week ending 3.28.10

Hey everyone,

Yes! I found a computer that let me upload photos. It's a good thing too, because we went on a hike the other day. It was really fun, but there was one thing that wasn't fun that happened to me. We were going down the hill and there are a lot of cactus and I slipped a little and I got cactus spikes in my butt. Oh man, that was something I could have done without. But all in all, I had a great time.


Okay we got a new Elder this week. His name is Elder Jensen and he's from Sandy, Utah. He came out of the MTC speaking really good, he doesn't have any fear to do anything. But it's a lot harder to train than I thought, even though there are 2 of us doing it. But we are having a great time. I think I hear this from Elder Jensen every 10 mins. "they talk so fast! how do you understand that?" and then he told us that the first couple of days all the sentences sound like one word, but now he is picking out more and more words. He is getting better everyday. It's cool to watch someone grow in the mission and to have a hand in it. I hope I can help him more and more everyday.

week ending 3.21.10

me, Amanda, Fabiola, Elder Davies

Hey everyone,

Okay, something happened this morning that I didn't think would ever happen. Well, I got a call from the mission office and they said that Elder Stark and I were going to be training a new missionary. aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! I was like, "no I can't do that!" But now I am really excited. And why we are getting a new missionary right now is because he was going to go to the Concepcion mission but that mission isn't allowing missionaries to come, so we are getting them. Oh, and I am still a little nervous to train, it's a good thing that I have Elder Stark with me still. Both of us together will train this kid so well. It's going to be so much fun.


Flia, me, Elder Rich

muchas gracias

to Fabiola for the photos in this week's blog. :-)

week ending 3.14.10

Hey everyone,

Well this week was super good. We had a baptism. Yup, David got baptized! Yes! It was a 3 almost 4 month process. We never gave up on him we just kept working and working. At times I was like we need to just let him go and move on. But every time we went and taught him he was doing better and was reading and praying so we didn't drop him and then one day he said he wanted to get baptized and my heart jumped for joy. I didn't know what to think but I was super happy.

And then after a long fight he got baptized and he asked me to do it and I was like I would be honored to do it. Now he is happy and he said something really funny in the bathroom after the baptism, he said, "soy un santo do los santos de los ultimos dias" (I am a saint of those latter day saints.) I was like, "yup, that's right!" He is so great.

week ending 3.7.10

Hey everyone,

I was asked to talk about my life in Chile and what it has been like after the earthquake.

Well, my house is like half of a normal house, it has one bathroom, 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and an upstairs that we don't use. In our back yard we have a lemon tree and a grape vine, they are so yummy. All and all, it's a really good house. For breakfast, I eat cereal and milk everyday. For lunch, we eat with members Tuesday through Sunday, Monday we are on our own. And we don't have time for dinner but I eat snacks when there is time. The sister Jenny in my ward washes our clothes, they have really small washers, and they don't have dryers. (well some do but they cost a lot of money and to use them it's a lot of money) so all the clothes are air dried.
How I get around: well, the first way is by my good 2 feet, they haven't let me down yet. If we need to travel inside of San Felipe or a city close to here they have taxis, colectivo (that's Spanish, I don't know what it means in English), and buses. If we need to get to Santiago we use those buses that are huge, they hold 45 people.
There is the run down of my life right now.

Experiencing the Earthquake

Hey everyone,

Okay this weekend has been crazy here. We really haven't done any work. We were told to stay in our houses all day Saturday, that was super boring. But I will tell you the story of the earthquake.

It was at 3:30 in the morning and I was asleep and I felt my bed shaking so I woke up and I just thought it was another small earthquake because we have had a lot of little ones. I have been in like 2 okay size earthquakes and then this one that was really big. Well, I yelled at my companion and after he woke up it wasn't shaking really bad and then like 10 seconds later it went nuts. I jumped out of my bed to get somewhere and then my companion yelled "let's get outside", I wasn't thinking, I was just freaking out! And on top of that, I couldn't find my keys so I was running around my house during the earthquake. Man, I haven't heard anything so loud in my life. After that we didn't have any light so we found our flashlights. And we still don't have electricity in our house - so we are living off candles and it's pretty fun. It's not that bad. The damage to my city of San Felipe is like nothing, there were some buildings in the center that had damage and that's it, and a lot of people don't have electricity.