Love Being a Missionary!

Wow. I have just LOVED being a missionary this week. Idk why it hit me this week but I´ve just been soooo dang happy!!!

Mal, on the bright side you are used to having investigators in church right? If one of our investigators comes to church they are pretty much baptized 2 or 3 weeks later..... so out of the 5.5 transfers I´ve been here you can see how many times we have had an investigator in church..... its rough. But hey being a missionary isn´t all about the numbers!

Well. Glad to see that you heard I saw the Schades! It was super funny because I was sitting in the chapel in my district class and I looked back and saw in the window blonde hair. And like I immediately knew that it was Sister Schades I like yelled out THATS LORI SCHADE!!!! And everyone was like what the heck? What are you talking about? No thats just some lady with sunglasses! And then Brother schade opened the door and was like Happy Birthday Kyrstin! I FREAKED OUT. I like ran up and gave him the best handshake I knew how. It was wierd seeing elder schade in normal clothes. Haha talking with sister Schade it seemed like you are worried about me mom. Hahahaha DONT WORRY IM FINE. She asked me about my spanish a bunch. I guess I don´t say much about how my spanish is doing but thats because I feel completely comfortable so I´m not ever thinking about how my spanish is. I am seriously seeing the gift of tongues and my setting apart blessing coming true and I guess its working so well that I just don´t even think about it! I have much to learn to assimilate the Chilean accent (Something elder schade does perfectly) but I can talk and understand just fine! It was so awesome to see the Schades though. A little wierd to have my two worlds mix for a bit but I was super happy. I couldn´t believe that they would take the time to come find me in district class even if they´d already been in the offices where they could´ve dropped off my package much more easily. That was super nice of them! Made my week.

So mom. I about died of laughter. The other hermanas opened my package while I was in the other room to take out the tights I needed and stuff and I asked them to look at the boots to tell me if they were cute. Hna Mckinley was like...... uhhh hermana? They look......... I don´t know. And I was like "What are they ugly??" She told me that they were cute but just a little similar to the ones I already had.... I made her show them to me.... MOM THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME BOOTS AS THE ONES I ALREADY HAVE!!!!!!!Like The EXACT ones. I´m gonna send you a pic of me wearing the two of them.... you can hardly see the difference. Hahahaha I figure maybe when I explained my boots you were in a hurry or something and just bought what I explained thinking its what I wanted..... but no.... its what I already had. But its all good I found a little shoe guy that can change the color of the boots and its pretty cheap so if that works great I´ll be good with two colors.... if it doesn´t...... what do I do?

Yeah I think If the time difference is two hours (But you still haven´t told me if it is or not) I´ll skype you guys around 8ish my time (which would be 6 your time right?) if that works let me know

Well anyway. I loved this week. It was a bit rough because me and my comp were both just a bit hormonal and in bad moods at times if you know what I mean, but usually that means its the worst week of my life because I just can´t control my emotions and I´m angry and sad at everything! But this week even though I was constantly having to remind myself to live with an attitude of grattitude or to not get offended at all of the little things people said that couldve been offensive I was HAPPY. SOOOO HAPPY.

It started off with a visit we had with a less active. Her name is Dalila. When we first started visiting her like 6 months ago I basically didn´t ever want to go back because one time I went when I was on divisions before I could speak much spanish and she talked for 3 hours without stopping and I didn´t have a clue how to stop a chilean when they get talking. So I listened.... for 3 hours and it was AWEFUL. I just kept thinking that this lady wouldn´t be less active if she could just stop thinking about what others do wrong and just worry about her own problems or what she can control. But we have gone to visit her and worked with her for 6 months and seriously this week was just a miracle.

From day one 6 months ago she told us how she can´t cry and how she just

wishes she could let all of the emotions she has bottled up inside of her come out. Just recently as we have gotten really close to her she has opened up about how her husband was super abusive and how much that affected her. But this week when we visited her we asked a bit more about it and it was seriously AMAZING how much started to make sense as she finally unravelled the whole story that she had had hidden for 25 years of what happened and why she is inactive and how much the abusive relationship she endured had really damaged her ability to live life normally because of all of her fears and lack of self confidence but as she told us all of this she was basically crying without tears coming but it was amazing to see her beginning to show emotions! I just cannot express the DEEP love and sympathy I felt for her in this moment, I realized that she has become one of the most important people to me while I´ve been here in Chile and that I´d do anything to help her. It was rough because I didn´t know what to do or exactly how I could help her but then I remembered the Atonement. I´ve been studying about it and looking for how the Atonement can really help us with things other than just forgiveness and in that moment I was able to just bear my testimony about the healing power of the atonement that it can make her better, take away the bad feelings, replace the confidence EVERYTHING. So I bore my testimony and we asked her to pray (something she doesn´t like doing because her exhusband always made her feel bad for praying out loud) but as she began to pray it was the most BEAUTIFUL prayer I have ever heard in my life and I began to BAWL. The whole time she just thanked God for sending us and for what we had done for her (which was really just the Lord) but yeah I was crying so hard because I just felt so happy. I just felt like finally I was able to be an instrument in the Lords hand to help someone, to love someone, and to make a real difference. That for the first time someone here in Chile needed ME. Not just anyone but that the Lord used ME for who I am to help one of his children here in Chile. I´d really never felt that so strongly before. So she finished the prayer and I looked up to see that Dalila was crying too!!! I´d never seen that before even with all the other emotional lessons we had had, she just kept crying and told us it was an absolute miracle. I cried more. It was beautiful. I love being a missionary.

Well I soooo have to go. Love you all! Chau!

Kyrstin Millett

Explanation of Pictures:

Oops Kyrst's mom (ME) sent her the same boots she already had. The funny thing was they had that boot in every color.  She had bought those boots herself and I hadn't remembered.  I just thought the boots looked like something she would like.

A picture of Dalia and Kyrst and Comp

Picture with the Schade family who went to pick up their son from Kyrst's mission and they took the package to her.

Kyrst with her package and her DEAR Elders

Transfers!!!!

We had transfers this week and.................SURPRISE!!! Still in pocuro. Hahah I think I could be here till august... so we will see! But did I scare ya?

Anyway, Yeah mom I have seen the Because of Him video its super great! I loved how they showed the atonement in a completely different way. So cool. I think we are gonna use it for a noche de hogar (FHE) today if our internet works ok. 

Well the Schades are here in Chile. I´ve only been talking about it for the last week with the hermanas in my pension. I kept telling them how badly I wanted to see the Schades and stuff and it turns out that while me and my comp were out shopping they were down in the offices in front of my apartment and going all around my sector to eat lunch and stuff.... so missed out on seeing them haha but I´m suuuuuuuuuuper excited to get my package... I think I´ll have hna mckinley open it up for me and take out a few things that I need and then keep the rest for my birthday.

 

Yeah we are gonna talk! Yeah so excited!!! Wow the time is just flying isn´t it!?! Hmmm what is the time difference? And could you guys look up when daylight savings is for Chile? I feel so lost without google. 

Aww spence just growin up and goin on dates... I might cry sniffle sniffle. So proud. 

Haha mal here in chile EVERY window has bars unless you live in a big tall building. I´ve always asked myself how someone would escape in a fire? Maybe better not to worry about that. And yeah we can NEVER wear jeans unless we have a sports activity on pday but we have to travel in a skirt and change when we get there and can never be in public with jeans BUT when you go in presidents care and you are waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy out in the mountains where their isn´t anybody its ok to wear jeans. That could easily be my last time in jeans for the rest of my mission haha. 

Well this week we had Abrahams baptism! It was quite the adventure. So we were getting him all ready for his interview and stuff but its hard because he just doesn´t like to listen. He has plenty of faith and a testimony but idk... he is just a very sarcastic old man that thinks he is hilarious..... so sometimes its super hard to get down to the super spiritual stuff. But when you can get on a super spiritual level with him its AMAZING to see everything that he has been through and the testimony that he has. His parents were immigrants from Syria and he has had all sorts of experiences in life to bring him closer to God. The only thing is that he will not stop joking about how he thinks he is going to marry me. At least I think he is joking... sometimes if people say things enough you just don´t know if they are serious or not.... 

But anyway so Abraham went in for his baptismal interview and after a while my district leadter came out and was like... uhhh I´m gonna have to call president. So we went home a little bummed and I was just feeling like a terrible missionary because I hadn´t done my job as a missionary to help Abraham be baptized and yada yada so I did what I do when I have a hard day. I go to the bathroom cry a little and pray (because the bathroom is the only place where I can be alone) so I told Heavenly Father I was sorry for what ever I did wrong and asked him to help me do better and to help my day to go better. I walked out of the bathroom and 2 min later we got a text from a long lost investigator that wanted to meet with us! And then president called and said we were just fine to go ahead with Abraham´s baptism and told us that it wasn´t really something our DL had to talk to him about and it was just fine. Seriously such a tender mercy to see how after a little prayer God just turned everything around. So yeah Abraham got baptized on Sunday!!! It was hilarious because hna cortese played a musical number of I Need Thee Every Hour on the violin and Abraham didn´t know the words or anything so to him it just sounded like a super sad song so afterwards he was like "That was super sad!! You got me crying!!!" And then when he was baptized and when he came up out of the water he was like "That was short, I wanted to stay in the water!" so he jumped back in and started wading/Swimming around the font.......... It was kind of hilarious. But for reals it was a great baptism and Abraham was super happy. 

Anyway, I have to go now but I´ll talk to you guys next week!

With love

Hermana Millett

Pictures:  Abraham's Baptism and the Las Condes Zone

Lots of Pictures.

Many Many Pictures from Kyrstin this week.  I guess that is a good thing in case your camera gets stolen like Mallory's. 

I just can´t even explain. This week was hardish as usual but THE BEST WEEK EVER!!!!!!! I will be sending just toooooooooons of photos of the adventurous pday that we had today but agh seriously sooooo great. 

So first of all, AGGH I am so dang glad you got to meet david and lisseth! i miss them! We never go over by there house anymore because them and david´s mom aren´t there but I´m really missing my peruvian culture! Them and hna altamirano like dissapeared from my life at the same time and its wierding me out not eating peruvian food and talking with them and everything but agh i hope everything is going soooooo well for them! 

Anyway where to start!? well the shift button isn´t working so well so im sorry if I don´t have a lot of capital letters and stuff haha. 

So this week we got a call from one of our investigators Abraham who we thought had switched apartments but it turns out that no he didn´t so he is still in our sector (he was the one that I said was a little creepy but its a lot better now) so we began teaching him again and we just weren´t sure if he was progressing just because i was there or because he for reals wanted to progress, so one of the days we did divisions and hna nuñez went with my comp and it turns out that things went well, then next time we went we were like... ok so i think he has a testimony? but he is just interesting and so hard to explain so we weren´t sure if we should just let him get baptized now (because he reads the book of mormon, keeps his commitments and has been to the church 4 times) or if we should wait till we know he legit has a testimony and isn´t just kind of creepy. So my comp was like, hey lets call hna wright and see if she wants to come with us to the lesson and see! So we called her and she was like "yeah its me and president wrights date night but we will come after dinner!" So they came to our lesson and it was AWESOME. not a single creepy or wierd comment from abraham. he was just fine with keeping the word of wisdom and president Wright asked him a lot about his testimony and it was really cool because we could see that even if Abraham is a super hard person to read he really is changing and progressing and everything! so we set a new baptismal date for next sunday... turns out he might be getting surgery that day so it might be saturday... kinda crazy because this baptism just popped out of nowhere but we are super excited for him! after our lesson with president he was like,  "i think you guys need dessert" .... FINE WITH ME. so we were thinking buy a postre at walmart or somethin but he took us to a fancy restaurant and it turns out that you cant just buy a dessert there, so we all ordered food and talked and it was super great! But even better was that later as we were leaving they were talking about San jose de Maipo which is the campo part of our sector in the mountains bordering argentina and my comp was saying that she always wanted to go but never could because it is several hours driving and stuff... so president and hna wright looked at each other and were like "wanna go monday? We will take you!".....OF COURSE WE WANT TO GO!!!!! So all of these pics i´m sending are of our adventures. We were driving for HOURS. but it was soooooooooo pretty and sooooo amazing to get out of the city!!! we had a blast and it was fun to just have a day to do something fun instead of just sleep all pday or organize things! 

Also this week we did pretty bad as far as numbers go.... like kinda horrible. but at the end of each day I felt SO GOOD. Because even though it was like... man we were supposed to have at least done 20 contacts and we did .....3 each one was serving someone. We helped an immigrant lady lug her heavy broken suitcase for a half hour till she got to the immigrant office, and we helped people carry their groceries, etc. So even though the numbers didn´t show it each day was full of service. be it decorating for a birthday, visiting older lonely people, playing with the crying baby (without picking it up) so the mom can organize the house without having to be holding him every second etc. It was such a great week. Seriously i have just been soooo happy. Walking around my sector just feeling like FINALLY I am enjoying what i am doing every second. like I will continue to have ups and downs but idk.... i just had a whole week of ups. and it rocked. Anyway. Sorry I got this to you a little late, we got back late from san jose....cuz president took us out to eat..... but he gave us permission!....

Well I have to go now but I love you all!!

Chau!

Explanation of Pictures:
Most are from a Visit to a National Park called valle de Yeso
the English room for watching conference
cousin Sammy in the Liahona
Following the Colored Lines down the hallway of the hospital (we go there a lot)
Favorite Pastry shop

Hermano Enrique (a recent convert we visit) and baby Matty my chilean boyfrie

Survived Another Chile Earthquake

Haha well mom, I´m not dead. The earthquake was in iquique (I think thats how you spell it) WAAAAYYY in the north so I´m doing just fine, but I was like oh crap everyone is gonna hear about an earthquake in chile and flip out. But as for now we are fine, we did have three temblores (small earthquakes that happen often here) in one day.... that scared me a bit because we usually have one every 2 to 3 weeks but feeling them 3 times in a day is a bit freaky. We were kneeling down to pray and our knees started like wobbling on the ground and we both looked at each other like... oh crap. So we get up mid prayer, open the door and wait... scary thing was I went into the living room and you couldn´t feel hardly anything but my room was wobbling like jello..... so I hope I´m not asleep when my half of the building falls off in an earthquake haha. But yeah I´ve heard it wasn´t the huge earthquake they were waiting for so they have also predicted an even bigger one for here in the central region. The good knews is that I´m nowhere close to the ocean, and that the buildings we live in have already lived through several large earthquakes.... and even better knews, I am a missionary dedicating my life to him, he will do with me what he needs and if he needs me here and safe I´m gonna be just fine.  And yeah I´m super sorry about the short email I actually got emails from people other than you guys and Nik last week so I was writing people lots of replies. 

Yeah reading the 4th missionary sounds like a good idea, I´ll try it. She is awesome. Just different. Lots of adjustments, I got so used to the peruvian culture, and hermana altamiranos personality that the argentine culture and a different personality presents different challenges. But its not bad or really hard or anything, just brings up knew concerns I´d never had before! 

Drake went through the temple?!? THATS SO GREAT! How did it go!? How is he doing?! Tell him I want to hear from him!!!!

Yay tell me all about how it goes with david and lisseth!!! Send them a follow up email if they don´t email you back soon. In like 2 or 3 months I will be sending another one of the people here your way, she is a ward missionary here and she helps us soooo much, she is one of my best friends here and will be visiting utah in 2 months or so. So if you want anything Chilean let me know!

Hahaha yeah kates... lice... yikes. Thats hilarious that the one in the united states would be the first to get it. But way to be a good sport. I always share all my letters with my roomates about how positive you are. Haha love hearing about your adventures. 

Barbi, I put your letter in a word document to read with me this week, so I´ll try to get back to you next week! Thanks so much for writing me!!

Haha funny story this week, we were teaching my favoritest less active ever Alejandra and we brought the book of mormon for kids that has the pictures and stuff like we studied when I was little, and her son who is like 6 never likes when we are there because then his mom doesn´t let him play on her iphone but when we walked in with the book of mormon for him he was soooooo excited. He had heard a bit about it from his cousins and he was looking at all the pictures and was like "woah!!!! MOM!! IVE HEARD ABOUT THIS. THESE ARE THE SLICES OF GOLD!!!!" I thought it was cute hahaha. 

Well the conference was AWESOME. Mal I am sooooo sorry that you couldn´t watch it in english because it was THE BOMB. I had two questions written this time, one of which was "How can I better use the atonement in my day to day life?" and the other was "how do I have the Joy that Ammon and other book of mormon people had even if I may not see nearly as many people come into the church for my efforts?" Elder Bednars talk was the perfect answer for my first question and Pres Uchtdorfs for my second. It is SOOOOO awesome to have questions be so directly answered. The whole time I was gleaning other things from the other talks to answer those questions and it was great and all but then those two talks were just like BOOM answer. So that was great. I also LOOOOOVVEED Elder Hollands talk. 

Also this week I was studying another talk (we had a zone conference with president on how to make the scriptures your best friends, and one of his study suggestions was to use talks from general authorities and it is my FAVORITE thing to do in my study time) Hermana Mckinley let me borrow one that she had called "Avoid It" By lynn G Robbins of the seventy. It was a devotional he gave at BYU I believe but it was all about avoiding temptation and it was AWESOME. Like mom and dad if you haven´t read it, READ IT because its super applicable to my investigators and stuff but the whole time I was thinking, man I learned basically this same thing in Young Womens when the bishop talked to us but I wish I had learned it like this! It makes so much sense! Its super great.

The greatest thing about this week is that we were able to bring a less active member to the conference, her name is dalila and she is like 60 something. She has been less active for like 10 years or so and we are progressing little by little with her, but she gets along sooo well with my comp so its really a miracle and a blessing to be working with her because she is helping people to progress that I never could!

Well I have to go,

Love you all!

Hermana Kyrstin Millett

Explanation of Pictures:

me, my comp, and ingrid one of our ward missionaries at the ward relief society party (I helped out a lot with piano mom thought you´d want to know I´m using my talents haha)

the war continues (me and hermana zelaya have an ongoing battle throwing stuffed animals at each other through the window or bombarding the door etc. So this time instead of throwing back the animals when she hit me with them I taped it to the window and waited for her to find it.)