Bien, bien, bien...

Bien, bien, bien…

This week in church Daniel was confirmed. It was really a neat experience, and he is really happy. His sister, Ester, has made a world of changes in the past month. She has struggled to stop smoking, but this week we had a fast with her and Daniel to help her stop smoking….and she hasn´t smoked since! She tells us that she´s had enough of her old life and is ready to make this change. She and Daniel moved here as of a few months ago from Antofagasta (it´s really north in Chile). We don´t know the half of what she´s been though, but it seems like she´s been through a lot, and I mean a lot of really crappy stuff before. She recognizes that all of these changes that she´s made in such a short time (about 4 weeks) has only been possible through the power of Jesus Christ. She knows it and is so happy for it. She is such an incredible example of faith humility to me. I love Ester so much and it makes me so happy to see her happy in Christ! I know our Savior lives and only through him can we change and become happy and better people. I know it because I have experienced it in my life and have had this marvelous opportunity to see the power of his love manifest in the lives of others.

Though you can never be certain with the coming changes in the mission, we´re about 99% sure that I will be leaving Machalí in a week. I had to give a talk in church yesterday (it was terrifying! But now it´s over…phew!) but while I was up there in the stand I could look out and see the faces of everyone of the members in the ward. I am really going to miss them and I am going to miss Machalí. They say that this sector is one of the most beautiful in the sectors where the sisters serve, so I will most likely be looking at not as pretty scenery for the rest of my mission. It´s been quite the crazy first 5 ½ months in Chile. Plenty of ups and downs and all arounds. For example… Recently Juan Carlos (the deaf mute that we have been working with since January) hasn´t been going to church, nor has he been in his lessons…it was almost like he has been avoiding us. We found his wife the other day and she told us that the most probable reason that he hasn´t been around for us is because he´s got a deaf mute friend who´s a Jehovah´s Witness and he´s been learning from them…as his friend can actually speak sign language better. Yeah. It was painful to find out. I left the conversation with his wife dumbfounded and heart broken and even cried a little bit. But what do you do, you pick up and move on, right? And you keep spreading this message of hope and happiness with others. Though I am going to miss Machalí and the people and the experiences, I´m happily awaiting this change of area. 6 months is a long time to be in one place…I´m running out of places to knock doors 

I´ve had a really good time with my companion too. I´ve learned more from her in 5 weeks than I thought I would.

Rory sent me an email the other week with an idea of something to do to make contacts more fun. He gave me the idea of picking some random word that doesn´t relate to anything (like hummingbird) and try to work it into the contact. We thought why not, and as I flipped through the dictionary I found the word ¨compota de manzana¨ That means ¨applesauce.¨ It´s been really funny trying to figure out how to use the word ¨applesauce¨ in a contact.

The other day just at the end of the night we were about to head back to our apartment. We were walking in the street and there didn´t seem to be anybody around to see us, so for no good reason we decided to run the remaining block. Just to run…maybe because we hadn´t run in a long time or something… I´m not sure why we decided to… any way we started running. I thought ¨hey, this feels good!¨ so I tried to pick up speed and took about 5 steps and PLOWED it on the ground. Pretty hard. I took a big slide on the ground, but luckily hands first. It tore a giant hole in my gloves. I felt a little embarrassed but we laughed it off. I didn´t realize how bad it was until we got back to the house and realized that my nylons were pretty much shredded and my legs were all scrapped up and bleeding. How´s that for graceful?