Monday, June 8, 2009

Silly Amy

June 8, 2009

Familia,

I got letters this week! Two from my wonderful family (mailed on May 20, I received them June 2 just so you know the time), one from Talisa, one from Tristan, and two from Shannon! Love you all. Thanks. I can´t believe Kris won American Idol and that the Cavaliers aren´t in the NBA finals. Who won the finals, is it over? I glanced at Andy Roddick´s match last week against Monfils while we were eating in the centro on pday. Sad day that Nadal lost. With the end of American Idol I am done asking about t.v. except for I want to know who won Biggest Loser.

Ok, on to more important things like....A Baptism! So Jose Zuniga was supposed to be baptized this coming Sunday, but his date got moved up to yesterday. It was again a beautiful experience to see someone baptized. He is a really good man and so grateful to have found the church.

This week Jesus will be baptized, Carmen the next week, and Claudio the next. The goal in our mission is one baptism every week and we have been pretty close to that goal. Carmen is the mom of Hermana Ceron and has had many baptismal dates in the past. The thing that is holding her up is her son is an Evangelist pastor and she wants to speak with him before she is baptized. He doesn´t live close and for some reason she can´t call him. I am not sure what will happen, things have been really up and down with her for the last few weeks. Right now her health is not good and she hasn´t been very happy. I think part of it is the stress that everyone is putting on her to be baptized and not be baptized. I pray that things improve for her and that she does decide to be baptized, because I think she will receive blessings from it. Claudio is the boyfriend of an Hermana in our ward and they are getting married next Saturday. He has been a super fantastic investigator and takes notes during every lesson. He is going to be baptized the week after transfers, so we will see if I am still here.

Transfers are on the 21. I think that I will be staying and Hermana Cuevas will be leaving. Hermana Cuevas has only spent two transfers with one of her companions. I love this ward and hope I get to spend more time here. Spanish is good right now. I still can´t understand A LOT, but I think I am used to that now and I just try hard to pick out words from the constant flow. I can understand when I repeat what people say in my mind, but people speak so fast here that it is hard to do that. I made a goal last week to not speak any more English to Hermana Cuevas and it is going well so far. The other day as a district we read out of the white handbook and I carry my english one with me, so that in case of emergency I can actually understand it. So anyway I had to read in English since that was the one I had and oh moses smell the roses it was weird to hear and speak just one paragraph of English.

I am glad you all had the opportunity to watch Twighlight. Ha ha. Matthew, remember the most awesome night ever when we watched it. The candy necklaces and how we laughed through the whole thing. So fun. My last Friday night in Provo with my brother. Good times.

We have been having a hard time finding people to teach lately. Many won´t even listen to us at the door and it caused me to re-think contacting. We are supposed to contact twenty people each day and I calculated that out to be over 25,000 people during my mission! Woah that is a lot of people and doesn´t even include all the members I will meet during my stay here. So anyway I need help from everyone at home. What would make you interested enough to let us into your door. I have been trying to think about it from their point of view. We are two strangers, it seems like we are selling something to them, and most people are busy. What can we say that will break these barriers?

The beginning of the week was difficult because we had to do a lot of contacting and still do, because we don´t have a lot of investigators and all of the current ones have baptisms soon. On Thursday night we were tired and my feet hurt and the prospect of contacting for a couple hours didn´t sound appealing, but we started. We only contacted three houses because all three were willing to hear our message! The third was a young man, 18 years old, is living with the grandma of a friend and studying music at a university here. We contacted him like normal and asked if we could make an appointment to visit him later. He said, "Do you have time right now to teach me?" Astonished, we said, "Of course." We taught him the first part of the plan of salvation and left him a pamphlet to read about the rest. Oh man was he sweet. He offered the closing prayer and prayed for Hermana Cuevas and I by name. There is nothing better than hearing "Hermana Arnold (AAArnol)" spoken by a Chilean and even better in a prayer. He truly touched my heart. When we left he ran back to his room and grabbed a package of cookies for us and thanked us for the lesson. We have a return appointment on Wednesday, I can´t wait. His name is Cristopher.

Silly Amy moment for the week. We were knocking doors, but actually shouting because that is what we do here, and I noticed the name "Buson" on the mailbox. No one answered and we moved on to the next house, where I again noticed the name "Buson" on the mailbox. I commented to Hermana Cuevas how nice it was that two related families lived next to each other. She laughed and said, "Buson is the word for mailbox!" Ha ha. Yeah I hope you enjoy that.

Humongous meal this week. We had lunch with Hermano Cardenas on Wednesday. He has been a member for a year and is eighty something. First we had shrimp and some other rubbery oceanic creature. They were each individually on a sea shell with melted cheese on top. Not bad. Then we had three empanadas each, about 8 inches in length. Then an abnormally large kiwi each, by abnormally large I mean two fists put together. Then grapes. Then tea. Then fresh orange juice. Then get this, a half of a lemon pie each! I am not kidding when I say that he really wanted us to each eat half of it. We of course could not eat a whole half a pie so we took leftovers with us. Oh man lots of food.

Every Saturday we attack a sector in our zone and this week was San Francisco. San Francisco is the sector of the Elders in our district and they decided to have a breakfast before the attack. It was super fun and delicious. Eight Elders and the two of us gathered at the San Francisco chapel and ate breakfast together and then did our studying before heading out to find people for the San Francisco Elders to teach. In some room the Elders found wheelchairs, which they of course played around with. The first was just a normal one and the second one, truly Chilean. It was a lawnchair with two bicycle wheels attached. Ha ha. Love these Chileans.

I am currently downtown at the centro. It is like Boston, but with tropical plants. I love the downtown the architecture is very European and I love it! I walk down the streets in awe of everything. We come here pretty much every pday to buy things and send letters and do sight seeing. Oh by the way I live in Pudahuel. I will write down my address so that you can google earth it.

I will have been here for one month this week. I can´t believe it! Time is seriously flying by. I hope it is flying by for you too! I am sure it is with all the various summer activities. So fun. I am a little jealous. The weather continues to get colder here. We have only had three days of rain so far. Cold, but not unbearable.

Con amor,
Amy

PS No pictures again. I just always think I will send some after writing and then don´t have time because I write so much.

Love you super lots, things really are getting easier, the language, being away from home, etc.

1 comment:

  1. If you see a kiwi that big again, please take a picture with it! :)

    ReplyDelete