June 25, 2012

the training continues! on tuesday hna alanis and i took a bus to concepcion (about 5 hours north) so i could meet up with the new hermana in the house of the mission president. we had to leave the station at 6:30 am, but the trip was really cofortable becuase the seats recline, and hna alanis brought a huge blanket, so we at least got to sleep a few hours on the way. when we finally arrived we had to wait a bit for the noobies to arrive, and we had a little training from the assistants, even though i was the only one there who´d never trained before. after that the new missionaries showed up and i got to meet my hija! my "daughter´s" name is hna nelson, and she´s from riverton utah. she´s 23 and graduated from utah state university in communications. she was only in the mtc for 2 1/2 weeks because she already speaks spanish (her dad was a mission president in el salvador) so she´s SUPER fresh as a missionary, but she´s great becuase she already has such a strong desire to work and to use time effectively, plus she can already speak the language! of course, it´s a little rough at first because it´s such a huge adjustment to be thrown into a new country with such little experience as a missionary, but we´re working through the kinks and i´m already looking forward to a better week. training is definitely difficult though becuase your companion depends on you for pretty much everything, whether they want to or not. i´ve never been senior companion before, and i´ve definitely noticed the difference. there´s this sense of responsibility not only for the success of the sector, but now for my new companion: to make sure that she is learning and progressing and enjoying her experiences as a missionary. it´s a LOT of work, but i´m enjoying the challenge so far. it´s definitely an opportunity to forget about yourself and get lost in the work and in serving others.

our most exciting experience of the week: we got lost. terribly, terribly lost. the thing is, one of the elders from the office in concepción sent hna nelson something, and it arrived here in temuco in "chile express" which is basically UPS here. so when we went to go pick it up, we walked in the direction of the address, but it was taking a bit longer than expected...so we stoped in a store to ask someone. the told us that in about 15 minutes, after crossing a bridge or two, we´d find it on the right side of the road...ok. off we went. (in the rain). we walked, and walked, and wiped the rain off our faces, and walked some more. we crossed not one, but two bridges, when we were pretty sure that we´d been led astray. we stopped at a gas station to ask for some help, and luckily they told us we were close, just 5 or 6 minutes more. phew. we trudged on a bit further until we FINALLY found our chile express! it had been AN HOUR since we´d left our house! we knocked on the door and told them we were looking for some mail, and the lady looked all confused. she asked for the address that we were looking for, and when we told her, she couldn´t help but start to laugh in a somewhat sympathetic way. "chicillas, i´m so sorry, but you´re at the chile express in the southern entrance of temuco...you want the northern chile express, which is about 30 min north in micro..." we´d walked not only outside of our sector, but almost to a different zone entirely! more than an hour away! oops. we left the office only a little humiliated, as we made our way in micro to the other end of temuco. apparently when we went looking for the chile express and asked for directions, they assumed that we were trying to go more south, but no. FINALLY we got to where we wanted to go, then had to take another TWO micros back to our sector. it was crazy, but definitely a memorable adventure. i felt SO bad, but we´d asked like THREE people for directions, and they all led us astray! (although unintentionally) needless to say, i managed to welcome my new companion to the country by getting us lost for a couple hours, wandering around chile on foot in the rain, and on about 4 different micros. it was an exciting trip! but at least i found out that i can get myself "unlost" in a foreign country!

time´s up for this week, but i want you to know that i´m happy, healthy, and working hard. i love the lord and am so grateful that he trusts me to help bring this gospel to his children here in chile. it isn´t easy-i always come home completely exhausted-but i can see changes in myself and know that my life after the mission will most definitely not be the same because of what i´m learning here. i hope that you, my family and great friends, are working hard as well to progress little by little every day towards your goals, and that you are conciously involving the lord in all you do. 

con amor,

hna wright