Happy Marzo!

Everyone says this is our last month of being hot and blond here in Chile and that a wet wet winter is coming right after. The mornings and nights are already super cold. We have to walk all day long with a big coat stuffed in our backpack just for the last freezing hour that we have on our walk home. But I started off this month literally falling into a hole. Like really. There are these huge ditches on the sides of the streets for the rain to run through. A family was walking behind us and I walked backwards to the side without looking trying to start a conversation and totally ate it in the hole. I was on the ground and my companion was too just laughing, but we were both laughing :) So from my ankles to my knee I have some pretty sweet looking bruises and deep scratched up my legs. But to go along with that - I have two pretty funky looking spider bites on my arm. But please don´t worried, I am healthy and have seen our nurse.  Ibuprofen and lots of water works for everything :) 

But more importantly......HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!! I did not forget for one second! But I had no idea that March 8th is also the day of women. We got told, "feliz dia" all day long. But I hope my picture will do for this year :)

On Monday we went to Hauscar. It is this war boat from this big war between Chile and Peru. When Chile won they captured this boat. We went, all the girls in my Zone. It was pretty cool to hear about and see all the culture and even read some letters that women received when their husbands had died.  But what I really loved was the mountain of Sea Lions that were there too! They were ginormous. Always fighting and pushing each other off the dock and then throwing their head up in the air for the sun. It reminded me of always playing "King of the Raft" when I would go tubing with my family. Almost exactly alike...you guys are all Sea Lions :)

                                                                                                    As for the work....we are teaching more and we found Genaro. We are actually going back today to teach him. He is this giant old man who stays inside all day long. And when I say Giant imagine the biggest person you know and then imagine twice of that. He is hilarious. We did not mean to find him. We had planed to go see an Elizabeth in house 414 but turns out she had not lived there in years. He let us in and got us laughing in seconds. He saw us from the window. And usually when people see us from the window I get a bit nervous because we usually get just someone shaking their finger "no" but he was so excited to talk to us and get to know us. He shared a lot about his life and how his wife passed away and todo but there was a lot more that he wanted to share but just could not because he felt too much pain talking about it. We are going to do our best to help him come to church this Sunday.

Chauito,

Hermana Lance

Hermano Raul

For those of you who remember back in September we got to see Hermano Raul get baptized. Recently I found out that Raul passed away Friday the 13th in February. My old companion Hermana Garces gave me the news and shared with me about the service they held for him. She did not even have to tell me what happened. Just say she had news and I knew it was about Hermano Raul. She told me it was closed casket and that there was a photo of him out for everyone to see. I cut her off and said he had his blue hat on didn't he? And she told me yes. 

I came to know him so very well. He was very sick and couldn't do very much on his own when I was still in Lirquen. I remember always sitting right by him for lunch helping him cut his food and serving him and walking back and forth with him as support from one room to another. I remember how sad he was  the day he was not able to leave the house anymore and therefore not be able to go to church. He wanted nothing more then to be in church with his family. And I will always remember his happy tears as we would sing to him song after song after song, until he had heard all of his favorites. We made him a giant card one day and gave it to his son in law in church to read to him. Hermano Raul had everyone read him that card who walked in the door for the next full week. I am so thankful to know that he is resting and happy. He is my dear friend.

Bueeeeenooooo.....

We are still pretty dry in the teaching pool (the Elders in our ward igual) but we are planing a great activity for the less active and part member families. It is a special dinner. We invited the parents only and are having someone go to these houses of each family to pick them up for this special dinner (with a flor...que linda) and when they arrive there will be a brief BRIEF explication of the plan of salvation/happiness. There will be steps all along this long hallway and at the end, the goal of this whole life will be to be with our FAMILIES in the presence of God in the celestial kingdom. Which will be this big done up room set up for the dinner in all white. The youth are excited to decorate with a balloon arch entrance and everything! There will be musical numbers and we are putting together a video of all of their loved ones or kids that are active in the church. They are going to give a message to their parents/friends in the video and share why the church is important for not just them but as a family. I am so excited to see it all unfold this Saturday. 

We expect to see 15 guest. About half of which have not been active. I am excited to see the results and pray it fills my agenda with lots of teaching. Oh and Elder Garner and I are in charge of dessert....FRENCH TOAST. We tested it out on our ward mission leader and he about had a heart attack when we told him it was for breakfast! 

Our mini missionary Kata, on the left.

Our mini missionary Kata, on the left.

Blog post!

I do not have any cool ideas for a title and the space bar on this computer is really lame so it is going to be a short one.

Even though we had a lot of future people to work with this week we hardly entered the house of anyone besides the members. We work in the morning and then come in for lunch and at 3:30 till 10:30 we are back out working. Everyday we spent probably 30 minutes not in the street. All of our future investigatores either are not there for our visits or have a reason to not let us pass by.

But no importa! We have a great convert that we have been working with a ton. Her name is Elisabeth and she is schizophrenic. So she will receive us for a week solid and then the next week not want anything to do with our visits or our phone calls for a month straight. So when this happens we drop off notes and talks from general authorities and do our best to be there for her when she is ready. BUT!!!! We put our whole ward on a goal to read the Book of Mormon in 4 months. They started at the beginning of Feb. And she is doing it and doing it way faster then everyone else. She has been so receptive and even though she does not understand it all too well she can not get enough of the way she feels when she reads. She not only wants us over and teaching all the time but she is always so willing to leave with us when we invite her to go and teach others and she shares her testimony. She even gave us a reference of a friend to go teach. She has been progressing so well spiritually and with her health as well.

Oh and the best part! Everyone has been saying I talk with an accent from Brazil a little now thanks to my companion. When I talk on the phone they always finishing by saying oh and tell the gringita hi! 

Meet Norma, just a good friend who always makes us stop for ice cream on our hot days. 

Making Humitas!!! 

Her Last 6 Weeks

Hermana Razeira and I will be together for 6 more weeks. And then she heads back to Brazil. In the mission they call it dying. So we are doing our best to make the best of her last 6 weeks but not only that, another hermana in our house finishes in the next 6 weeks as well. AND another hermana finishes in the next 12 weeks. Talk about a trunky house. But we are going to have so much fun. And talking about houses I have not said anything about my new house. So I started my mission in Lirquen....the second worst house in the mission and I would  have to agree. And now I am in the second best house in the mission. We have a washing machine which is just unheard of and a carpet!! I have not seen carpet since I have gotten here. I am just use to concrete floors. But we are the closest girl house to Concepcion so whenever there are cambios and there are hermanas who are dying (going home) they come and spend the night in our house. Or if someone who is in Concepcion for the doctors and there sector is 4 o 5 hours away, then they will spend the night with us. So tonight we are going to have 10 girls in our house with the hermanas who are going home. It should be pretty fun trying to make us all have a place to sleep with our four beds. 

We found 2 families! We have not had the chance to teach them more than once but we are more than excited about that and their willingness to receive us. We need to find more than anything right now and we are trying to make it as fun as we can. There was a family throwing a football around the other day in the street. I motioned behind the back of one them to throw it over their sons head and I ran and caught it. We had a good conversation with them. They are not very interested but they gave us the reference of their neighbor who has heard from missionaries before. Another family!! 

Chauito! 

Already in February!

Being in Nonguen for one month I have seen the work here change incredible. Going from spending all day out in the street under the sun to running from appointment to appointment and now we are back to walking in the sun. 

Nancy told us she was done with us this week. After spending so much time with her kind spirit and heart and praying for her happiness day and night she told us just days ago she was not going to continue with us. The bishop asked for an interview with her this past Tuesday and she was back on track, wanting to see the baptism font and make the plans. But then the worries of the world got in the way and when we called to confirm an appointment she said she would not be there or the next day or any other day we tried to plan for basically. Obviously something was up and we asked her how she was feeling about continuing and she said she was done. She had already seen the changes in her life that she needed. She stopped using tobacco and her family has never been closer....and while we are so happy for all this for her it hurts a bit knowing she is putting a timeline on her happiness. We learned a lot from Nancy. 

But we still have some of the best days. I am so amazed that my comp thinks in Portuguese and I think in English but we laugh all day long in Spanish. It is pretty cool. 

Oh and I have to explain the picture with Hermana Maria Munoz. She has been in her bed for like 5 crazy months or something like that. We have been working with her and her exercises to get her walking  again after a big accident and knee surgery. She can walk over and sit in a chair now. She had a doctor's appointment the other day and she was feeling pretty down. So she called us up and said she wanted to be rubia (blond) for a bit of confidence. We dyed her hair blond! Ha, ha, she sang us songs and her husband taped the whole thing, giving a tour of their house and giving a shout out to my family at home. Too funny, she says we are like her family. Her oldest daughter took her own life at 18 and her second daughter was kidnapped when she was five. So she spoils us like her own. We love her and love seeing her progress.

Not a ton of exito to report this wee

k but no worries. I know we are just keeping our hearts free to give our all to an awesome family we are going to find this week!

Bad news or good news?

This week was a hard one for the Nancy, our investigator who WAS going to be baptized this Saturday. She hit a bump in the road. A pretty good sized one too. She is going to need some more time. She is not happy with the date of the 31st to be baptized. And she is not ready to talk with us again just yet. But we know she will get their. She got offended with a question from an interview of support from one of our leaders. It is a lot of changes she has been making in such a short period of time. But she has grown so much through it all. I am proud of her for taking this so seriously. When she prays in front of us she always says how we rescued her, how she is so thankful for all the changes that have come into her life from this process she has shared with us. She gives all the credit to everyone but herself. But she has been such a blessing to us. And I know I will only continue to learn more from her.

Johnathan! Well we did not get to see him or talk to him all week long. He went out of town for work and did not have access to his phone. So we went by and posted a note with an invitation to the baptism of a lady in our ward.....and he showed up. And the members are so great with him. After the baptism we past him later that night walking back to the church because some guys had invited him to go play soccer. People are always sitting by him, explaining things to him, and making plans with him during the week. I LOVE IT! He has great friends and an open mind and heart. BUT...he is going to be traveling to Peru in one week....and for one month. Wow that is a long time without being able to meet with him but it is a good time for a lot of reading too. We are going to have to be diligent to keep up with him even though he is heading fair.

It is super hard to be thinking about someone like Nancy for 3 weeks and just waiting for the 31st to roll around and then not see it happen. But I know it is going to be so much more sweeter now when her time comes.

Hermanita Lance

It was just about time.