Week 50: Last Week in Penco

I AM BEING EMERGENCY TRANSFERRED! NOoooOOoooOOo!!. I was so sad when the assistants called Saturday night to tell me I’m leaving Penco in the middle of the cambios. It’s a sad thing to leave, and I cried quite a bit. I have been quite content here. I have loved my zone, the members, the area and my roommates. I figured I would leave at the end of the cambio, so I was mentally prepared for that. But in the middle of the cambio? No.

My companion here will become companions with Hermana’s Baturite and Corbett, and they will be a trio. I leave Penco tomorrow, and I will be going to Talcahuano. I will be the older  companion for the first time ever in my mission so far. My new companion is from Chile and has only been in the mission for about three months. I’m a little nervous for the added responsibility, but I think I can do it. The hard part is that she is new to the area also. She arrived only two weeks ago, and therefore we will know very little about the area or the members. Tonight I have to pack like crazy and say good-bye to as many members as I can. Tomorrow I will go to my new sector.

Yesterday a ton of less-actives and even two investigators came to church! It was awesome. It felt like God was helping me see that I really have helped the area.  A lot of people are progressing now. :)    

Week 49: Creepy Crawlers

This week it is already becoming better weather. Yay! I love Spring. This week was more successful than the last, and I feel good about our efforts. The only bummer is these past couple weeks my migraines have been getting worse again. :( This week I had 4 in 7 days. It stinks, but I have a patient companion and some meds to help. :)

Three less-actives and an investigator attended church on Sunday. It is ridiculously hard to get some people to come to church. It doesn't matter how many times we explain why it's important. They say they will come, and then don't for some excuse or another. It's always exciting to me when we help people come to church.

We found a huge bug this week. And yes, I did touch it and pick it up. I almost stepped on it actually, but my companion pointed it out just in time. She's a pro at noticing bugs, especially spiders because she hates them. According to one of the less-actives we're visiting, the bug is called "madre de la culebra", and they grow a lot bigger. O.o

 We did a service this week for a member. She bought a mini trimmer, so I cut down her lawn. It made me happy. :) After cutting down the grass there were a ton of lizards and I almost caught a few.

Madre de la culebra

Lawn Mowing - It's in the Blood

P-day Activities

Week 48: It’s Not About Numbers

Overall, it was a pretty good week. We didn’t have much success by the numbers and I can’t figure out why. I feel like we’ve been working harder yet the numbers just seem to be getting worse. We keep changing people to visit, doing our contacts, calling lots of people to accompany us, having appointments, being obedient, trying new ideas, and yet everything seems to fall through lately. It’s very frustrating even though I know the numbers don’t matter as long as we are working. I guess it just means there is something else that God wants us to get better at, and we need to keep working hard and trying to figure it out. We have another cambio together to improve!  

I loved General Conference. It always makes me sad when it ends because it goes by too fast. I especially loved the talks by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. It was fun to hear people speaking in other languages. When the two Spanish general authorities spoke, all of us gringos left the English room (where it was being dubbed into English) to go listen to the original voice in Spanish. It was so funny to see a horde of us entering just for these talks and then leaving again. 

Week 47: SPIDER!

On Friday, we were walking super quickly back to our house for the night, because we were late. We always try to talk with everyone, but it’s hard to speak to anybody when we are late. We almost didn’t talk to one girl (about 22 yrs old), but at the last second I decided to say something her. She almost immediately said she was so glad that we stopped. She told us that she is a member and that she and her family haven’t been to church for about six years. These past three weeks she has wanted to go back to church but hadn’t the courage to do so. We took her phone number and invited her to church and she said she would come. Lots of people tell us this and then don’t come, so by Sunday we had nearly forgotten about it. We were so surprised when she showed up and stayed all three hours. The members went out of their way to sit with her and help her feel comfortable. It was awesome!

On Tuesday I had a mini-transfer with Hermana Corbett, which went very well. It was fun to be with someone who could speak English for the day! :)

This week my companion, a member and I went to a house for an appointment that we had. Whenever we go to a house we always shout "Halo" instead of knocking, because there are always fences. As I went to halo, my face touched the fence and I felt something quickly touch the side of my face. I instantly thought “SPIDER”, but I couldn’t check because a man had come out of the house to tell us that our investigator was not home. I calmly replied, the whole while wondering what had touched my face. When he went back inside I immediately looked at the fence. It was too dark to see well, but I thought I saw legs sticking out of a hole in the fence. Some spiders here live in tunnels and jump out quickly to snatch their prey. I took out a pen and started touching the edge of the hole. Suddenly a HUGE black spider jumped out and attacked my pen! It was the biggest spider I’ve ever seen here. My companion screamed, which made me scream, and the man from the house looked out of his window all surprised. lt was pretty embarrassing and a little disconcerting. I shall not put my face on any more fences.

Week 46: Independence Day

This week Chileans celebrated Chile’s day of independence. The Chileans are very patriotic. All week we heard the Chilean music, saw people dressed in traditional clothing, saw people dancing cueca, and there were TONS of Chilean flags. We got to eat a lot of the traditional food of Chile, like empanadas, pajaritos, sopapillas, and a drink called Mote con Huesillos. It was fun to try all their foods! I like the sopaipillas and the Mote con huesillos the best.

We got to hear and see all the fun of the celebrations of the Chileans. There were giant bulls walking through the street that were used for bull riding competitions. We attended an activity on September 18^th and we wore the traditional dress of Chile. I am in a dress called, "La vestida elegante" or the elegant dress. It’s also called "El vestida de los quicos", or the dress of the rich folk. My companions are wearing the fun, more common dresses, called "La Vestida China" which was the middle class dress historically. I bought some material, and a member kindly offered to make me a dress cheap. I’m excited to see how it turns out.

Since everyone was celebrating all week, we had very little success in finding people to teach. So we spent a lot of time this week just walking and walking and walking some more. My feet have hurt a lot this week. While we walked my companion and I got to talk a lot and get to know each other even better. We get along pretty well, with very little problems. :)

Week 45: National Day of Service

Today we had a super fun zone activity at the beach here in Penco. We played volleyball and cooked and ate hamburgers. The elders hiked into the mountains and cut down some old dead trees. They dragged them two miles back to the beach so we could use them as supports for the net. They proudly displayed the battle wounds they received on their legs from the adventure. As we were playing volleyball, some other elders showed up with the stove from their apartment. They brought it to the beach so we could make hamburgers. Guys crack me up. We had a good time.

Friday was the National Day of Service here in Chile. We got to spend the morning cleaning up the graveyard of Concepcion with a ton of other missionaries and members. I love doing service projects, especially outside. It was interesting to see how different and less well kept the graveyard here is compared to ours in America. My companion told me that in Mexico on The Day of the Dead, many people spend the night praying to their loved ones at their graves. They put flowers and their dead ones favorite foods on the tombs so their spirits can enjoy those things.

This week we saw some good progress in some of our investigators and less active members. We had a lesson with one woman about the resurrection again, and she finally seems to understand it. She even bore a big testimony of how she believes in Christ! We still have a lot to help her with, but that was a big break through.

I learned to always follow through on righteous ideas, because they are often promptings of the Spirit. Many times this week I had felt the urge to call a member who was not at church last Sunday.  At first I forgot because of other things I was worrying about. When I finally remembered, I decided not to call because I reasoned that she had probably just been out of town. When we talked to her at church this Sunday, she told us how difficult this past week and a half had been for her.  I realized that I should have called her like I had felt. I am sure it was the Holy Ghost trying to guide me. Now I know if it’s a good thought, I should just act.

My thought of the week:
2 Nephi 2:25 says, "Adam fell that men might be" - He ate the fruit so that the rest of us could come to earth and receive bodies. "And men are, that they might have joy." - We all exist on the earth so that we can really experience what it means to have joy. We need to experience the difficult times to understand completely and be fully grateful of joy. We have this opportunity on the earth to gain joy for eternity. 

Cook Out

Helping Hands

Week 44: Persuaded by the Spirit

A contact in the street told us that lots of people cross the street to avoid us. They are afraid if they listen they will be convinced that what we teach is true, because we talk so well. It’s funny that a bunch of quite untrained 18-21 year olds, many who can barely speak Spanish, scare people with their verbal abilities. All we do is share a little of what we believe, and invite people to pray and ask God if what we shared is true. It is actually the spirit of God that persuades them. Most people we meet know at least one or two people who joined the Church. I would think that it would make more people consider that maybe there is something to this religion that makes so many happy. 

On Saturday I got to watch the baptism of Javiera, an 11 yr old girl who started coming to church with her grandma. The elders have been teaching her and her family for the past few months. She originally had no belief in God and now she has a very strong testimony. It was great to hear from her mom too, who isn’t a member. She recognized that her daughter, who before was unhappy due to all of the problems in their family, was now a completely different and very happy child. She was super grateful to the church for the help it has given her daughter. It made me so happy. :)

Recently, my companion and I found a less-active member when we were contacting in the street, and she is fantastic! She has been inactive for eight years, but is completely ready to return to church. She has read everything we have given her for “homework” and asked for all of the class manuals from church so she can read those also. She came to the baptism and also to church on Sunday, and stayed the entire three hours. We are going to start having FHE with her and her three kids every week. I’m super excited for her! :D