Digging up "Dead Investigators"

Okay, so I´m just going to say this first thing, but we´ve had a bit of a rough week. Rita was supposed to be baptized yesterday, but all week we´ve had all kinds of problems. Satan has been working super duper hard to keep her from baptism, but we thought it was all going to be good. She had her interview and everything but the day before (Saturday) we called her to comfirm our last appointment with her before the big day and she informed us that she wasn´t going to be able to make it to her baptism. She´s had problems all her life with depression, and something from her past got brought up and she´s fallen into really bad depression again. So much so that her husband was taking her to the doctor. But since Saturday when she told us she wouldn´t be baptized we haven´t been able to talk to her or find her in her home. Perhaps she wasn´t quite ready, though everything was so perfect and she was SOO excited. I don’t really understand how it all happened; it kind of feels like a bad dream and we´ve been super worried about her. But we´re hoping to find her today or at least talk to her on the phone. Just to talk to her and see how she´s doing would calm a lot of worries and anxiousness.

But on the bright side, we´re team teaching (with the other hermanas) this man named Juan Carlos. He´s deaf and mute, but he is SO COOL! He can read lips really well, so we can jump that obstacle, but it usually takes a long time to teach him because for not being able to talk he sure does talk a lot. He signs everything he says and by his actions we can figure out pretty well what he is saying, and if not, we write what needs to be communicated. He is super funny, and a really happy person. We´ve been teaching him for about a month or less and already he had read in the Book or Mormon until Alma. He tells us he can´t put it down and he has a date to get baptized this Sunday, It´s pretty awesome, I really like teaching him, though I don´t do a whole lot… My companion is pretty much amazing because she knows a bit of sign language and picks up on the signs really fast (I´ve even learned a few things!).

I´m a bit nervous because we have changes this next week. It´s about 99% likely that my companion will be leaving the sector and I´ll stay and show my new companion the ropes in Machalí. This scares me a little bit… Or maybe even a lot bit… I didn´t realize how big our sector was until we had our district leaders come in and help us find more people one day and they said ¨your sector is GINORMOUS!¨ Some members told us there are about 80,000 in Machalí. I don´t know how correct that is, but we´ll see what happens. Ha, you´d think with 80,000 people we´d find more, eh??

Moms and Pops….I forgot to answer a couple of questions in my last email… I don´t know anything about the big earthquake down here. It must have missed us, so no worries. Though the first few weeks I was here, I felt a couple baby earthquakes. It was kind of fun. The other hermanas that I´m living with right now are from Utah. One of them, Hna. Olson was my comp in the MTC, so that´s been nice. I can´t believe I didn´t mention that before. And I´m super sorry to hear about Erik´s car. What poop brains ( the robbers). I feel a little better knowing that he´s just doing National Guard instead of the Army, but keep me posted. I know you will. I´m super proud of all Erik and Danielle are doing (with junior miss, council, debate, track… sheesh! Remind her to take a breath once in a while!), and with the person that Cali is... I´m so blessed to have this family, and for mom and dad that express and share the love they have for me and all of us kids. I couldn´t ask for anything more. No, dad I can´t read your blog... stinky, huh? And Yes. I´m pretty sure I´ll be all set for Mexico in a little while… but don´t make me trunky now, I just started ;)

I told my comp that you replied to her letter, and tells me she wants to reply again to you guys. But remember who your daughter is… haha, jk. So she knows a little bit of English, right? It was super funny, the other day she turned to me and said ¨I want to make pee pee¨ haha. Directly translated it works. But we got a kick out of that one.

Last week we had an activity in the ward called ¨cosechon.¨ We dug up a bunch of ¨dead investigators¨ and tried to revive them. We invited the entire ward to be a missionary for a couple hours and accompany us on splits to find these old investigators. We only had 5 people show up… but it was just enough to do splits with the 4 of us missionaries, but I´ll tell you what, I was TERRIFIED to take Hna. Mery around our sector, because I still don´t understand her Spanish super well. She speaks about chileano as you can get, but it was actually really fun! We didn´t get into a single door, but it was a good experience for us both ( I hope).

Yes, mom, I know the Elder Horlachaer from Aunt Nan´s old ward. He´s my district leader! Small world, huh?