February 13, 2012

mi querida familia y amigos,

HOLA! i can´t believe a week has passed already. not sure if i mentioned this already, but time is suuuuper weird here on the mission. one day can feel like an eternity of walking all over the place and knocking on doors and entering strangers´ homes and testifying everywhere we go, but then i look back on the week and it feels like just yesterday that i was writing you! so strange.

the first 2 photos are of my first completo here in chile! it looks like a hot-dog with a bunch of junk on it, because that´s pretty much all it is. BUT, it´s so so delicious. the hot-dog is pretty wimpy, but it tastes good, and then they pile on guacamole, ketchup, mayo and tomato slices, all wrapped up in come tasty chilean bread (sort of crunchy on the outside, but softer on the inside) mmmmm. loved it. there´s no going back to regular american hot-dogs. they´re super lame in comparison.

after that is the photo of my companion and i at girls cam this week! it was in the campo (which basically just means out in the middle of no-where with fields and trees and a river-SO pretty and reminds me a lot of rural maine actually) we were invited to camp and got special permission from the mission president to attend for a day and give a devotional on virtue and the importance of modest dress to show respect for the gift of our bodies. we focused on the fact that we (as women) are daughters of god!

we are literally heiresses of a king, and we have been given divine qualities that must be maintained to show our respect, love, and appreciation to our heavenly father. we talked about the importance of caring for our bodies so we can have the holy ghost with us always, and the importance of our obedience to the lord´s commandments that´s he´s established to help protect us and make us happy in this life. overall it went really great, and i think the young women really appreciated that we were there to get to know them better and help them realize their worth and potential as daughters of god. of course, i can´´t forget to mention that we were also there for another amazing asado (bbq)! i´ve attached a pic for you so you can get a glimpse of the process and the mounds of meat that were easily consumed by a bunch of little girls :) it was GREAT.

the last photo is from when my companion and i made crepes in our apartment, because two other hermanas are leaving the mission to go home this week, and we wanted to send them off right. surprisingly, despite the fact that we weren´t following a recipe or anything, the food turned out really well, and i was reminded of all of my arch house girls back in utah because they were the ones i would always have crepes with! it was a lot of fun, and i think the other hermanas really appreciated a special breakfast!

ok now to get down to business. so everyone knows, i just barely got all of the letters (including the dearelders) that were sent at the beginning of january, and i probably wont be able to pick up any more until the next conference in temuco, which happen basically once every six weeks. (you all can email me, i just might not be able to respond right away) so yeah, it might be a while. don´t feel bad if it takes me over a month to respond by mail. major bummer. but i promise i´m trying to catch up, because i really do love hearing from you all and want to be able to write back individually. slow and steady...

but first of all, gail, why haven´t you said hardly anything about your BROKEN ARM!?!?! i just saw that in a letter you sent at the beginning of last month, but you ha´ven´t said anything about it in your emails!! how are you doing? hopefully it´s healing well by now. that´s so crazy. what´s up with the horses lately? getting bucked off is never fun...hopefully it´s not becoming a norm.

now, on to some highlights from the week:
-we were talking with one of our (few) progressing investigators in his home the other day, teaching about the restoration and the importance of going to church when he mentioned casually, "actually, i was baptized in your church about 20 years ago...i just haven´t gone in a while" WHAT? you´re a MEMBER already! ughh. we couldn´t believe it. we were all excited about his progress and that we would be able to help him get baptized, and then we find out that one of his evangelical friends told him that it was wrong to lie to the missionaries, and that he had to fess up, so he did. haha it was crazy. and surprisingly, this happens quite a bit. we´ll contact someone on the street or knock a door and have a conversation about the message of the gospel, and like 5 minutes in they finally say "oh yeah, i´m a member of that church!" it´s so funny, but so sad at the same time. these people have been baptized and made covenants with god, and then they stop going to church and being obedient to his commandments! i don´t completely understand what it is that leads them to fall away, but a lot of our time as missionaries here in chile is helping to remind these members of the things they once felt and the commitments they made, and help bring them back to church.
-we had a lesson with a less-active member this week, who had a child who was completely out of control, and it was almost impossible to focus on reading the scriptures with her. we were trying to read the story from alma 36, but every 1.5 seconds her 2 year old son was terrorizing us in one way or another. he would grab our books, slap us, scream at us, and he even threw rocks at us! it was completely ridiculous! the mom was tired and she just didn´t even know what to do, so this went on for several minutes. my companion and i tried to ignore it as much as we could, but it got to the point where we all just broke down laughing because this little kid was THROWING ROCKS AT THE SISTER MISSIONARIES!!! haha it was crazy. BUT, the best part: his name was jesus, so we kept saying "jesus, that´s not nice!" and "jesus, you shouldn´t do tha¨t" and "jesus, be nice to the missionaries!" oh man. it was a very entertaining lesson. definitely one to remember.
-update on sergio: he came to church again this week! he has a lot of really good questions, but he´s progressing well and we´re really proud of him for the changing he´s making in his life. he´s super sweet and friendly, and is always so patient with my spanish. we´ve got a fecha to baptize him this week, but he´s expressed that he´s still not sure, and we won´t get to see him till wednesday, but we´re still hopeful that he´ll get his answer and be baptized on saturday! i´ll let you know how it goes!

well, that´s all the time i have. thank you for your support. don´t forget that to hope for things is not to just hope for the best and see what happens, but to have faith that the lord will fulfill his promises, and that as we pray, repent, and study and apply the teachings of the scriptures, the lord will bless us with what we need. he´s promised us that as we have hope, we can have peace in this life, and eternal life in the world to come. what a promise! i love this gospel, and i hope that all of you are doing ALL you can to do your part so the lord can bless you.

talk to you next week!
hna wright