24 de Marzo

Crazy week this week!

First of all, i guessed correctly. i got sick with sore throat and a cold.  luckily i beat the cold! we didnt have to stay in the house. yay!

in chile, lots of folks have high fences surrounding their house, so its common if theres not a doorbell, so shout,"aloh!".  when one has a sore throat, it makes for some good laughs.  hahaha. 

my comp hermana weist is from roseville california.  we have decided that our house is infested with spiders and ants.  i found proof that this guess is true because we have one room that has a pile of junk-artifacts. i have noooo idea where they came from.  but today for pday, we are going to clean the heck out of the house...its nasty.  I had the pleasant suprise of walking into my room after showering to make my bed and there was a HUGE spider in it. yep. hello horror story of my life.  spider busting will be happening today. 

our house is also super old, and it reminds us of number 12 grimmauld place in harry potter. 

The area is a little bit harder to find new investigators.  We are trying to work with the members and have family home evenings with them to help them invite their friends.  this areas a little bit more well off, so thats whats up.  but the members are nice. 

We visited lots of menos activos.  We didnt see the familia alvarez this week-couldnt find them, but left them a note reminding them about church. THEY CAME! and their dad who isnt a member.  also, we visited two other women.  one is angela who hasnt gone in 10 years. she told us she is going to go this week and we told her wed go together. we started walking to her house and saw cute little angela walking towards.  

anther was a lady named guillermina. we talked to her on saturday and she said as we were leaving, "see you tomoroww. im going to church." kapppaaa!!! she came!!!

blessed to see these menos activos starting to return.  its amazing!

we are really going to try and find more new investigators this week and get them to church.  

OH!!!! great news!!! cristobal-our investigator in salamanca-is going to be baptized!!! he passed his interview!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY!!!!! i wont be there for that baptism, but it doesnt matter!!!!!!

well. love you all!

-hermana hanks

17 de Marzo

Happy saint patricks day. yes i am wearing a green sweater. and hello lucky gangs of new york...

i forgot you were all going there. 

well here i am in the ciber.  i got transfered on wednesday. it went super crazy. they told me i was going south, so i returned to viña, saw some old companions. then when president called my name, he looked suprised iwas there. he then said there was a mistake in the call and i was going to train in la serena.  most northern part of the mission.  its super different than salamanca, the weather and sun is like california.  im no longer in the hot sun.  the ward is huge, and i feel like im in the united states here. not only that but they feed lots and always give us ice cream. the members are nice. 

my trainee has one transfer in the field, and we are getting to know the area together.  weve foound some good familes incomplete and weve already recieved references.  i guess ill learn how to work with a big ward now so that will be a change.  

my companions name is hermana weist and shes from california.  its fun to be with a gringa.

the chapel is huge...

we are teaching a less active family who wants to get their 8 year old baptized. we invited them to church on saturday and they came! it was cool. one of the boys has 18 years and we want him to serve a mission.  hes gave a really cool prayer-we talked about the tree of life, and he prayed that they would be able to go to church the next day. stud. 

we then have an investigator named luis.  apparently he was grumpy and always prayed to his mom before, but we got him to pray in the name of Jesus Christ, so that was cool. he believes in lots of science-which of course is interesting, but hes super confused. anyways, he came to church yesterday and said he wants to come back next sunday.  lots of members are willing to help. 

its always cloudy here and its super weird.  

someone told us there was an earthquake 18 hours north. craaazzzyyyy.

its so weird. everyone here talks in english and someone fed us brownies there other day. i felt like i was in my house.

i woke up this morning with a sore throat...ew. i think its because im not use to the cold. 

well yeah! thats it. love you all.

-hermana hanks

pictures-

mostly of la serena, our house,(yes we live in a house!) and my bed...

9 de Marzo

Hola transfer number 9.  Can you believe that??? 3 more transfers after this one. boo!

Que tal.   Life is good here in salamancers.  its a little bit cooler today. THERE ARE CLOUDS in the sky. i could hardly believe it!  still in the end of the night, we come home, sweaty and exhausted, but we have had a few cool nights.  Luckily, the summer has passed and we are moving into fall. 

yesterday, not quite as many came to church, unfortunately, but better than usual still.  the thing is there are so many people to visit in each week. 

I was reading in the book of alma this week. i freaking love alma!  alma 31 when it talks about the great need to help the zoramites be converted-gave me lots of excitement for the work.  i kind of related it to my situation here-how there are millions of inactives-if all were active we could have 2 stakes here.  and how great of the importance it is to bring them to the Lord once more.  A lot of people dont understand well the reason why we do things-why we go to church, read the scriptures, keep the commandments. it all has its doctrine and it all makes sense!  its for our benefit. (for some reason i am having troubles translating my words today.)

hermana martinez and i were working one day, and about 10 people asked us if we felt the temblor-mini earthquakes they have here.  nooooo we did not.  apparently it was super big and went for about a minute. everybody was talking about it. hahaha. we would be in trouble if there is a big earthquake!  we were in church yesterday and i felt the floor shake-as if someone was kicking my chair. crazy temblores. 

our mission is reading hte book of mormon 4 times this year. its pretty sweet! i invite all of you to read the book of mormon-at least 3 times this year.  we have to finish by march and i am in alma 40. shooot. well better get on that! 

we couldnt get ahold of cristobal this week =( so baptism, but next week hopefully!

transfer calls tomorrow. we will see what happens...=(

i have a great love for salamanca....

love you all!

-hermana hanks 

3 de Marzo

Como andan??

I am so old...i am so old....=(

this was the first birthday that i didnt want to come!!! goodbye juventud.  lol. but my birthday went well.  we went to a members house for lunch.  my companion and i this week (procrastination..we are tired in the night. haha.) are going to have a "pijama party" (how hermana martinez says it...lol.) we have lots of mattresses in our apartment...hehehe. and my comp makes good tortillas, soooo that will be freaking epic. 

i DID recieve the fake snow! lol. i thought,"oh mother would put htis in just for me." also, im kind of obsessed with the dolls. my district and i had an activity and ate candy with them. love.

It was a good week this week!  We have been finding lots of people, or rather, a ton of people have been contacting us oddly enough.  we have found families, in the country and in salamanca.  its been a miracle really!

with cristobal, we didnt teach him all week until saturday.  we offered to go to church with him and pick him up, but he said he would go with some other members who are his friends.  anyways, that day we were fasting and i prayed and prayed and prayed that he would come.  we called him that morning to remind him...no answer., when we got to church, we saw the members who were going to go with him and they said they havent heard anything from him.  i thought i would feel super disappointed, but i felt happy.  the chapel was once again filled! 3 sundays it was been filled a lot.  and it was fast and testimony day, so even better!  people shared their testimonies and shared that they were so happy that there were so many people in the chapel. it is truly a miracle.  i decided to go up because transfers are in a week....and its my fourth transfer here in salamancers.  as i was giving my testimony, GUESS WHO WALKED IN?!!!! cristobal!!!! he came on his own!  i felt like flying. hahaha. it was a miracle!!!!  anyways, we taught him the word of wisdom. hes a stud. totally wants to change his life! we are hoping to baptize him next week, but we will see. 

one of our investigators, the one with cancer, passed away this week. i felt for that family...she had 3 little boys whom we really love and they are all under 13 years old.  the family told us it would be good if we could pass by and continue teaching the little boys.  almost ripped my heart out thinkign about it...

we brought hermana alejandra-the investigator to one of our citas. holy flipping COW. she has such an amazing testimony.  it strengthened mine a lot. i love seeing her so excited to share the gospel with other people!

i freaking love salamanca...i cant imagine myself in another place, and yet next week are transfers...we will see. 

ive learned a lot here in salamanca.  i feel like here is where i learned to become a missionary.  i learned a lot about love-maybe im not somebody that says,"i love you" all the time, but i learned that i do love more than i think. i love these members here...i think im starting to understand a little more about the love of the Savior.  

how we witness so many miracles! im so greatful for my Padre Celestial.  he truly does bless me.  

lots of love!

-hermana emily hanks 

23 de Febrero

Hola!! que mas.

Everything here is going just dandy!  its actually really cold outside today...(yeah-weird.) 4 more days until my yearbook. boy do i feel old. 

Yes the youth did have efy! its summer here, and they start school again in a week or two.  they all went to casa blanca, near valparaiso..sort of.  they all loved it and are stoked for missionary work. 

its funny! 

Lots of miracles happened this week. again.! 

To start. this week, we were trying to visit some future investigators in chalinga-outside of salamanca.  we were with two young women from our branch.  we knocked the door of a lady who said we could return the other day, and she was opening the gate, when a boy whom we had passed a minute or two back came back and returned.  He said,"excuse, are you people like religious?  preach the word of God and all?  somebody was talking to me before about this stuff-and gave me a pamphlet...and i have lots of questinos about lots fo things.  i think...i think its all true."  upside number one-we have a new investigator!  we visited him this week and he even went to church!  upside number two-he totally bore a testimony in front of another new investigator!  freaking awesome.  

His name is Cristobal.  we taught him the first part of the plan of salvation-because he has all the qustions, why am i here, where i am going, etc...hes super receptive!  he listens super well and in the end we invited him to be baptized. he said yes, and he went to church on sunday!!! i got to teach the class about our celestial family and i think he still has a billion questions, but he said he is praying and reading so that is good!

speaking of church attendance...another good number in the church yesterday!  some of our less actives have recieved callings which is helping a lot, starting to wear suits to church, and even one of the investigators has a calling!  

i saw a dude in the plaza with a wolfshirt.  i thought he was pretty cool, but then he told me,"good afternoon!" lol. cool dude. 

i asked our branch president if i could be gospel principles teacher because we dont officially have one. he said probably if all is well with the manuels.  i like it so i can practice teaching more. LOVE TEACHING!!

The elders investigator-Carlita, got baptized on saturday! they asked me to sing a song for the baptism, so i sang i know that my redeemer lives, the first two verses in spanish, second two in english.  hermana calderon i could see got really choked up.  it was so cute to see little carlita get baptized-she has 11 years and all her siblings are baptized, but her parents aren't members.  

we are still working in el tambo-the coutnry part of our area-we have lots of area in the country.  we were working there this week and went to go wait for the bus to take us back to salamanca.  we waited half an hour and it never came. we got the feeling it wasnt going to come, but knew it had to be for some reason or another. we started to walk back to salamanca, but who stops to pick us up?  one of our new investigators!  and her family. yay!  

the mission life is good. has its ups and its downs.  but i love it!  i love seeing the progress of things-even if we dont have a ton of baptisms here in salamanca, we have seen some great changes and many miracles.  

right now, we are hoping for the baptism of cristobal march 9 this month!!! right before transfers...

love you all! 

-hermana emily hanks 

17 de Febrero

Happy late valentines day!

I completely forgot until everyone sent me email in regards to it last week. it turns out people celebrate it down here as well.  

we were traveling a lot this week.  we had a zone conference, interchanges with the hermanas from illapel, district conference (as we arent a stake), and we got to travel to the coast!  to los vilos. its like 3 hours north of viña.  heck YES. forgot the coast existed...almost. 

anyways, it was an epic week.  first of all-we got to meet our zone.  we have another gringa in our zone now!  her name is hermana macey who entered the mtc the same day as me.  it was hilarious because i tried speaking english with her and we were laughing because my english is so incredibly awkward!! lol. it was so fun to talk to her.  we have a great zone! im excited.  we felt super excited after the conference.  

we then experienced some more miracles this week. because our area is so dang huge with a ton of less active members, its hard to hit every area and every house every day.  my companion and i had fasted that we would be able to have a little bit of the burden lifted from that-as our branch is so small and stuff.  well it turns out efy works miracles!  in efy, they did an activity with the yw and ym that was about missionary work, and all came back bearing their testimonies of how important members must be in missionary work.  it was so cool!  they all grew so much from efy and we brought different yw to lessons with investigators this week. it was an answer to a prayer for sure. 

HA. ok so as i was saying, we have like an hour in bus rides worth of territory to cover-at least 60 miles is our area.  its all field.  one of the outlying areas is called, "el tambo." we have investigators that live there.  we went after the zone conference.  the buses dont pass after 830 in the night. so what happened? we were in a cita, saying the closing prayer. i hear the bus pass by and chao! we had to walk back to salamanca. it took us almost an hour and a half. but turned out to be fun! pretty scenery, sang some hymns, watched some cows...

strangely enough we had some cold days this week. yeah what??? 

in the district conference, elder corbridge talked and elder quentin l. cook. it was so bomb! (satellite.)  elder corbridge spoke about the law of chastity and families. this is something tat is a HUGE problem in chile. yay elder corbrige. int he conference before it started the broadcast, us and the elders and hermanas from illapel sang josephs smiths first prayer in different vocal parts. 

the bus ride to los vilos, aka the coast, is literlaly the ride of death. but luckliy i didnt get too seasick this time.  

pabla continues to be super happy!  there is a different glow about her and she is so happy she got baptized.  we are too!  i think her baptism helped cheer up some members. 

plus, some menos activoes are reactivating. one even has a calling!  YESSS. 

life is good.  i dont know how much time i have left in salamanca, but i know it will be super hard to leave.  weve seen lots of good changes around here, and we are working hard to baptize more.  

im so happy! i love being a missionary. its hard, humbling, requires a ton of faith, but really its so important. im not going to stop being a missionary.  i was thinking so much how the lord really is accelerating his work--and its true. almost every talk now has to do with missionary work-because we really are in the last days and we need to save as many souls as possible. 

well chaito!

-hermana emily hanks

FETCH. i cant believe i have a year in the mission. how fast it goes!

10 de Febrero

Hola!

Happy valentines day before i forget.  actually, i dont know if they celebrate it here in chile because i totally forgot about it until i read my emails today.  Anyways, this week was good.  Pabla continues to be super happy =D.  It makes me happy. We visit her lots because we are teaching the lessons to her again and all, and she always does one of the prayers.  She always prays that her family will understand her decision to be baptized-because she feels happy!  and she wants them to understand.  

we had a total miracle this week.  my companion and i have been trying to get her a disc of the book of mormon on cd so that she can listen. we realized that it would probably need to have multiple discs, as the book of mormon is 642 pages.  we tried doing it, and i have no idea how, but somehow, all the book of mormon ended up on that disc for pabla!  seriously a miracle. it didnt even copy past 2 nefi. but we checked and every book is on there, every chapter! so she has been listening and absolutely LOVES it! 

we also watched the nefi and the brass plates cartoon with her.  i know that they liked it, but i was trying not to crack up at certain parts of the movie.  for example,"you cheated nefi..." or labans laugh, or "i wish we all just would have stayed home!" or matts voice saying,"im gonna pull your hair nefi!" lol.  inside jokes there...loveeeee the living animated scriptures. 

ok yesterday in church. ANOTHER GREAT DAY! we had 55 people in church. i twas literally a miracle.  we taught a less active sister about the sacrament last week and this week she came!  plus, we have been visiting  a mom and her daughter who were inactive for a time, but now are trying to return and are participating, reading the book of mormon, stopping smoking, and everything!  we are good friends.  (they like bob marley, mountains, sarcastic).  its so cool to see how much our branch is growing.  plus! we have order in our branch!  relief society president, counselor, and the relief society was full yesterday i could hardly believe it!!! such miracles here in salamanca!!

we made banana bread this week. i forgot how good that stuff is. yummmm. we gave some to members and they thought it was delish as well. 

we pulled a prank on the elders this week.  we found an bottle that still had the tag "orange juice" and we found some orange juice int he fridge.  i pulled out an old hanks family reunion tradition and we mixed in some other stuff...hotsauce, salt, vinegar, the usual. then we gave it to the elders.  

  hahahaha. half our later, they call us asking what in the heck happened. we were laughing so hard! what made it funnier was that our branch president tried some as well. he said,"intervfiews with me tomorrow hermanas." that shut us up. but the next day he told us he thought the joke was great and we all laughed it off! hahahahaha.  shennanigans. 

that pretty much sums up this week. 

it was so weird! its getting cold at night. i used this weird article of clothing called a sweatshirt this week.  and it was super foggy and cold this morning.  could hardly believe it. 

we still are in the same apartment....buttttt working on that! all is well. 

love you!

hermana emily hanks