Week 18, (Lontue w/ Hmna Rojas)

I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!!!!!!  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!  You are the best family in the whole wide world!  It was perfect, perfect, perfect!!  

SO, it turns out, today is the "official" first day of being part of the Rancagua mission, but as of yet we haven’t done anything or met anyone in Rancagua.  We got an email with a little bit of information (but not with the address of the mission).

On July 9^th, we will have a conference with the new mission president here (and with the other Zone that came from Concepcion) but as of yet, we have no idea when we will be meeting with other missionaries from Rancagua, having a conference, etc. 

BUT more importantly.... I SCORED MY FIRST GOAL TODAY!!!!!!  We play soccer almost every P-day, so it’s about time! I’m getting better little by little! lol but the Elders are patient with us sisters. 

Things have been great this past week!  Nothing too crazy. 

Our “golden” investigator is really tough to find!  She has gall bladder cancer (at least I think its gall bladder, I’m not entirely sure which organ "vesicula" translates to).  She is almost never at home because she has been going to Santiago and Curico more often than every other day for tests and things like that.  She is waiting to have the operation to take out the tumor but she also doesn’t have money to get it done.  In short, I really believe she will get baptized, but it’s really hard to find her at home and even harder for her to attend church. However, we had a cool experience with her last night.  We brought a recent convert with us just to go and check if she was there and to get to know her and share a little lesson.  When we first entered, it was super awkward, but when we got started and shared a scripture and everything, our investigator turned and asked a question to the recent convert, Isabel, and it just took off from there!  It was awesome!  We (Hmna Rojas and I) were sitting there, realizing just HOW much they have in common!  It was kind of nuts!  The great part is that now I think they will be SUPER amigas, the only bad part was that they got along SO well that Hmna Rojas and I literally had to CUT in and interrupt them mid-sentence to finally say, “we NEED to leave now, we are sorry, but we have to get home before "curfew"”.  Hmna Rojas and I are still learning the skill of controlling the lessons, because Chileans really like to talk, and a lot of the time they start out on topics that has to do with what we’re talking about or the question we asked, but then, without breathing, they start rambling on and on about things that have almost no relation at ALL!  It’s a tough line because you have to ask questions to be able to understand the people you are teaching and know their understanding, etc…it is a KEY tool in teaching, but at the same time, sometimes it’s easier not to ask questions because you know they will just take off talking a mile a minute and there goes 10 minutes…and there we are totally off track of the lesson and we have to try to find the nicest way to cut them off and then try to tie things back into the lesson.  Oh, the adventures of missionaries serving in Chile... I LOVE IT!

  

Recently, we started working with Sarita and her family again.  We left them a while back (when I was with Hmna Joglar) because they weren’t progressing (because of the dad of the family). But we felt inspired to start working with them again.  Let me tell you, Ramon (the dad) is as hard as a rock!  OH, is he stubborn!  Sarita has been investigating the church for over a year now, but things are complicated.  We have been trying to just get our foot in the door with Ramon, soften him up a little bit.  We are working with Sarita, teaching her a lot about the power of faith (and learning a lot about the power of faith ourselves).  I think she is scared to believe or hope because she doesn’t want to be let down again, but we have been praying a lot for them and really feel like now is the time.  We are also trying to use Hano (the son) to get to Ramon, and being as creative as we can possibly be.  We will see what happens! 

As far as my birthday present wishes that you asked about…I have no idea what to do, because either way (gift card or small package) I doubt either will make it to me in time. :P  I’m going to try to just shrug it off and accept it…I mean, what’s ONE birthday in the service of the Lord??   Also, I think the Monday before my birthday is transfers. My guess is that on top of not being able to get anything in time, I will most likely be transferred and moved to a new area, with a brand new comp. and where I won’t know anybody yet.  (I’m trying to prepare myself for the worst; with the attitude in mind that the Lord is using these trials to shape me)...we will see what happens!  The only thing I can think of that I would like is maybe some laffy taffy (no banana please) and some work out videos, in our house right now we don’t have anything to play DVDs but by the time it gets to me things could be different…and when I do have a DVD player, I would like to be able to start using them immediately.  I’m thinking some short (ideally, 30 mins) Jillian Michaels or something like that.  (But, if you find good ones that are longer I will just have to wake up earlier to work out).  Other than that, I’m not sure what to do.  I’m trying to be more diligent about eating better, but it’s tough because, really, there is NOTHING healthy here except eggs and light yogurt (and we are always craving something hot because its frigidy, freezing here AND we don’t have a stove or anything.  Oh, and there are also aren’t any kinds of healthy snack here.  The closest thing to a healthy snack you can get (besides fruit) is a kid granola bar that you would have to eat 3 of to be the least bit satisfied…and they are loaded with sugar.  I’m looking, but like I said, its hard!  I’m always open to suggestions from home and always asking other Hermanas what they do.  Any suggestions??? We have a microwave (thank heaven) and this thing that is pretty much like a giant hot plate, oh, and an electric teapot (best invention ever, outside of fleece tights).  The only problem is that we share our electricity with like 3 houses and so when we plug in or try to us these things at the same time, the power shuts off! and we are always using them all at once because we don’t have time to use them one at a time and there are two of us wanting to eat!  The cool thing is that we discovered that even if we don’t have power or light in the bathroom, we DO still have hot water in the shower (WOOT WOOT!) 

AHHHHH, I only have like 5 minutes left, BUT I love you to pieces family!  I miss you like mad!  I hope all is well and WARM at home!  Don’t miss me too much ;)  Have a wonderful sun filled week!  (bask in the sun extra for me! and I’ll make sure to soak in even more rain for you guys ;)  You’re wonderful magical fantastical! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO LOVE YOU!!!