This week we taught the word of wisdom to Nelly and Jonny and we are now helping Nelly to quit smoking. She’s currently got 4 days free of smoking. In our first lesson with them on Tuesday we taught them the commandment and challenged them to keep it. Then Nelly was all like, uhh no offense but you guys have never had an addiction like this and it’s going to be really hard so I can’t just drop it like that. I’ll try to drop it little by little, but I can’t do it all at once. We went away from that lesson feeling sad and defeated a little bit. I then spoke with a missionary who has helped many people to quit smoking, including themself, and got some really good advice. We returned to Nelly and Jonnys house on Thursday and taught them about how we have to choose in this life who we will follow, (God or Satan) and what we decide affects what happens to us after this life. I then said, trusting on the spirit and trying to show all the confidence cuz I knew what I was saying was true, Nelly do you believe God can do miracles? She said yes. I then continued to explain to her that it’s true that he does and how with him anything is possible. He sent me and Hna. Gourley to help her and he would help her as she prayed and everything so that she can stop smoking. I had to ask her to commit to quit smoking 3 times. The third time she said yes and I knew she meant it. We then were like ok Nelly in that case we have a present for you. We then handed her 2 handfuls of packets of gum as well as a box of vitamin c, and then asked her when she normally smokes marked it down in our agendas and told her that we would be calling her at those times. Now she’s gone 4 days without smoking. I know that anything is possible with the help of god and that he will bless us for making sacrifices and giving our best.
Little by Little
So, the mission is tough, but it’s worth it. There are so many things you have to learn, how to teach, how to create conversation with strangers out of thin air and relate it to something specific (The gospel), how to plan well and make good goals, how to organize activities, how to be selfless (That one’s hard), All the doctrine, a stronger testimony and much much more. Honestly I feel like I fail in many areas and I’m very much lacking as a missionary, but I’ve learned and continue to learn that God is perfect and that Jesus Christ paid the price for my imperfections, and they literally love me unconditionally no matter how many times I mess up (It’s a lot) they just help me keep chugging along and learning from my mistakes.
Locura!
I really wanna write in spanish which is kind of hilarious cuz I still speak English way too much. It’s kind of hard for me to form my sentences right though. My grammar was bad before the mission but it’s even worse now. 🙂
HOLA!
People asked me for more info about chile and such so here’s a little bit about that. In Chile we use pesos and about 700 pesos is the same as a dollar. Every month they put 107,000 pesos in my account so I can buy food and personal things and stuff for the house and whatnot. (It varies for different missions cuz they try to give us what we need so that we can live comfortably but not like ridiculously rich or anything) Our House rent is about 200,000 pesos at the moment, but we’re currently looking for a new place to live cuz our house here in victoria is pretty darn ghetto and it’s covered in mold and such so we’re having a house hunt this week. Taxi’s cost about a dollar and 30 cents to go anywhere in Victoria. The people here are pretty darn nice, but they also disappear pretty much every weekend to the country. I’m not sure what they all do, but anytime somebody isn’t going to be home (Usually on the weekends including Sunday) it’s because they’re going to the country. It sounds like it’s the codeword for a party house or something cuz so many people go there. HAHA! Chileans are sweet and the majority of the members when they feed us give us way too much food, so I’ve actually been trying to gain a little bit of weight so that I can eat all of it. At the moment it’s really hard to eat all of the food. 🙂
Dogs
The dogs in Chile are super crazy. The other day one of them bit my companion luckily it didn’t even get through her tights, but it did startle us so I threatened it with a rock. That’s what we do here if there’s a threatening dog. You pretend to skip a rock towards it usually in a crouched position and that scares them away. It’s kind of funny cuz we’ve also been showering in a bucket. Our shower has a few problems, but it’s run by gas and we have to buy the gas with cash sadly we ran out of cash so we couldn’t buy any for a couple weeks and we’ve been heating up water in the water heater we have for making tea and hot chocolate and stuff and we’ve been putting it in a bucket. It’s kind of nice cuz I now feel slightly more humble and I now understand even better the importance of being smart with money. 🙂
6 Months
Not to be trunky or anything, but on Wednesday I’ll be a 6 month old missionary. I can’t believe how the time has flown. I feel like just yesterday I was getting off the plane and hoping to get a latina trainer (That’s a common wish amongst the gringas.) I feel like I’ve worked hard, but haven’t accomplished nearly enough, it’s a good thing I’ve got another year to work.
Wassup
Nely and Jonny finally came to church together. They say they’re going to finish the house soon and Jonny is working on it with pretty much all of his spare time, so hopefully he’ll be proposing to her soon so we can get the extensive legal marriage process started. Then comes baptism! 🙂
Victoria
So, I realized that I haven’t told you guys much about Tolhuaca, my new home for at least 6 weeks. It’s not actually a city it’s the part of the city Victoria, that’s south of the train tracks. Chile is prettymuch just small hills and flat land. so I’m pretty close to sea level I think. It’s really humid and rainy and cold. Or at least it is sometimes. Then we’ll have a random couple of days that are ridiculously hot, cuz apparently the ozone is thinner or something and the sun is a lot stronger here, and they tell me it’s supposed to get worse as we enter summer. Right now we’re in spring. Victoria is about 5 times bigger than Santa Juana, but my sector Tolhuaca is just about 2 times bigger. It takes about 35-40 minutes to cross it on foot. We have a couple of Elders that we share Tolhuaca with, and our district has 4 companionships, but one of those is the Zone leaders and they normally split up between the two districts in our zone. At the moment we shop mostly at this one store that is called acuenta. It’s like a smaller version of Lider which is Walmart in Chile. It’s cheap and they have prettymuch everything. Then we buy fruit from a fruit store, cuz there’s about fifty here in every city in chile and they’re really cheap. It costs under a dollar for about 2 lbs of bananas or kiwi.
Feriado!
So Holiday in Spanish is Feriado, and yesterday was Feriado for Chile so the Cyber was closed and I couldn’t write. I hope none of you freaked out. 🙂
Harold got baptized! I sadly couldn’t be there, but I’m excited to see him again some day in the celestial kingdom, or more soon if I get lucky.
Tolhuaca!!!
My new sector is FREAKING AWESOME!!! But seriously. I arrived here and the first person I talked to we have an appointment with. We have 2 investigators who are planning on getting married and then baptized and we’re hoping on doing it this cambio, we just have to wait for him to propose. He wants to make it super cute for her, but he’s got a reputation for taking his time so we’re trying to push him to hurry up and do it. Their names are Nely and Jonny. We also have a ton of inactive members here. Tolhuaca is a branch, but we have enough members in our boundaries to have a ward we just need to activate them all. JAJA! Wish us luck. Continue reading “Tolhuaca!!!”