lunching) last 1.5 hours because they are the biggest meal of the day. Pretty much, you eat a fairly small breakfast, big lunch, then they have what is called "once" which is their last sit down where they eat el pan (bread). with ecco. around here, they don't feed us overboard most of the time which is nice. its also nice because the desserts here aren't american desserts. we have fruit for dessert, with a little bit of cream or what not. so it is possible to work after a big meal! we had ice cream twice this week, but the ice cream here is kinda like foam. you put it in your mouth and it dissolves within a second. After our almuerzo, we work until we come home at night around 9:30.

Everyone here wears crocs with socks. It is kinda awesome?? we also ate beets one this week. supppper delish. made me think of my friend dwight schrute.

so we got a fecha again this week!!! theres a sweet old lady in our ward named hermana mataluna. she has a women who takes care of her who isnt a member. we went to her house for almuerzo this week and afterwards, we just talked about the restoration. my companion had given her a libro de mormon once before, but other than that hadnt seen too much of her. i got to say the first vision. it was pretty cool and the spirit was definitly there! my companion then asked her if she found these things were true for herself, if she would be baptized. she said she has been reading the libro de mormon im pretty sure, and said she would like to be! so hopefully that goes through! she is awesome. we are meeting with her again tonight and shes bringing her 11 year old daughter. Im excited!

There was one day this week where it literally dumped on us. We were on the other side of town and didnt have umbrellas. Our hair was literally plastered to our heads. it was super epic. my comp had water in her shoes and luckily i was wearing my long trench coat so i was completely dry on the inside. our backpacks were still wet on the inside the next morning and our passalong cards and pamphlets and agendas were sorta trashed after that. nonetheless, it was super fun hiking around these streets in the rain!

we didn't meet with Juan this week because our mamita is in the hospital. she has cancer in her eye and is getting surgery on it i think. we hope all goes well with her. We pay her each transfer to do our laundry and bring it to her once a week.

We met with a couple named Emilio y Nancy. they are both good Christian people and we talked to them about the book of mormon. we meet a lot of people who say they believe that all paths lead to God which can be a barrier for some people. I think that may have been one thing Emilio was struggling with, but we have un other cita with them tonight so we will see. Nancy is a rockstar though!!! She really seems firm in her belief in the family I think, and said she would like to read the Book of mormon. I dont understand everything she said, but it seemed pretty positive.

we tried with Marie angelica y sergio, but they have been hard to find at home lately. hopefully we meet with them soon!

once a week, we have a lesson with an investigator named francisco. He is 14 years old and we also help him study english for his english class afterwards. He has his dads permission for baptism, but not his moms. Our bishop told us that he talked to his mom about why he isnt allowed to be baptized and she said its because she hasnt really seen a change in him. Hes a sweet boy, but definitely immature sometimes. We are trying to work with him and help him want to be a good boy. he has attended church for 2 years.

okay crazy story...so last monday before i wrote yall, this guy stopped us on the street. he recognized us as missionaries and started asking us a lot of stuff that i didn't understand. then we went off into how he was saying he is hindu and hare krishna and all that stuff. he talked for a long time, so we finally just told him we needed to go. we were street contacting a few days later and found a sweet old lady named tina. we made a cita with her and went to visit her a day or two ago. we pressed the telephone from the outside of her pension complex and a man answered. we told him it was the missionaries, and he came outside. SAME GUY. not even kidding you! we then remembered tina telling us that she lives with her 40 year old son who practices hinduism. we went inside because tina was there too, and started with a prayer. about halfway thru, her son came and sat down. We briefly introduced El libro de mormon when my comp asked him to read the first paragraph of the introducting. bam. the second after that he went off into i don't even know what about knowledge and krishna and how he believes in the bible. it was super confusing??? but none the less... i felt bad for tina because we really wanted to teach her and i think she wanted to be taught! he talked a ton and my comp tried clearing things and to get back to the message of the book of mormon. i felt like i should bear my testimonio, so I just told him "i know i don't understand much espanol nor speak it well, but i do know that these things are true" and bore a brief testimony. He was really nice and all, but we werent there to discuss that kind of stuff. We finally said we needed to go, closed with a prayer and left. it was definitely crazy!

we listened to christmas music last week during the cold days because it will be hot during christmas here...:)

one day last week, we were coming out of our apartment and there were a ton of firetrucks in front of our pension complex. someone had cut a power cord we found, and half the city lights were out.

we have continued trying to visit menos activos. we visited one in particular named claudia. her mom is active, and she likes the church and the members. she is a single mom with 3 boys and one is an infant. (p.s. chilean children and infants are soooo cute). we are trying to get her to start coming back at least to one of the meetings. i saw a picture on her wall of her and i think her mom and sister a few years ago at the temple and they all looked so happy! she needs these blessings in her life.

Im amazed at a lot of people here. I realize more and more how blessed i am.

yesterdy we had stake conference at the stake center in viña. okay....stake conference in spanish. definiteltly kinda hard to understand. it was fun though because we got to hear President Kahnlein and his wife speak. They´re awesome! all of the stacca sang now let us rejoice. i love that song and its even cooler hearing it sung on the other side of the world.

en closing...Im reading in the book of mormon each day and wow it is by the far the best book EVER. I love all the stories inside of it. Im reading in Mosiah about the sons of Mosiah and Alma the younger and them being studly missionaries and about how they want to go teach the gospel to the lamanites. its pretty legit to think about teaching among the lamanites 2000 years later. the prophets speak with so much boldness too. the scriptures are so epic! me and hna ortega were talking about how legit of a movie they would make..haha. (sometimes i admit, i compare a character or two to lotr...nerd i know).

i love our ward here. there's so many short little chilean women who are so cute and tiny. hermana sonia (shes kind of our chilean mother) the relief society president, ive found has a very good sense of humor kinda like mine. she always sings to herself and the other day she sang "hey jude" but those were the only words she knew. hahahaha. they are so great.

well, i love you all. peace and blessings. hope all goes well con el matrimonio and you should send more pictures of your lives because they bring me much joy on pday.

-hermana hawnks. (hanks)