Oh and yes. I´m still in my area. I expect to be
here for at least 3 more months possibly six more haha, my comp is still
the same too! Like I said, president doesn´t make changes much, Hermana
Jennings (a friend from my zone, nick and jackson emery´s cousin)
finally left her sector El Golf after serving there for 10 and a half
months.... so I think I´ll be here for a while!
Yeah my christmas tree is pretty big! Whats great is
that their are a billion little christmas presents under it, me and two
of the others felt kinda bad that the other girls weren´t gonna get
anything for their families so we all got them a couple little things
and after a while all of it adds up, I hope they have a super special
chrismtas! Its super great to see how each of the hermanas in my
apartment tries so hard to make christmas really special for the other
hermanas. I love them all, they are so great.
As far as temple recorridos go they are like an hour
long and usually we will have 3 or 4 planned during the week, 2 or so
on friday, and up to 5 or 6 on saturday but many times they fall through
because the missionaries don´t plan it well with their investigators.
But yeah on a minimum we give 3 a week, and then maximum is like 10 a
weekish? But yeah I LOOOVE recorridos. They are super great and they
have been the number one thing to help me learn to teach the lessons
well with examples and such and to help me learn spanish. Oh and there
are 2 other companionships that give tours :)
The language is going well! Like I have experiences
that remind me that I don´t know everything and that I am so far from
fluent but I can express what I want and its not all that hard, the gift
of tongues is so real! I´m seriously so greatful that Heavenly Father
has helped me to feel comfortable with the language, I learn more every
day but I don´t feel stressed about it so its nice!
Also, my mission doesn´t have a blog but you can add
my presidents wife on facebook, here is her email so you can type it
into the search bar and find her account: wrightbox@msn.com she said she will add you guys when she sees the invite!
Agh so much business sorry! Jake, got your dear
elder that you sent Nov 7th on Dec 10th. So like a month haha. Mom, I
got one of the two boxes of Christmas stuff, I don´t know whats in it
because the other hermanas wrapped it and put it under the tree but I
told them to look out for my comps present so I can secretly wrap that
one and surprise her haha but is there anything to set it apart from the
other stuff that you gave me in general? I assume the second package
got picked up by the elders before I had the chance to stop by the
office and snag it... so we will see if I get it on thursday, if not
I´ll stop by the office again (because the office is in the temple
compound so its just as easy for me to pick it up rather than wait for
the elders to pick it up and put it in the mail bag)
Have you gotten my package?.... Hope so.... if not it was a bunch of cheap stuff but I hope you get it! Let me know if so!
Bueno.
Lets get started on the week. We had zone conference which was
suuuuper great, president talked about the atonement and the importance
of understanding what it can do for us. He talked about the healing
power it has, the power of redeeming, and the power of comforting... and
others but I don´t have my notes, but it was really wonderful. I hope
to have a better understanding of Christ when I return from my mission,
I´m more than halfway through Jesus the Christ and I´m loving it!
Remember that Christmas wouldn´t have been special if it weren´t for the
Atonement!
Also we had the Christmas Concert! So it was
realllllly great and REALLY packed, it was kinda stressful saving seats
for the investigators because the members were going CRAZY about how we
shouldn´t be able to save seats for our investigators if they were only
gonna show up an hour and a half early. So we ended up having to sit in
the seats to wait for our investigators instead of being able to be up
and about contacting. But the last night we didn´t stay for the concert
we just got up and handed out reference cards, we did it kinda like we
did the Hill Cumorah pageant but without costumes and stuff but I was
glad that I had the experience of contacting at hill cumorah so that we
could say and do similar things to get references, the third night we
got about 20 (just me and my comp) so we were pretty happy! Then we all
went and had language study in our apartment and watched the show from
our balcony, that was fun too! It was really great to see how strongly
people could feel the spirit during the christmas show!!
Agh.. I almost met David Archuleta. We made friends
with the lady in charge not knowing that she was the one taking care of
Elder Archuleta for the weekend, so when she saw that we were super
excited that he was coming she told me to come and find her ten minutes
before the show and talk to her and she would discreetly introduce me
and my comp. But... we were contacting and we wanted to be obedient and
not be there on the last night during the show because president wanted
us to only watch the show once so because we had seen it the night
before we had to leave and we missed meeting Elder Archuleta by like
literally 3 seconds because as soon as we had left they came in.....
bummer, but hey we were obedient and doing missionary work up to the
last second!
Also this week was Cleber´s birthday! We had lunch
at a member´s house where Cleber is living... oh shoot forgot to explain
this story. So cleber is from brazil. He has sooo little money and he
is divorced, he works so hard to pay for everything for his son so the
government will allow him the rights to see his son when he visits
brazil, so money is suuuper tight, what makes things worse is that he
got kicked out of his pieza (room? its not an apartment, just a room
that people rent out) but the man renting it is a preacher of another
religion and wouldn´t allow a Mormon to live in his house so after
Cleber´s baptism he kicked him out... but Hermana Luz Maria allowed him
to come live in the pieza that she rents out until he can get back on
his feet and pay for his son and everything. So we had lunch with her
family and Cleber for his birthday on sunday and it was super great, I
was so glad to see that despite all the problems he is having he is
happy and faithful in the gospel. Man I´m so lucky to have had the
opportunity to teach him. I seriously didn´t do anything because he
came prepared but wow it makes me so happy to see how the ward is really
taking care of him and how he has a little ward family here in Chile
even if he has nothing else!
Speaking of Cleber, Dad did you accept his dropbox
request? He told me he sent you one. If not, do it, because it has all
of the pics that he takes with me and my comp and families in our ward
etc!
The last thing I learned this week was that God
blesses you for the little efforts you make. My comp and I usually have
our schedules full of appointments and stuff but I´ve been pushing for
us to contact more even if its hot and sunny and we feel like we are
going to die. So we finally went and just contacted like crazy for a
while, then we did it the next day, and then we started realizing that
the days we contact more we feel happier! Even if they all shut the door
in our face we just feel better at the end of the day! So we decided we
would set aside time to contact every day even if its just a little bit
because we can see the little blessings that come from it!
Bye!
Hermana Kyrstin Millett
pic of bowling last week with the hermanas from los platanos and pic of me by some grafiti...some of it is really cool!
