Happy Thanksgiving!!

Here in Chile we are just kinda passing over Thanksgiving and are heading into Christmas. I get to spend Christmas with HERMANA GARCES!! She rocks. She is 20 and from American Fork, Utah. It is super fun that we are both gringas because now people can not use the excuse that they can not understand me and turn to my Latina comp. People say it half the time to just bug us but when they turn to my comp now they get the same gringa acento. Whoops! 

With the cambios of comps I am realizing that I know a lot more Spanish than I thought I did and not only that but in the Chilean way. I cut my S's and use the word "po" for no good reason just like them. But I love it! It is not "mas o menos no mas" but "ma o meno no ma".

Hermana Garces and I have already gotten so good at passing the food that we can not finish under the table to each other. I usually get the ice cream which is no problem for me. The hard part of passing food secretly is not the passing but just not laughing or hiding a smile.

Familias Completo!

We got special permission this week to go teach an investigator se llama Francisco. We needed special permission because he lives just steps outside of our sector. His brother goes to our ward and his father in law was Raul! The very first baptism I was blessed to participate in! I have fallen in love with this family. We reactivated one of his other sisters and her family of the 2 twin little boys who we taught how to say their first prayers. I am so excited to see where this week goes! 

Enjoy the Holidays and stay warm :)

Hermana Lance 

Done Training!

I have completed 12 weeks of training here in Chile and am no longer in training! The only difference now is I have an hour less of study time for the language and adjusting to mission life. This also means that my comp Hermana Lino is leaving and headed to a different sector. She is going to be companions with my comp from the Training Center in the Mexico! Way cool!

We got cut time this week to write so just two quick things!

I ate lasagna the size bigger than my head! DE VERDAD! And that was only one 1 fourth of the meal!

Never try to explain the phrase "so and so" to a Latino because it will never work. I also made the mistake trying to say to my comp that a man was using broken English, romper ingles....no it does not work. The correct phrase is actually Trazan Ingles. Pretty funny!

Chau!! I love you all! 

Las Hermanas

Goodbye Hermana Lino

Reactivation!

This past week are investigators are working hard. They are keeping their compromisos and are always smiling when we come to visit. But it is a lot that we are teaching them and for some a lot of changes are being made in their lives. So as for right now we are moving forward very slowly, but still moving forward. Hopefully we will see some baptism dates very soon. 

But reactivation is where this week was at. We have been working with a bunch of less active church members. They are doing great and there has been a huge increase of members at church these past few weeks. But not only the church....but the temple. This past week we were able to see so many of our newly active families go to the temple! The temple is 6ish hours away and a huge sacrifice for the members but the excitement this week from all of them was so amazing to see! 

One family especially has stolen my heart. They have 2 little 7 year old boys. Our last lesson with them was to teach them how to pray. They never had said a pray before and so we broke it down super simple and got them to promise to say a prayer. A few days past and they saw us at a park. They ran over with their hands up and said they have been saying their prayers. They were so excited to tell us and we did our handshake we made. The joy of reactivation is different then baptismal but it is still so sweet. 

These Chileans: So super funny that I have not said yet. Yogurt is in a bag. You buy liters of yogurt in bags and it is the same for Mayo or ketchup or anything along the lines of those. Kinda a pain to store in the fridge once it is opened but just something that is super funny that I do not even think twice about anymore. 

I hope everyone is loving the Holidays! 

"DULCE O TRAVESURA"

Halloween in Chile?? 

Mas o menos. It is a super casual holiday. There is a lot of superstition about it that leads a lot of people to not celebrate it because of the appearance of worshiping or praising evil things. Our Ward had an activity which was so very much fun. We played lots of little games such as fruit basket. And some mixture of balloon basketball/keep up volleyball. There was 1 hula hoop hanging at each end of room. We had to get the balloon in it without it hitting the ground in the progress with 2 teams. I got boo´d a lot for being able to jump above everyone's heads and pass by to score. But at the same time there was a "Gringa" chant from my team. Nothing like breaking a sweat in a sweater and skirt. The members had no mercy with the Hermanas. 

Did we dress up? Sorta, I was Hermana Lino for the night with her clothes and nametag. And she was Hermana Lance with just my nametag. We struggled to find any of my clothes that would not drag on her.

1 de Noviembre -- 'The Day of The Dead'

No one was in their house on the first of November. The day of the dead is the day where everyone goes to cemeteries with flowers and such. It is kinda bigger than Halloween itself. So we had a huge service project with our stake and 2 zones of missionaries. The Elders went to clean out this nasty swamp while the Hermanas and other ward members went to paint over all the graffiti that is on the boardwalk next to the beach and clean up a bunch of trash from the beach. Sounds about right with how the work is always divided between the Elders and Hermanas. They take good care of us :). It was about a good 4 hours and the board walk looked so good afterwards and the Elders smelled ripe! 

Lirquen is so great! I know that I get to stay here for at least another "cambio" (6 weeks).  After that, maybe more, maybe not. But there is nothing more constant than change. Some that is welcomed and other that is not. Some change is subtle while others is unexpected. Either way don´t think about tomorrow just yet because you do not want another empty yesterday. 

Con mucho amor siempre,

H. Lance 

The dog that always finds me on P-day at the beach. 3 P-days in a row now. Se llama Frank.

The Prima Vera?

This past week was HOT super hot for just the spring at least. We are doing pretty well with finding great investigators who are gaining testimonies, reading the scriptures, and praying. But we are having a hard time getting them up in the mornings for church. Even though we are calling them at 9 am to give them time to get reading and knocking at their door at 9:40 to walk to church together with them. Our 5 phone calls with several doorbells and plenty of pounds on their doors are not doing anything to get them up for 10 o clock church. So that is a big goal this week. To help them see and feel the importance of church attendance and the sacrament. One thing that was hard for me to get use to was how even though someone says the activity starts at 8 or so people do not start to show up till 8:30 and those are the people who are in-charge of it all and are setting things up. So a 10 o clock church service on point is a big early change for most people.

Oh and I have not said how people say my name here. The members really want to say it with the correct accent.  But every time they try it sounds like "Hermana Lynn". They just stop after the N. So I have actually been Hermana Lynn for these past months. But I am super use to it now and love the effort. Because they really do believe they are saying it correctly. Even when they ask how I say it and I say Lance they repeat Lynn and say, "like that" :)

Our convert Daniel!! He always gives me something fun to talk about. He knows our town super super well. So whenever we are in the middle of a contact with other people and he sees us he comes to join the talk and asks them when they are going to come to church with us. And even sometimes when he does not know who they are. He is always looking out for us and is loving giving us references to all his friends he wants us to visit. He is a huge testimony of how developing a greater understanding of the atonement increases your desire to share the Gospel of Christ.

Happy Halloween! I hope it is not too cold for you all, I will be sweating in the hills with sweat marks from my shoulder bag on my back. YAY CHILE!

Love always,
Hermana Lance 

BEST CHICKEN FIGHT EVER!

MY FAVORITE DRINK IS BACK!

Another Summer!

Summer is finally hitting us! I caught just the very end of the the winter for Chile thankfully and get to almost have 2 summers in a row. For our prep day we got to go to the next Zone over and enjoy the beauty of TOME! Unlike our area in Penco the beach has more of a sight. Penco is more industrious but still beautiful. We found so many pine cones. So I made a stack of all of them and got a hitting line up going for some fun baseball with a tree branch nearby. And of course our Elder{s found a way to have another BBQ! It was way way good even though we may have forgotten the forks. But we finished with a little hike up to a great view of Chile :) 

The Work:

We had a pretty slow and rough week. Every once in a while we run into people who are not super happy to talk with us about really anything. They see the badge and do not even want to answer the question of, "Como esta". So yeah, a lot of slammed doors with weak and unkind things said. My comp from time to time will get a little flustered with how others treat us. And it does not help that I just laugh about it. But really I can not help it!! Okay, so I have 2 months in Chile now. And I still am about a step behind translating what people say to us. And because of this, by the time I understand what was said/yelled at us it is so stink-in hilarious. Of course I let the people pass before I laugh about it but really it is so hilarious and does not bum us out as much as you would think. My companion, Lino, is starting to get a kick out of it too now.  She watches my face try to restrain a smile while talking to another who is not the bit happy we stopped them to chat.

But! No worries! We run into people all the time who just love what we are doing in their country . They also love asking for a picture of us or to say something in English to them. 

But my point! After a week of being given fake phone numbers and addresses we had a wonderful Sunday!! We went to visit a house in Vipla. We were hoping to find a man who had listened to the missionaries a long time ago. He was not home but his daughter was! She is 18 and literally the kindest, cutest girl in the world with beautiful long curls. She was so receptive. We taught her how to pray and her first pray was so pure. She thanked God for sending Hermana Lino and Lance and thanked Him for all the beautiful things she learned in the lesson. And with almost a laugh of joy she thanked Him that we told her we were going to come back again. She accepted a baptism date and we are more than excited to meet with her whole family on the next visit!!! Ah,so little time to tell you about how incredible she is!

Pablo will have to wait for another week. He has been out of town with a sick family member but we have plans to meet TONIGHT! 

Later! 

H. Lance 

Family and Friends!!! 

I have been so excited to email this Monday because dear convert Daniel! We had lunch with him and his family just the other day. Usually when we come in he is on the computer on LDS.org watching videos from the church or reading some folleto we had given him. So he was on his computer but this time on Facebook. And not just on Facebook, he was friends with my parents! So he was flipping through all of their pictures and events. AND THEN!! He was watching old family video from church talent shows and such. It was killing me! He was just laughing so hard. He is so friendly and just wants to get to know us so well. I already know it is going to be super hard to leave this sector when we have transfers. But he always teases me. After lunch he said he was just going to go talk to my family and nap. He laughed so hard because he knows very well that I have to wait until Monday to write home we just go back to work after lunch :)

Pablo!

Our baptism for this past weekend fell through. Pablo had plans to be baptized this past weekend but he got nailed on the head with a heavy pipe. Not just once, but 3 darn times! Yikes! He has been doing a lot of construction on his house and that is when it happened. So when he had his interview the day after his accident he could only remember about half of what we had taught him. He also was having a hard time remembering friends and a girlfriend...who was not happy at all about that. But things are improving rapidly for him and we should have this baptism this Saturday! 

Remember how I said the people tell you everything you want to know with a simple, "Hola, como esta" yeah? Okay, this was the best reply we have ever gotten.....a colonoscopy!!!!! This man told us he was so bad because he had just had a colonoscopy. Haha, I was dying for the conversation to pass so I could finally double check with my comp that that is what the man said. 

Oh hey! Remember Elder Montoya? The Elder who had the accident in the CCM. He is in Chile! Not only that he is in my new Zone as well! With a very brand new smile as well ;) 

HALO

So hardly any housed have doorbells. And a lot of them have gates that prevent us from knocking on the doors. So when we need to let someone know we have arrived we literally yell Haaaallooooooo outside their door. About 3 or 4 times, however long it takes for them to come out. And the best part! I don´t sound like a Gringa! They have no idea that I am a Gringa from the states trying to teach them about The Gospel of Jesus Christ. So their faces are always fun to watch as they are surprised to see me and my comp from Peru. They always say, "Mire! Una rubia!" (Look, a blondy). But of course it is one great way to start up a conversation by explaining how far away we are from home because of the happiness this Gospel has brought our lives and all we want to do is share :) 

Have another wonderful week! I love being Hermana Lance :)

MY ZONE:

My Zone.

LOS GRINGOS:

The Gringos.