Quick mid-week note (Sat 9/28)

Hey fam!  I'm writing today Sat., Sept. 28, (as directed by the president) to let you know that my p-day this coming week won't be on Monday.  My companion is going to the temple Thursday so for this week, we have to change our p-day to that day.  So, I will write ya'll Thursday!  LOVE YOU TO PIECES! Don't miss me too much ;) have an AWESOME week, you all deserve it!

tons and tons and tons of love, 

Hermana Davis

P.S. my ears are getting better, they hardly itch any more :)))

Week 30 (Buin w/ Hermana Irrazabal)

hey nothing too interesting this week, just a lot of drunk people because of 18 and everything

sorry i wasnt watching the time and its already time to go but i love you all so much! i was going to send pictures but my comp was using my memory card the whole time and i was reading emails etc. things are good though! tomorrow i have a doctors appointment in rancagua for my ears, i think i have an outer ear infection (that would explain my ears always itching) ill let you know how that goes next week. again so sorry for this stinky short email, the good news is that there is always next week! lol Family, i love you so much! you are the greatest in the whole wide world!

be good!

lean las escrituras como familia! les extraño MUCHISIMO!
[read the scriptures as a family!  I miss you SO much!]
so so so sorry!

Week 29 (Buin w/ Hermana Irrazabal)

OK, so time is short but I have so much to send!  It's been a crazy week! ...lots to share! ...including pictures.  The bad news is that they are SUPER slow loading, but I'll see what I can do.

OK, where do I start?

Tuesday my companion had a meeting in Rancagua because she's the Sister coordinator.  I stayed here in the sector with Hermana Garcia. Wednesday is our normal district meeting but this week President Warne came and visited and afterward he gave my companion a Priesthood blessing.  It was an AWESOME blessing!...pretty much we're going to be running around like mad the next 3 weeks (the LAST three weeks of my compi's mission:( )  She is SO awesome!  I hope I can become as great a missionary as she is!  So after she got a blessing, I asked for one too... IN ENGLISH! it was AWESOME!

The Lord (obviously) knows all of our needs, worries, you name it!  Even when WE don't even recognize them.  My blessing was SO SO SO perfect and especially and exactly what I needed to hear from the Lord.  I'll admit, I cried just a LITTLE bit... OK, maybe a lot.

Thursday, DIVISIONES! my companion went over to a near by sector and I got to stay here with another hermana.  Fun stuff!  It went well :) OH! another one of our families that we teach is going to get married!  We had a very heart to heart, "tell them what they need to hear" lesson with them and yesterday they told us that they decided to do it!!!  wooohoooooooo  ..When?  Well, we are still working on that.

Friday, President Warne called to have us come to the mission home (Hna Irrazabal and I) because 5 guys from Salt Lake flew in to do some interviews with some sister missionaries from our mission and to ask us some questions about Elder Archuleta.  We go to the mission home and they wanted to interview us immediately because dusk was about to fall and the lighting outside was perfect for the CAMERAS ...that's right ON CAMERA INTERVIEWS. I almost died! lol  The president asked my compi and I (and 2 other sisters from the mission) to come and talk and be interviewed.  One of the guys who came is the guy who makes all the Mormon Messages, another was the personal film agent guy that went with President Hinkley for all his on film stuff all over the world (including with Larry King), another is the assistant to the President of the Mormon Tabernacle who schedules all the stars and people who come and perform with the Mormon Tab Choir.  I don't remember who the other guys were.  Supposedly they are working on something to put between the sessions of conference and maybe some Mormon messages and some kind of documentary on Elder Archuleta. They asked us questions about the mission, our experiences, our testimonies, and also a couple questions about Elder Archuleta.  They had us sign release forms and everything.  What stinks is that we won't really know if/when they use our stuff... I guess we'll  just have to start watching out for it.  Who knows, maybe my comp and I will randomly show up on the TV or the internet!  It was a CRAZY experience!  I'll definitely never forgot it!  It was so cool being with these people and hearing all their stories from working with people high up in the church, people like Andre Botticelli and everything! After we finished filming we all ate dinner together in the mission home. Definitely an experience I'll NEVER EVER EVER forget!

Saturday, the branch killed our WHOLE day proselyting because we had our Sept. 18 party and it went ALL day and they needed our help, but it was SUPER fun and we 4 hermanas dressed up in traditional "cueca" dresses in the China (or chinita) style (YouTube: la cueca chilena) la cueca is the national dance.  It was so fun!  I took LOADS of pics!

I forget to comment on things sometimes, but G-pa Jim WAS on my mind this week and in my prayers. No se preocupe [So, don't worry] lol  I'm really glad to hear he is recovering well.
I love you mommy, thank you for your email, please do have Zoe tell me EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING about her first dance.

I'm writing you an actual letter (believe it or not).  The only problem is that the mail system here is on strike right now, as is the registro civil lol gotta love CHILE
CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE...VIVA CHILE!!!!

I RAN OUT OF TIME TO SEND  PICS...NEXT WEEK!!!! SORRYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Week 28 (Buin w/Hermana Irrazabal)

HEY!  How's it going?

SO, this week we had our mission conference with Elder Viñas Thursday (they divided the mission in half and had two conferences one for the south part and one for the north).  It turns out Elder Enchilada [David Archuleta] is in the north half of the mission, so I saw him there and shook his hand.  The conference was AMAZING!  I received SO many answers to prayers and questions I'd had for a while. Seriously, it was AWESOME!  The Lord hears our prayers, every single one! ...and He answers them!  I LOVE IT! 

Otra noticia, tengo piojo. [In other news, I got lice].  WOOOOOOOHHHHH!... :P  SO FUN!  Victor and Vivi's kids had them this week and despite my effort to avoid it, they passed it along to me!  To be honest, getting lice was kind of my phobia of being here in Chile, but now I've passed through it and am realizing it's not that huge of a deal.  I really thought that if I got it I would freak out & die or something dramatic like that. I'll admit, it was kind of a downer when I found out, but then I just did what I had to do and started striping my bed, throwing all my clothes into bags and hauled it all down to the first floor to throw in the washer. I am also SUPER grateful we have out own washer because if not, it'd  be a REAL pain. This morning Hna. Garcia ran the lice comb through my hair for me and before coming to use internet we ran by the pharmacy and bought lice killing shampoo. Thank you mom for teaching me (through example) how to deal with situations like this.  I don't know what I'd do with out you and all I've learned from you (whether you knew I was watching or not).  Once again, I'm all out of time to send pictures, but SOMEday soon I will send them. Spring is blooming here and the trees are covered in blossoms it's so beautiful.  The baptism we were going to have fell through, supposedly because they were repairing the baptismal font this weekend, I'll keep you updated. 

I love you so much family!  I LOVE CHILE! The 18th is coming (Chile's Independence day AND TRENT'S B-DAY) I'm super excited because here it's a much bigger deal than Christmas! lol  I think my comp and I are going to buy cueca dresses to wear.  You should look up the dance "la cueca" and their traditional costumes and everything.  It's super cool!  Chile is great...BUT of course, I miss you tons, family!  Be good!  PLEASE take care! Start the school year off strong!  I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!

ALL my love,

Hermana Davis

Week 27 (Buin w/Hermana Irrazabal)

LA SEMANA DEL CHORRO [The week of the burglar]

SOOOOO we had some crazy adventures this week :) :) :)

Sunday. Hna Irrazabal sees some dude out the window who is walking around checking out the neighborhood. She explains to us how she got a really bad feeling when she saw him, that she thinks he was looking around planning to rob. As she explains this, one of the other Hermanas, Hna Jaramillo remembers a dream she had the week before that a thief broke into the house to steal. So at this point, we all start joking about chorros [Argentinian slang for: burglars]. The next night Hna Irrazabal and I arrive at the house first, so we decide to play a prank on the other Hnas. We lock the gate behind us, instead of leaving it open, lock the front door, and don't turn on any lights, so that they think nobody's home yet, and we hide behind the front door to scare them. Long story short, this started a chain of jokes, scares, and pranks all having to do with chorros.
Wednesday, Hna Irrazabal and I are sitting in our lunch appointment chatting with the sister that had made us lunch when the phone rings. Its Hna Garcia and Hna Trujillo. They didn't have a lunch appointment and had gone to the house to make their own lunch. They had finished cooking in the kitchen on the first floor and headed up to their room to eat on the 2nd floor.  They ask us "Did you come in the house?"
Hna Irrazabal: "No."
Hna Trujilllo: "No seriously, you didn't come in the house?"
Hna Irrazabal:  "No! Seriously! ...Why?"
"Hermana... we heard the front door close."
Hna Irrazabal: "Maybe it's the other hermanas, did you call them?"
Hna Trujillo: "no, they had a lunch appointment today. It's not them. Hna, I think someone came in the house. We can hear noises coming from the first floor. What do we do?"
"Where are you right now"
"In our room, we shut and locked ourselves inside!"
"Yeah, are you sure you hear something, it's not just your imagination?  Why dont you go and check it out"
"NO! Hna, seriously! there are noises coming from below"
"Yeah, stay put then, we are going to call the Zone Leaders so they can come and check it out."
We call our Zone Leaders, they don't answer.
We call our District Leaders.  No answer...they're all in their lunch  appointments.
We call the Zone Leaders from the OTHER zone. They answer. We start trying to explain to them what's going on when we see that the Hnas are calling from the house.  So, we hang up on the ZLs to answer the hnas.
Hna Trujillo: "The noises stopped. We're going to go down the stairs to check it out, but we want you to come with us, so we're going to put you on speaker phone. Ready? (whispering very softly) OK, we're going down. listen!...."
.... everything is silent. Then we start hearing them go down one stair at a time. then the noise stops again. We start hearing noises that we can't really identify and the line goes quiet
Hna Irr: "(whispering) Hermanas?... (a little louder)Hermanas... Almost yelling at the phone HERMANAS?"  The line cuts out. We try calling again. The phone is turned off. SO we start freaking out.  The sister we are eating lunch with calls los carabineros (the police here in Chile) then Hna Irrazabal calls the other zone leaders again and tells them roughly the situation and tells them to RUN to the house and find out whats going on.  About 3 mins later the phone rings again.  The hermanas.
They explained that they are OK; that they went down stairs and there was no one there.  They tell us to tell the ZLs not to come but we tell them they are already on their way... along with the carabineros. Hna Trujillo then explains to us that she turned off the phone for fear of it making noise while they went down. She also explains that they know that there was someone in the house because the back door that enters into the kitchen was left open when they had left it shut, and that when they came down the stairs they heard the grocery bag hanging on the door handle make noise, as if someone brushed by.  A little while later the ZLs arrive (very winded) and explain to the Hns that they saw some guy jump over the back fence of one of our nearby neighbors.  A little later the carabineros arrive and some of our neighbors come out of their houses to talk with them as well because they witnessed another guy (team attack) trying to rob their house...but since they caught him, he ditched his backpack full of their things and bailed. LUCKILY for us, that very same day in the morning the other two hnas that were living on the first floor had moved into the house of the senior couple that just went home to the states; so it just so happens the first floor had absolutely nothing. SO nothing was stolen YIPPEE!
Later, the Assistants to the President passed by to drop something off and gave the Hnas a blessing of comfort and blessed the house.
All turned out fine but it was quite the heart racing adventure!

As for the work, everything is still going good!  This week we struggled a bit more with getting the members to actually follow through with their commitment to come to lessons with us (aka they all bailed in the last minute, but that's normal lol). But little by little, our investigators are progressing and even though they fall from time to time, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off and keep trying. Turns out over coming addictions ISN'T so easy. lol.  Who knew??
We have a baptism this weekend AND a member of the 70 is coming to speak to the mission this week! Updates later!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you baby sis! You are so beautiful! I miss you tons and thought about you this week. Be tough! Don't be dumb even though all the kids around you in the High School are. HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU'RE MY BESTEST FRIEND FOREVERRRRRRRRRRR! I MISS YOU!