ok,so i´ve left myself with very little time to write this, so i totally give you permission to resent me.i have this problem where i want to plan everything i want to say before i write to you all, but that never works out.then i read all my emails, then i write president, then somehow i only have like 10 minutes left to write you back.clearly that´s not a good method, but i promise i´ll do better next week to keep you in the loop.also, the space bar on this computer stinks, and i think i´mto lazy to go back and correct it every time, so you´ll just have to get used to that unfortunately.
here´s some highlights of the week/mission so far:
sergio
-last sunday a 17-yr old boy showed up with one of his friends who was a member because his friend had invited him to hear him speak in church(what a good member-missionary, huh?!)
-when we walked up to the building, we saw the two of them walking and stopped to see who david´s (the member) friend was
-naturally, we jumped on the opportunity to get to know sergio and sat by him in the chapel, because his friend had to sit on the stand so he could give a talk
-we gave him a folleto(pamphlet?) of the plan of salvation, and he read and looked at the pictures during sacrament, and said afterwards that he could feel something different there int he chapel
-we made an appointment to meet with him later in the week, and it went great!
-we made up an analogy on the spot, comparing of the church to rugby(something he´s really passionate about, with something we´re passionate about)
-god is the ref, he has the authority to make the rules and enforce them
-the members are all of the teammates, working together for the same goal, which is eternal life
-on the team, you can find support, unity, love, and comfort in knowing that you´re working together for the same thing, and that they´re always there if you make a mistake
-we all have different roles, but work together to progress and help fortify the team
-you can´t enjoy the experience of being a part of the team unless you join! (get baptized)
-it was a little rough around the edges because we really hadn´tthough about it and didn´t have the details worked out, but he really liked it and would jump in every once ina while and add all kinds of connections, so we could tell that he understood, and at least appreciated that we were trying!
-he has a lot of potential though...he knows there is a god, and he wants to keep the commandments and serve him, but we helped him recognize that he´s not really sure how exactly to do that.
-that´s where the gospel comes in! the gospel of jesus christ helps us to know how to follow his example and utilize the atonement through the holy ghost in order to progress toward eternal life.
-we´re looking forward to a lesson on the restoration later this week, when we´ll set a baptismal date for the end of the month
-he leaves for school at the beginning of march, so there´s a little pressure there, but he´s not leaving here without being baptized and receiving the holy ghost!
-favorite quote of my companion for the week: "i love god! i love miracles!"...you know you´re on a mission when saying things like that casually in the streets is completely normal
-frequently hear "hello! what´s your name? i´m (insert hispanic name).i love you!" in the streets
people lean out of their car windows and just stare at us, the ¨gringas" i´ve never felt so white in my life
yikes! i´ve run out of time.i promise i´ll get better at this though. thanks everyone for writing me and for your prayers.i really can feel that i´m being supported, and that´s such a blessing. don´t forget to do the simple things every day that the lord asks: study your scriptures, pray sincerely and with faith that he will answer, go to church to renew your covenants and be clean every week, and love love love everyone around you.
ciao familia!
hermana wright
Monday, January 30, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
January 16, 2012
¡hola!
i have a million things to tell you and no time to do it, so this email is going to be all over the place...sorry!
first of all, i´m in a kind of sketchy cyber and can´t figure out how to get my photos into the email cause all of the instructions are in spanish and i think it´s telling me to install something, so it´s going to have to wait till next week when i´m in a better internet place. sorry!
today was a super fun pday because my zone had an activity at a nearby volcano! all 10 of us hopped in a van with one of the members and made our way toward the volcano, which we hiked up for about an hour, then hiked back down until we found a really pretty lake and this little hike to a fuenta (the little river thing that led into the lake) it was soooo nice to be outside and be reminded just about every 5 seconds that I´M IN SOUTH AMERICA! it´s so crazy. the drive up to it actually looked a little bit like maine with trees lining both sides of the road, but once we got closer to the volcano, it was clear that i was NOT in the US. the trees are super old and tall and have weird needle slash leaf things. i´ll send you a picture. after the volcano adventure we went back to a different member´s house who lives in "the campo" which is basically just out in the boonies, kind of like a little ranch. it´s super pretty, and is the kind of place a lot of chilenos go to relax on the weekends. which means it´s also the reason a lot of chilenos don´t go to church on sunday! attendance is a huge problem in chile, which is frustrating because church is great and i want them all to go! we´ve invited at least 3 families and some inactive members to come to church with us, and we even walk all the way to their houses to pick them up (which takes about 45 minutes), but they´re always still sleeping or just ignore us when we show up. super sad. but anyway, after the hike we had a huge chilean bbq with chicken and sausage and bread and potatoes and salad...yeah a TON of food. i won´t need to eat again for days. it was so fun!
this week we found out that we´ll be helping out with girls camp! apparently we have permission from our mission president to attend one day of girls camp and help to run one of the devotionals! it´s kind of weird, as in i´ve never really heard of that happening before, but it seems like it´ll be a lot of fun. we won´t be spending the night or anything, but it´ll still be super different to be at girls camp as a missionary, and in a skirt! should be fun.
we have been doing literally hundreds of contacts in the past couple of weeks, which has been super stressful for me because it means walking up to complete strangers and talking to them about the gospel in a language that i´m still not comfortable speaking, but we´ve found 11 investigators so far, and will be setting a bunch of baptismal dates this week! i´m so excited because i know that baptism is the only way for them to be forgiven of their sins, receive the holy ghost, and obtain eternal life with God and their families. i love this gospel. it blesses my life every day, and i can see that it is changing the lives of the people for the better here as well.
ciao!
-hermana wright
i have a million things to tell you and no time to do it, so this email is going to be all over the place...sorry!
first of all, i´m in a kind of sketchy cyber and can´t figure out how to get my photos into the email cause all of the instructions are in spanish and i think it´s telling me to install something, so it´s going to have to wait till next week when i´m in a better internet place. sorry!
today was a super fun pday because my zone had an activity at a nearby volcano! all 10 of us hopped in a van with one of the members and made our way toward the volcano, which we hiked up for about an hour, then hiked back down until we found a really pretty lake and this little hike to a fuenta (the little river thing that led into the lake) it was soooo nice to be outside and be reminded just about every 5 seconds that I´M IN SOUTH AMERICA! it´s so crazy. the drive up to it actually looked a little bit like maine with trees lining both sides of the road, but once we got closer to the volcano, it was clear that i was NOT in the US. the trees are super old and tall and have weird needle slash leaf things. i´ll send you a picture. after the volcano adventure we went back to a different member´s house who lives in "the campo" which is basically just out in the boonies, kind of like a little ranch. it´s super pretty, and is the kind of place a lot of chilenos go to relax on the weekends. which means it´s also the reason a lot of chilenos don´t go to church on sunday! attendance is a huge problem in chile, which is frustrating because church is great and i want them all to go! we´ve invited at least 3 families and some inactive members to come to church with us, and we even walk all the way to their houses to pick them up (which takes about 45 minutes), but they´re always still sleeping or just ignore us when we show up. super sad. but anyway, after the hike we had a huge chilean bbq with chicken and sausage and bread and potatoes and salad...yeah a TON of food. i won´t need to eat again for days. it was so fun!
this week we found out that we´ll be helping out with girls camp! apparently we have permission from our mission president to attend one day of girls camp and help to run one of the devotionals! it´s kind of weird, as in i´ve never really heard of that happening before, but it seems like it´ll be a lot of fun. we won´t be spending the night or anything, but it´ll still be super different to be at girls camp as a missionary, and in a skirt! should be fun.
we have been doing literally hundreds of contacts in the past couple of weeks, which has been super stressful for me because it means walking up to complete strangers and talking to them about the gospel in a language that i´m still not comfortable speaking, but we´ve found 11 investigators so far, and will be setting a bunch of baptismal dates this week! i´m so excited because i know that baptism is the only way for them to be forgiven of their sins, receive the holy ghost, and obtain eternal life with God and their families. i love this gospel. it blesses my life every day, and i can see that it is changing the lives of the people for the better here as well.
ciao!
-hermana wright
Monday, January 9, 2012
January 9, 2012
hola!
so i finally made it to my mission area of victoria, chile! my trainer and i had to take a 3 1/2 hour bus to the south of concepcion to get here, but we made it! speaking of my companion, her name is hna miller, and she´s from provo! she´s seriously SO great. this is her 4th week in the mission field, so she has a good hold of the language, but she´s able to speak english with me when i need it. i´ve been surprised with spanish though because people expect me to not be able to speak at all after having only been here a few days, but luckily i´m able to understand quite a bit in most situations, and can for the most part express what i want to say. i even ordered my own food at lunch today, and the only part i dodn´t get was when she asked me if i wanted mustard, and i had no clue what that meant, so i had to call over my companion...the people here are super nice though and are usually just surprised that this little ¨rubia¨can speak spanish at all, so it was just funny.
my companion and i have been working REALLY hard, and we´re so excited to be here and share the gospel with everyone we meet! literally...because we´re actually opening this sector, meaning that there haven´t been any hermanas here for a couple of months, so we have to find our own new investigators and everything! it´s been a little overwhelming starting from scratch, but luckily i don´t know anything different, so it´s all good to me! we´ve been talking to TONS of people in the streets, and many of them have been receptive and allowed us to make appointments to meet with them in their homes. i´ve seriously already seen so many miracles since arriving, and it´s so clear to me that the lord has his hand in this work, cause there´s no way i could be doing this on my own.
so about the area: the people here are so fun. for the most part they´re warm and friendly, and they always love asking us where we´re from cause we have such weird accents. they´re very affe4ctionate too. you always greet people individually when you first see them, and when you leave. for the women you do the little european kiss on the cheek thing, and shake hands with the men. i´m pretty sure you´d do the kiss thing to men if we weren´t missionaries, cause that´s just normal in the culture here. it so great though because they just value recognizing each person, and i think it´s really sweet. i wouldn´t be surprised if i have a hard time giving up that habit after the mission cause i think it´s so much more friendly than how we do it in the states.
the food. so good! i´ve eaten chicken, rice, vegetables (corn, peas, carrots), mashed potatoes (my FAVORITE!), pasta with some ground beef stuff on top, empanadas, and today i had a chicken sub type thing with sliced avocados on it. there hasn´t been a single thing i´ve eaten here that i didn´t like, so i definitely won´t have to worry about starving! if anything, i have to worry about not eating too much, because there´s seriously a little gas-station type food place on every block where you can buy snacks. i´m going to have to be careful or they´ll have to roll/float me back to the states i´ll be such a gordita.
the scenery is gorgeous too. it´s really green, and so warm right now! i wear a cardigan and no mas and i´m just fine. it starts to sprinkle every once in a while, and it can get pretty windy, but i love it. there are lots of rose bushes and other flowers outside of people´s houses, which is super pretty.
well, that´s all i have time for this week. sorry i can´t write more, but i still have to write president and i only have 10 more minutes. uh oh! i´ll try and make sure to take time to send pics next time too. thanks for sending me so many pictures in your emails! they´re so fun to look at.
love you!
-hermana wright
so i finally made it to my mission area of victoria, chile! my trainer and i had to take a 3 1/2 hour bus to the south of concepcion to get here, but we made it! speaking of my companion, her name is hna miller, and she´s from provo! she´s seriously SO great. this is her 4th week in the mission field, so she has a good hold of the language, but she´s able to speak english with me when i need it. i´ve been surprised with spanish though because people expect me to not be able to speak at all after having only been here a few days, but luckily i´m able to understand quite a bit in most situations, and can for the most part express what i want to say. i even ordered my own food at lunch today, and the only part i dodn´t get was when she asked me if i wanted mustard, and i had no clue what that meant, so i had to call over my companion...the people here are super nice though and are usually just surprised that this little ¨rubia¨can speak spanish at all, so it was just funny.
my companion and i have been working REALLY hard, and we´re so excited to be here and share the gospel with everyone we meet! literally...because we´re actually opening this sector, meaning that there haven´t been any hermanas here for a couple of months, so we have to find our own new investigators and everything! it´s been a little overwhelming starting from scratch, but luckily i don´t know anything different, so it´s all good to me! we´ve been talking to TONS of people in the streets, and many of them have been receptive and allowed us to make appointments to meet with them in their homes. i´ve seriously already seen so many miracles since arriving, and it´s so clear to me that the lord has his hand in this work, cause there´s no way i could be doing this on my own.
so about the area: the people here are so fun. for the most part they´re warm and friendly, and they always love asking us where we´re from cause we have such weird accents. they´re very affe4ctionate too. you always greet people individually when you first see them, and when you leave. for the women you do the little european kiss on the cheek thing, and shake hands with the men. i´m pretty sure you´d do the kiss thing to men if we weren´t missionaries, cause that´s just normal in the culture here. it so great though because they just value recognizing each person, and i think it´s really sweet. i wouldn´t be surprised if i have a hard time giving up that habit after the mission cause i think it´s so much more friendly than how we do it in the states.
the food. so good! i´ve eaten chicken, rice, vegetables (corn, peas, carrots), mashed potatoes (my FAVORITE!), pasta with some ground beef stuff on top, empanadas, and today i had a chicken sub type thing with sliced avocados on it. there hasn´t been a single thing i´ve eaten here that i didn´t like, so i definitely won´t have to worry about starving! if anything, i have to worry about not eating too much, because there´s seriously a little gas-station type food place on every block where you can buy snacks. i´m going to have to be careful or they´ll have to roll/float me back to the states i´ll be such a gordita.
the scenery is gorgeous too. it´s really green, and so warm right now! i wear a cardigan and no mas and i´m just fine. it starts to sprinkle every once in a while, and it can get pretty windy, but i love it. there are lots of rose bushes and other flowers outside of people´s houses, which is super pretty.
well, that´s all i have time for this week. sorry i can´t write more, but i still have to write president and i only have 10 more minutes. uh oh! i´ll try and make sure to take time to send pics next time too. thanks for sending me so many pictures in your emails! they´re so fun to look at.
love you!
-hermana wright
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