July 1, 2013

Hey hey hey.  soooooooooooooooo ok.

This week was loco.  So, random moment of the day, I woke up this morning with a strange desire to watch a goofy movie. i told hermana schrader and she agreed that watching that does sound like a wonderful thing to do right now.  hahahaha. ummm. anyways.  back to the missionary life!

So if there has ever been a rollercoaster week in my life, this would probably be on the top 3.  maybe even top 2.  After the broadcast, we were super pumped up as you can imagine, like every other missionary out there.  the broadcast was kinda the best thing ever!  

Tuesday took quite a plummet.  It started okay with teaching Francisco.  We taught him about Ammon and cutting off the arms and being a good servant and all.  I realized at the beginning that yes, I know this story in english very well!  Spanish?  litttttle bit rusty there.  We did the best we could and I think he understood for the most part.

After that, we went to go see Daniel y Gabriela.  Ok about them now...so (they were the 15 and 16 year olds).  They seemed real positive when we saw them and all.  When we came back at lunch earlier when we had set the cita, nobody had answered.  It sounded like somebody was home, but nobody replied.  We decided to stop by later and this time, Gabriela let us in the house.  She invited us to sit down, then went to go get her brother.  He was in the other room, and from the tone of his voice, we could tell something was off.  he said (in spanish) 'tell them 'chao' no más!  I think they were suppose to come here earlier and they didn't.  we aren't suppose to let them in the house when mom's not here.'  

The girl came back in the room and invited us to sit down.  I felt bad because I think she knew we had overheard what was being said.  She sat down with us and then her brother came in the room. He respectfully shook our hands and then told us that they want to talk to their parents first and they would converse and see if it was okay for us to come back.  We understood that and decided to just leave them with the restoration.  As we were handing it to her, the mom walked in.  We stood up to greet her, but she was actually quite furious we were in her house.  She told her daughter she wasn't suppose to let us in and that she has read a lot of our mormon bible and doesn't like it.  she wouldn't really let anybody say anything else, and she asking them where the bible was because they wanted it out of their house and to return it to us.  the little girl said, ' mom just leave it', but she didn't listen.  

As we were getting up to go, I just said, 'i just want to leave you with my testimony that I know this is the truth.' and she said ' we don't want to hear any of your testimonies around here.'  gabriela then walked us to the door and said goodbye to them.

If there was a really horribly sad moment on my mission so far....that one wins.  I wasn't angry, just really sad and speechless after that.  It stirred my emotions for sure, and I could see my companion cried a little bit.  

So yeah...theres a sad story for y'all.  but on a happier note, happy story time.

We have to teach alejandro all of the lessons again and lesson five because he is a new member.  He LOVES to talk and the thing with chileans is you have to be very careful about the questions you ask here because it can go off on a rant for a lot of them.  Oh man.  We went and taught him the plan of salvation and it went awesome!  Oriana was super involved and asked questions when she had them.  alejandro only went off on one rant for about 5 minutes (something about a king buying a lady or something nuts).  We felt good about it though, and it was under an hour and the whole plan of salvation.  We also go to teach him about the priesthood this week.  It was a little stressful because i've never taught that before, but we did it.  

Okay, awesome thing!!!! we saw alejandro practicing passing the sacrament before the noche de hogar for the ward.  He is such a funny old man!  We committed him to live worthily for the priesthood the rest of his life and he said he would.  Then, on sunday, we saw him all dressed up in his suit and tie (unlike jeans) and he got to pass the sacrament.  Oh man it was so cool.  I just think of how far he has come-even since he got married, just less than a month ago.  Its cute because hes a little nervous about a lot of stuff, but just does it anyways.  After we taught him about the priesthood, we were leaving and he warned us, 'be careful.  you are like my daughters'.  it so sweet.  

We visited a menos activo this week who was only baptized 5 years ago.  I don't think the elders who taught her did a very good job because as we were leaving she said, 'cuidese (take care)!  pray to jose smith or whomever you pray to!' . hahahaha. loco. we reminded her that we do NOT pray to jose smith.

We went on intercambios this week.  it helped us a TON.  The sister i was on exchanges with liked to run and i like to run, so we went running.  best thing ever! got to see chile at a dead hour of the day but soooooo pretty and quiet.  i haven't run outside forever.  

So for some funny stuffs now.  If you're a gringa around here, you get attention more than you'd ever like.  from literally everybody.  the ones who creep on missionaries are called 'snakes.'. lol.  so we contacted this guy.  he has a motorcycle and always drives by and waves.  hes a really nice dude for sure and makes bread. hahaha.  soooo last night he stopped by and started talking to us on his motorcycle (super coooo right!? lol.)  my companion was just nicely saying she likes his motorcycle just to be friendly.  before he said goodbye, he said, yeah i'm not free for 3 more weeks, but after that, i'll take you girls for a ride and we will go leave. ummmmm hahahahahaha we kinda just looked at each other and laughed.  don't worry of course we won't. just a funny story!  

hahahahahahaha.

our bishop gave a really good talk yesterday about members getting involved in missionary work.  NEEDS TO HAPPEN.  it was awesome.

yesterday morning, we walked outside on our way to church and down a few stairs in our apartment complex, we saw a smashed bottle of liquor. someone was partying a little too hard saturday night i think! sketchhhhhhy.

okay finally, MILENA IS AWESOME.  our investigator.  we watched the restoration with her and she said, yeah i really feel like this is true! she  came to the ward activity and met a lot of people.  i think she really liked it!  only problem is, she has a boyfriend...conviven. but we are working on it!  she is great!  hopefully we will see her baptism in the near future.  

okay well....dat is all. have a good week.  we are safe!  congrats to josh and arden way to go guys!  they will love the mission life i am sure.  that is awesome!

chao!

hermana emily hanks

1.  ok....so i literally fell for this little pup here.  i dont like touching dogs here....BUT IT WAS SO CUTE.  and another dog was being a bully so i loved on it a little bit.

2.  my boy yin. (actualy shes a girl, but wahtever).  so lazy.

3. we learned that recreo is half and half. half valpo and half viña.  this is the valparaiso part.  SICK MURALS!!

4. yeah FLIPPING LOVE THE COAST.  este es chile mis amigas!

5. of course, mi vista favorita en recreo.

6. otra vez. 

7. En Chile, hay un alimento delicioso se llama semola.  Es como pasta, pero es chicitito round balls.  Semejante crema de wheat, pero es un postre aca con fruta o manjar or carmel. Es rico!  

8. Panadería.  Donde las personas compran pan.  Pastelería es similar, pero más dulces.

9. Feliz día de preparacion.  Este es Viña conmigo.  Me encanta.  Mi ciudad.