January 17th, 2011

Hi all,

 

HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY!!!!! (the only reason I know that is from the amazing El Mirador calender I got for Christmas that is hanging on my wall haha)

I just had that song pop in my head and thought I would put it as the subject. But I don´t even know what manic means, oh well... haha:) If it means bad monday, its not because it´s P DAY!!!! Yay! It used to be that we judged the weeks by Sunday, but as a missionary, that doesn´t really work, because you work just as hard on those days as others. But life here is really good, still sweating up a storm everyday, but I just try to think that here in a couple months when I´m freezing to death, I¨ll be thinkin back on these hot days so I might as well enjoy them while I can.

This week has been INCREDIBLE! So we were teaching Maria (our investigator) and we have been having Sisters from the RS come with us so she feels more comfortable and knows more people and on Friday we called like 5 sisters to come with us but they couldn´t. We finally got one to come and it was amazing! The Lord definately knew she needed to come with us. We were teaching about prophets and we got talking about how she believes all these things and knows they are true. The Sister who came with us is super great and said well if you know these things why are you waiting so long to get baptized? And Maria thought about it and said she didn´t know. So we told her that she at least has to go to church 3 times before she can be baptized so the earliest she could do it would be this coming Sunday, the 23rd. We told her that we could get all her lessons in my then and she would be set. She was a little hesitent but decided that she wanted to do it! So we have a baptism on Sunday! WAHOOOO!!!!!!!! We are so super excited. And it´s crazy to think that it was just a contact I did in the street with my broken spanish and my accent that is so strong you can hardly understand me, but the Lord has been preparing her and we are so excited for her! She was nervous to tell her 2 kids (they are like 40 and 42) because they are not religious at all but yesterday when we taught her she said it´s not imortant what they say or if they aren´t going to come to the service, she knows its true and wants to do it. WOW she is so great, it always makes my day to go see her. I have realized how important it is to make people feel comfortable at the church and to welcome them and include them because Maria is alone alot and said that it is so great to feel like she has a family in the church.

 

So that is my exciting news for the week! We are super super excited because they haven´t had a baptizm here in 6 months, but as Hermana Buckner said, "someone had to do it." haha:) We found another girl who is 17 who has shared with the missionaries before, and she is great. (everyone we teach is great, sorry I say that so much) but seriously. She said she knows Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true and all this. She has almost read it entirely (she is in 3 Nephi) and so we put her date of baptizm for the 13th of Feb. But she likes to talk alot so we don´t get through much of the lesson and she didn´t come to church yesterday, so we will see what happens.

 

I had a training in the mission home this week (Phase 2, because it´s my second change) and so Hermana Stevens and her companion came down to stay the night before because they are up in the middle of no where (they have to take a bus for 2 hours to get into Santiago) so they came and we had the New Years party that we never had... haha:) We ate some pizza and had some treats. It was a lot of fun! Then Hermana Stevens and I went together to the mission home and had a good training thing. (the best part is that they gave us a snack and it was banana bread! You never see that here, so it was amazing!)

 

Then on Saturday we decided to go visit the old guy, Enrique, who we had lunch with a couple weeks ago because he hasn´t been to church since we got here. So we went and he insisted we have some fruit so he gave us some cherries (which I am in love with these days, we went to the fair and bought 2 kilos which is like 4 1/2 pounds for 4 dollars, we don´t know if that is expensive but we really wanted some so we have been feasting for the last few days!) when we got done with those he insisted we have some melon (it´s the green melon, I can´t remember what its called, but I didn´t really like it in the states, but here it´s amazaing. It may be a different kind of melon but ya) he gave us each a half a melon and I was dying because we had just barely ate a huge lunch (I´ll tell you about it here in a bit) but we each ate our half melon and then he told me I need some sun screen (everyone tells me I´m sunburned, like I didn´t know... haha) but I told him I have suncreen with me in my backpack but he wanted to give me some anyways so he goes and gets a little bag and starts pulling out little sample packets of everything you can imagine. 

 

 haha:) It was so funny. We have all kinds of shampoo, self tanner, dish soap, laundry soap, lotion, perfume, I don´t even know what else but it was so funny. And then...he looked down at our shoes and said that we needed to shine them (we had just shined them the day before) but he said they were dirty so he brought out all his shoe shinning stuff and shined our shoes for us. We sang him a song and told him we had to go but he insisted we take some food so he gave us 4 peaches, 2 apples, 2 oranges, a whole cantalope and some cookies, and a can of peaches! Our backpacks were so stinkin heavy... haha:) But it was so fun, always an adventure with him. And then he wanted to walk us to the main road so we made is safely. Man it was great and he did come to sacrament meeting yesterday, so that was good.

 

The Sister who came with us to teach Maria, her son gets back from his mission in Argentina tomorrow so the ward it having a family home evening as kinda a welcome home party. I´m excited, it should be fun and Maria is going to come with us (she loves the church activities) so that will be fun, maybe it will get the ward excited about the missionary work too :)

 

Not much else is new here, (its not like I just wrote a book of my week or anything... haha:).  It sounds like things are good at home. Its hard to imagine at times what it´s like when I'm in a completely different world here but I´m trying to enjoy every day because I only get to do this once so I might as well make the best of it.

 

How is all the extended family, the branch, and work, and play? Any new jokes, and thing exciting?

Liz- I hope you found a babysitter, just so you know, if I was there I would totally come and play with Ethers!

 

Dad, thanks for the little note! Its fun to actually know what it´s saying... haha:) I feel like I´m getting a lot better with my spanish. I can understand most people most of the time so that is exciting. The only problem is that when I talk I feel like I´m doing good because the people are smiling and nodding there head, then when I ask them a question they just say, sorry, I can´t really understand you... hahaha:) It makes me laugh but at least they are nice enough to listen to me. But it´s coming along. I think when I get home the Mexicans aren´t going to understand me very well because the spanish here is so wierd, just with the words they use. And everyone says that the Chileans speak horribly so I´m excited to talk with Mexicans or who ever else and see how different it is. But thanks for all your love and support. We better get Mom learning some spanish so she can talk with us :) Maybe when I get home we will have a spanish 101 course :) Tell the High Counsler (sememary teacher) "Hi" for me, I really really liked his class and still remember quite a bit of what he said so he did something right :)

 

It´s totally fine to write me through e-mail. I usually have plenty of time to read them and plus it´s fun to have something to read and hear what is going on. 

 

More pictures:

Once again... Hermana Stevens and I reunited for the last time for a long time (until we are companions :) )

 

My district from the MTC at the mission home, probably the last time we will all be together here in the mission because we don´t have any more trainings.

 

 

This is me today, this morning we found this drink (Kem extreme). They don´t have it in very many places but we found it and had to buy it. It´s basically the closest think here you can find to Mountain Dew. It is delicious. It´s funny, it has a warning on the side that says is has a lot of caffeine so don´t drink it excessively.

 That is my week in a big nut shell. Thank you for everything, keep me updated on your lives and what is going on. It´s always fun to hear from you! Remember I love you tons and tons and I will be back next week with the latest update haha.

 

TE AMO, TE AMO, TE AMO!!!!!!

Steph