May 26, 2014

Hola Family and friendsies,

Well...waaaahts knew? I don´t know. I just got done saying goodbye to Hermana Tibbitts, my first trainer, companion, and dear friend. May she rest in peace at home in Riverton.

This week has been fantastic! I am losing my brain, and my poor companion has had to watch my every move because I tend to set things in weird places and then we can´t find them. I´ve left the keys in the door twice this week. Epic fail.

I blame my lack of brain cells on the fact that we had freezing cold showers half the week and we are in winter. That situation gave me the sniffles. Not to worry, we called handy mani (like the Spanish TV kids show, get it?) and he came right over to ¨fix it¨. Now we have a fun system where we can only turn on the hot water from the outside of the house and it stays running until we turn it off. Oh, and the shower runs ANYTIME we have to turn on the hot water. The dishes situation is freaking out me and my companion because we don´t feel like things are getting sterilized with cold water. I´ll just catch some weird Chilean bug that makes me lose 100 pounds and I´ll come home without the empanada chub....psh, in a dream world.

Apart from that, this week has really helped me know that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers. Just this morning I was thinking about a less active woman in my old ward who started coming back to church while I was there. Marta is her name, I think I sent a picture one time of me with her? A cute grandma. I said a little prayer that I could run into her today on Pday, kind of absurd but I just really wanted to be able to say HOLA and tell her I love her. We went to a store that is in between my current area and my old area and there she was, in the check out line! I told my companion, ¨Hang on, I need to say Hi to this woman!¨ and I got to talk to her for a few minutes. It was such a little random thing, but for some reason Heavenly Father knew I needed to talk to her.

We also found a great family of 4 this week. The dad was a reference from an area close to the temple. We were able to share the first lesson and talk about baptism. They weren´t able to make it to church on Sunday (because, lets be honest, it was cold and even half the ward couldn´t make it to church), but we still have faith!

The other day my companion and I were standing outside of a house of some less active members yelling ¨ALO!¨ for like 5 minutes. It was dark, freezing cold, foggy, and we hadn´t had any success that night. . So, there we were, yelling. Our yells started to fade and we looked at each other and both had this recognition of how tired the other one looked. Then, we yelled again. This time, instead of saying ¨alo¨ we both just whispered ¨Jack!¨. Like in the epic ending of Titanic where they are floating on a door and she starts saying his name and whistling. Then we burst up laughing. The end.

Hermana Burnett is really fun because even when NOTHING goes our way, we are able to keep our spirits up. She is always positive and looking for the good in everyone and everything. Unlike me who thinks Chile should fall into the ocean any day now...just kidding, that is a little extreme.... but we really do have a blast together. I´m hoping that we don´t have changes this next week...but we´ve been together for 3 changes, so we´ll see.

NEW DISCOVERY. Super glue is my new best friend. It heals boots, scriptures, doorknobs, and the terrible barking situation we have with the stray dogs. Just kidding about the last one.

My favorite line that everyone starts to say about 6 o´clock...

¨Girls! Why are you out in the cold! Go home and put on a heater!¨ then they shut the door in our freezing cold foreigner faces.

We´re all like, ¨Can´t....must....keep...trying...to....get in....to.... a....house....¨ . The other day I asked a lady if I could use her bathroom. We even know this lady. She told me NO. grr. Charity. Charity. Charity.

On the plus side, it looks as though we will be having a conference with Elder Lynn G. Robins of the Presidency of the 70 the 11th of June. It´s with Eva´s mission, so I wonder if they will let the CCM participate?... It is going to be at the chapel on the CCM campus, so I will just keep my fingers crossed! We´ve had quite the luck getting to see general authorities in this mission!

Well, I love you all. Keep going strong. I am excited to receive more emails once school is completely out from my little siblings...cough cough.

Thanks for being such great examples and for your love and encouragement and prayers!


Love,
Hermana VanCott