Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Blessings of Technology!

It was a bit of a challenge to teach Maria and Jose about The Book of Mormon knowing that they would not be able to read it. But we still wanted them to have one because it is important. They had been looking at the pictures that are found inside of it and we had been working on a little gift for them. We put the audio of The Book of Mormon on the pin drive and gave them a little music speaker so that they would be able to listen to it instead. We gave them it Thursday night and they finished it on Saturday night. They said they loved it. When we were talking about how they felt and the things they learned they said that they had been praying before to know if it was true but now they are certain!
It has been amazing being able to serve them. The Ward has been a huge help! They go and read with Maria and Jose on the days we can not see them. And they have helped them step by step get over their nervousness about praying in public. And they always go and pick them up in their cars to bring them to activities or church. Maria has a bad foot. She was in a car accident and has iron from her shin down to her toes. So she walks with a limp and it really hurts her to walk for a long distance. This past Sunday familia Cartes was in charge of picking them up for church. It is pretty stink'en cold in the mornings now and their car didnt start up. But Maria and Jose still arrived at the church. Right on time too! She had to use Jose as a support but she said she was not going to let anything prevent her from being there and preparing for her baptism.
Maria will be baptized this weekend...without Jose. Who is still fighting his addiction of alcohol. She is a huge example for Jose and she is always keeping him in line.

There was a lovely house accident this past week. Hermana Heaton forgot about the difference between the american bathrooms and the ones here. And I may have forgotten to remind her how we cannot flush our toilet paper. So a very long story short.....our bathroom, living space, and kitchen got flooded with dirty toilet water....we had to use an afternoon to disinfect everything. Poor Hermana Heaton almost pulled half of her hair out for feeling so bad. It was pretty funny walking around the house in our rain boots but we got it all taken care of. It is funny because here there is a homemade solution for everything. The Latin girls were working on some soda, hot water mix to fix the problem and poor it all down the toilet but it just made for a smoky, hot chocolate looking toilet mix.....and now our house smells like bleach. 


Monday, June 22, 2015

Obediencia!

So I learned a good lesson this past week. Coming to Hualqui was un poco mucho hard. There was some rules that were forgotten and some bad habits already there. It was very hard to be the new missionary and have to speak against the other opinions of missionaries and even members that were enjoying the way things had been going but that were not correct with how the time was being spent by the sisters. So being the new sister and not having the confidence that the other sisters had with the members I found myself in an awkward position often. But as we read in the white hand book we know that our loyalty is to the Lord first, president second, and THEN your companion. Long story short I received one of the best thank yous I have received when the night before Hermana Antileo left, she looked me in the eyes, with tears in hers and thanked me for teaching her how important the principle of obediencia is. 

This past week as well a Brother from our ward thanked me for the same thing. He was with us about 3 weeks ago to go visit a future investigator. We had called the investigator to make sure he was going to be there and to remind him that his wife needed to be there so that we could come in and teach him. But as we got there and entered his house we found his wife no where to be found. He had set up the table and prepared some juice and was already for the visit and when I explained again how we could not be there it really upset him. After he had set up so much and prepared and served the glasses he was so frustrated that we were not going to stay. Having a member looking at you like "maybe just once" was killer. I had no support in the choice that I knew was right. As we finally gave our thanks for the hundredth time we were able to leave. 
We went to visit this ward member this past week. And he thanked me for honoring my name tag. He said that he was ready to make the exception that one time because he once was a missionary too. And it is hard to find people that will let you in the doors and he said he would of justified the situation like that and was willing to do it even against the mission rules. But he told me to never loose that confidence in the principle of obediencia. 

Now I am walking the streets in Hualqui with Hermana Heaton. She is from el Sur in Utah and is 19. She always always says......Oh galllll. But she works so hard. She never gets down on herself only when we feels like she isnt helping me enough which is crazy because she has only had a week here. But she is so willing to learn. Her group of missionaries went through the MTC in Santiago so she knows an okay about of Chile Spanish. Better than most. We always talk in Spanish. Unless I am explaining what happened in a lesson or in a conversation that she did not understand. But it has been a lot of fun. Kind of a long week but we have just another busy one a head of us. 






Monday, June 15, 2015

HUBO CAMBIOS!!!

So Hermana Antileo is headed out to the country and I will be training again. There are only two new Sister missionaries coming this transfer. One is from Brazil and the other from Utah. So you can take your guess on who will be my new companion. I am super excited. It is way different to get the phone call that you are going to train when you are just finishing the training and you find out right then and there who she will be. But now I get to wait for the surprise and find out tomorrow. It will be my birthday and it will be a ton of fun. The trainers always get to eat pizza from Papa Johns so that will be a great birthday treat in itself. I also got a WONDERFUL package from my family full of so many fun goodies and a lot of fruit roll ups. That was the funnest experience sharing them with the Latin girls in the house. Hermana Antileo ate the clear wrapper without noticing it wasnt part of the food and the tongue tats blew their minds. It was a good memory of elementary school box lunches.
 It looks like I will be spending my birthday with a cold. The funnest part about being sick in Chile is all the funny drinks that everyone makes you take when you walk in their house. For the most part they have to do with orange peals and lemon juice and some herbs. You just drink it.
And great news! Richard (a convert in Nonguen). Word is he is going strong. Never missing church and saying his prayers and reading the scriptures. :)
Jose and Maria are doing well. But we found out Jose has a drinking problem. BUT he has not drunk anything since last Wednesday!

Now we are in the time of the Soccer tournament in South America. We have permission to watch the games of Chile with an investigator or less active or convert and our ward got together and put the game on a big projector screen for everyone. Because if you are not watching the game you have to be in the house. It was loud and fun and CHILE WON! 2 - 0! 



Monday, June 8, 2015

Maria y Jose

It is now the last week of training for Hermana Antileo and we have a great week ahead of us. I can not tell you how many times she accidentally calls me mom throughout the day. And I may have almost hit her the other day in the street. I had hiccups that would not go away. Usually I just hiccup once, a big one, and then it goes away but they would not quit. So she tried to scare them out of me. We were waiting for the bus to come and she screamed like those dumb blond girls alone in the forest type and I came so close to hitting her....I still had hiccups.

We had 3 investigatores in the church on Sunday with a baptism date. Dina, Maria, and Jose.
Maria and Jose are a married couple. We found them through one of our less actives that we teach. Her name is Elois. She lost her job and is very lonely with a bad situation in the home so we invite her to come out with us to visit others. Half of our appointments this day and fallen through and we had to come up with a few plan C's and D's. But Hermana Elois asked us if we could go visit her brother Jose.
When we got to the house it turns out we had been trying to get a hold of this couple for a long time now. Always passing by and trying to set up appointments that always fell through. So when we went with Hermana Eloisa we entered and got to know them real well. Maria goes to another church but only because that is what her parents did and they are both questioning God right now because last Monday Jose was mugged. He is a good man and doesn't carry any money with him on the street. His back is hurt pretty badly and needs a lot of time to recover. But they said they needed what they felt when we taught them about the Savior and committed to baptism on the 27th and going to church. So when we called them on Sunday to make sure we were still good for the church they said no. Maria said he was in a lot of pain. So that was that. But about 10 minutes before we were going to leave for church she called us and said that Jose wanted to go anyway. We called a member with a car and got a ride for them both. When we went to their house they had been waiting for us outside in the cold weather. When I asked Jose what changed his mind he said that when he felt the pain in the morning something still told him......WALK.
They were so excited to enter the church. They had the biggest smiles just entering the doors and then taking the sacrament double checking with me the whole time if they were doing okay. I would pass them a few thumbs up here and there :) They may of opposed a few callings that were announced but that is alright for now. 

Our latina companions trying to make Rice Krispys 


Our house visitor


Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Endless Rain!

So you know that feeling you get when you get out of a wave pool after being in it for about 15 minutes and you keep feeling as if you were still in the wave pool.....that is the best way I can explain the rain here now. I most always have an umbrella in my right hand over my right shoulder and even when we enter houses I keep feeling as if my umbrella was resting over my right shoulder.
And my lovely water proof boots have taken there last walk here in Chile. I could not figure out why, in my water proof boots, I would get home with my feet completely soaked!! And that is because there was about 4 holes in them. Two were blocked by rocks but the other two were just wide open. It is also pretty funny because you can tell if you have a weird walk after walking in the same shoes for so long. By the looks of my boot heels I favor my right leg a ton. It has about half the size of the heal my other boot does. Anyway the president gives special permission to big feet gringas like me to go inside the mall to be able to find shoes that fit them well. And I am pretty sure I ended up buying one of the 3 pairs in the whole mall that had my shoe size. Just a girls 10 :)

So my comp got pretty sick this past week and we were stuck inside all afternoon and night one day. And I am pretty sure I called every number that there was in our books of records all the way back from year 2010. Old investigatores, less actives, and just street contacts. My comp slept for about 6 hours. So I put a cake in the oven for her, watched the episodes of The District and called probably half of Hualqui. So we have a great big list of visits we have to make this week.

We are doing our best to find. We are asking for reference from everyone even contacts in the streets. The Ward is helping a lot with our investigator Susana. Her husband is a member and her 12 year old daughter was baptized about 2 months ago. They are doing family home evenings with marriage couples to help them see and feel the blessings of having a marriage based and founded on the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Ward and missionaries are a great team here in Hualqui.


I get a lot of emails of people asking me if I just want to stay here forever and never leave now that I have been here for almost 11 months. And I am going to pull an "Eden" (my older sister) and explain my thoughts with 80 lyrics. Ha ha I hope you just laughed Eden. But anyway. You know that song that goes like....It's my life, it's now or never. I don't want to live forever. I just want to live while I'm alive. Yeah that's a pretty good summary. Being here has been nothing but a huge blessing but I know there is only so much more progress in store. But I can honestly say I enjoy every day to it's fullest.