May 19th

Dear Family, Friends, and Chileans that speak English,

Besides the fact that nobody showed up for church this week, we worked holes into our shoes this week. I had to replace the soles of my boots in a little sketchy shop. I felt like I was doing a drug deal. It´s all fine because I have walkable boots now.

The random catcall experience of the week is similar to the scene in ¨Mean Girls¨ when she imagines all the people around the fountain as animals by the watering hole. We passed a group of 6 young men...we were sneakily trying to pass them because they just LOOKED like the type ready to share some awkwardness...and about 2 feet passed them, they all start to make monkey noises. I felt like I was in a Zoo. We didn´t look back.

I´ve decided that the life of a missionary is AWKWARD. We talk to so many people a day, it is a miracle if we make it through the day without some embarrassing stories. The other day we were looking for a less active that we have on our list. We´d passed by her house before and left a note. We got let in by another less active woman, the sister of the lady we were looking for. We talked to her for a while, and she told us that her sister goes to church EVERY WEEK. We were all like...¨No....who is your sister?¨ Then it CLICKED...the primary president! hahah. If we were turtles, we would have been hiding in our shells. To defend us, though, her name is spelled differently on the list than it is on our lunch calendar...and we´ve never actually lunched with her because she orders our food from an Hermano that has a restaurant...anyways, we laughed with her about it on Sunday. Good news, the primary president is an active member!

My companion and I have been putting a lot of emphasis in how we practice during our companionship studies. I´m loving Hermana Burnett´s new phrase ¨TAP OUT!¨ anytime she is ready to change. We try to be the people that we see everyday, Catholics who don´t actually believe in the Catholic church but also don´t want to commit to anything else. Its a difficult situation, my friends. If you have suggestions, please send them my way!

NEW DISCOVERY. I am no longer Harry Potter deprived because I realized that one of the Latinas that we live with has at least seen all the movies. She may not know what order they come in, but she has a good memory for the stories.  I discovered this because I was relaying messages in between my companion in one room and the Latinas in the other room. I wanted to say ¨I am not an owl!¨...so I translated it into Spanish so all could understand. Then the Latina said,  ¨Like when Harry is mad at Ron!¨ Lightbulb. Now I am going to have to learn Harry Potter vocabulary in Spanish. Mischief Managed.

We gave a list to our ward secretary of all the people we have been stalking who have moved out of the ward. We put on a few that they died...well, because they died.

The son of the secretary all of the sudden is in the door window of relief society motioning for us to come out and pointing to the list. He is a tall man, 30 years old, and speaks English in phrases that he has learned from movies and TV. He looks us in the eyes, points to a name that has written next to it that the person passed away, and says, very clearly: ¨He DIED? He´s my friend...he´s not dead!¨

Ha. We got a good laugh. Looks like the woman who lives in that house and told us he died doesn´t actually know the man.

My companion and I bought a cheap plant the other day walking back from district class. If you have seen ¨How to lose a guy in 10 days¨, we refer to it  as our ¨love fern¨....as long as it is alive, our companionship is strong. We put it outside the other day because we were afraid it wasn´t getting light. Then it burned and died. The end.

Hermana Burnett and I have been contacting machines this week. It has been a lot of work, but we need to build up our pool of investigators. People are generally pretty nice, as long as it isn´t lunch or second lunch or third lunch hour. The other day, we prayed with a man in his 70´s and he started crying and telling us how wonderful it is that we live our religion. We also met a cute 18 year old girl who is really interested in how she can be ¨In¨ the world but not ¨of¨ the world. A lot of good people to start working with.

I hope everything is good in your neck of the woods! Thank you for the emails, support, and for sharing your missionary experiences! You all make me very happy and it makes it easier to serve and love the people when I know that you are doing the same with your friends and neighbors.

Have a great week!

Love, 

Hermana VanCott