2 de Junio

These letters this week were HILARIOUS to read. I remember when i first arrived in chile that i could not write very well on the keyboards and it was a disaster. its weird because in my area there is a whole neighborhood full of street names with german composers.  i could not pronounce them too well in the english world, but in spanish world, i am completely lost with pronunciation. 

anyways, that is funny about erika...hahaha

i have not heard about my release date still. if i stay in la serena until the end of my mission, ill probably leave south 24 of august for viña, and will go to the temple on the 26 and then the airport =(. be home by the 27. but i havent heard anything.  

well this week was interesting. with a mix of contacts from hell, shortcuts off cliffs, getting lost in the middle of la serena, and a few other disasters.  it was an adventure! but a great adventure nonetheless.

well to start off, we are still teaching beatriz. we cracked down with the law of chastity and she said she wants to live it. her boyfriend (member) wasnt there when we taught it.  she told us they have plans to get married, but its a little more complicated than that.  if you wanna hear the whole story, wait a few months and i can tell you in person! haha. anyways, shes good. she loves listening to mormon tabernacle choir and watching mormon messages, and they go to just about every activity there is in the church. 

anyways, along with that, my companion and i felt really felt the spirit in each leson that we taught this week. well, almost all the lessons.  we realized that we have a mountain of young women investigators whom we are teaching.  there are about 2 active young women in our ward, and the young men? there are about 12 of them and theyre all spiritual giants.  we went to the president of the young womens house and talked with her.  we encouraged her a little bit and she is excited to leave on visits with us and help our investigators progress, and strengthen that branch of the ward!  it was so excited. the presidents name is maria ines.  she has a great testimony and is very humble!  we are excited to work with her.  

our ward mission leader is awesome. he is busy with his carabinero (police) responsabilities, but nonetheless, we meet with him each week and he does what he can.  his daughter is one of the only yw in the ward, so we want to take her to some appointments as well.  its so exciting!  also to reactive the inactive! 

for the crazy stuff now....well, we had a few rough contacts.  we left two of them with my companion reduced to lots of tears. poor thing.  a few of them just wanted to argue with us and asked a million questions, but wouldnt let us answer. anyways, we pulled out a few good scriptures, but nonetheless, they wouldnt listen. some of the ideas fo these people...=/.  anyways, we bore testimony and we had to walk away from a few of them.  i think i saw that one guy began to quiver a bit. 

next, we were really far, having a family home evening with a menos activa.  we had to go to the coast to teach beatriz so we tried taking a colectivo( like taxis, but they have specific routes), but he pretty much dumped us off in the middle of la serena by the freeway like 10 miles from our house. thank you sir. we could not find any transportation to get us back.  we were out of minutes because it was the end of the month, and it was a saturday when we invite folks to church.  when we were about 9/10 of the way there, our ward mission leader and his wife came and rescued us.  we arrived completely exhausted from all the walking. it was possibly the worst day ever, but our zone leader called us saying "hermanas. dont fret! you guys are working hard." so that encouraged us a little bit. thank you wise zone leader. 

we tried taking a short cut. i sent a picture. there are lots of hills in this part of serena.  we were in a hurry to get back to the house, so we decided to try one of th eshortcuts-there are stairs, and what the heck? little bit of adventure. so we took this little dirt path and we almost made it, until we saw that we had to climb up the dirt path. uhhh oh. well, we climbed up it and eventually made it home in the end...hahaha.

well today, i hope you are all enjoying germany. hows the german speaking going?  do you rmember everything?

today, im going to go eat peruvian food and probably read the end of Jesus the Christ. im almost finished!!!!  i read about the parable of the ten virigins and th talents today in that book. love the parables, in that they are so simple and explain deep doctrine.  

well i dont have much time, but love you all, my hands are cold.

-hermana emily hanks