Feb. 20th, 2012

Lampa is rockin' my socks off right now. It`s the best place ever! It`s kinda in its own little world. It`s about 35 min north of Santiago and has 1 stop light. Everyone is pretty nice and it`s just a branch here, but we usually have about 150 to church (the biggest ward I`ve seen is about 130) but the other branches are super small so they can`t be a ward/stake. But there is a lot of country but there is also a little town. it`s hard to explain. But we have bikes and we only had two so I was packin' around Hermana Bramwell and my butt and legs were dying (that`s what I get for not riding a bike for I don`t know how many years) haha:)  I seriously thought I might die. But on Sat. they sent us another bike so we are so happy that we can cruise along without one person dying.

We take a lot of buses to get to places (members that live in the middle of no where, and for district class) On Tues. when we went to class, the freaking bus driver ripped me off, charged me more than it was and then it went to Santiago instead of Colina (where our class is) so then we had to take another bus back and finally got there. There is a senior couple that lives a couple blocks away from us (los Arellanos) she is from Idaho and he is from Mexico but they have spent most of their lives in North Carolina. They are so stinking awesome, so at least we were lost together. It`s kinda like home here. Lots of hills and dryness. It`s kind of like Inkom (the closest I can think of to describe it). There is only 1 grocery store that is really small. The other day we left our bikes outside without locks and no one stole them :) They also give directions like we do. We were taking the bus to lunch and they told us to get off where the bug palm tree is and then go to the end of the road and take a right. But the problem is that there are lots of palm trees and we passed it by about 2 miles... haha  Everyday is an adventure!

But we have found a lot of great people this week. There is an 11 yr old girl named Paula. She is so cute and loves what she is learning. She went to a baptism that the Elders had (we share the branch) and it was AWESOME and then she accompanied us to our apt. because her dad was drunk at home so she didn`t want to go home (some parents, I just want to strangle them) but we are hoping that she stays excited to get baptized on the 11th of March.

So, that is pretty much it. I`m out of time but I hope things are good there. Have a great week and you better be enjoying my letters because you're only going to be seeing 4 more of these babies. :)

LOVE YOU!!!
Besitos
Steph

This is on the way to district class. Nothing exciting but it was my fist time outside the city in over a year so it was pretty exciting :)

Hermana Escobar, Bramwell, and I this morning trying to not look tired... haha:)

Hermana Bramwell and I feeling like we are doing a reenactment of Dumb and Dummer