9-12-11

Monday: I woke up this morning, and just wanted to lay in bed. So I
did. It was awesome. I got up and had some hot milk, while I
was...swathed(?) in my snuggie, as I wrote my handwritten letter to
the President. These moments are some I´ll look back on, with
fondness. I love morning study, while wrapped in a blanket. I called
Elder Burch. He said the sector, there, is dead, and that his comp.
was a super-robot. They planned their Pday activities, including
cleaning, where they´d clean, for how long, and with what. He thanked
me for my example and for our transfer together. We´re going to hang
out after the Mission. We spent the whole Pday doing errands, trying
to get my second ID. I tried to get all the stuff ready beforehand,
but there were some terms I wasn´t sure of, so the Government lady
chewed me out for wasting her time, but at the same time, helped me
out. She said I had to tell the police I changed my address from
Hualpen,something I did (without notifying the police) 2 months ago.
She said if I HAD waited that long, I shouldn´t tell them, or they´d
take ALL my documents. Yikes. I asked Heavenly father to provide a
path where I wouldn´t have to lie and they wouldn´t take my documents.
The police never asked me when I arrived. Whew. We had an FHE planned
with Lily (a mom of a family that we found) and the Pinar family. Lily
cancelled at the last minute. We watched "The Testaments" with them.
It´s awesome.

Tuesday: Today was PERFECT! I don´t even know why, but I just loved
it. Everything that we needed to go well for us, did... and then some.
I prepared my class, for my District, but was later told I didn´t need
to worry about it. I turned in all the things I needed to, and then
sent off Jess´s letter. Then, we went to get my receipt for what I did
yesterday, then we booked it to lunch, getting there right on the dot.
I worked on making a duplicate of my "Scripture shortcuts" for Hna.
Roa during our hour after lunch. I was kinda nervous about teaching
"Tithing" to Jorge, fearing he´d have difficulty with it. But he
accepted it and I got to share some special experiences that I´ve had,
through Daddy´s strong, faithful example over the years. We´ve been
knocking the same doors since I got here. But I knew of a tiny
community we´d passed by once--made up of two blocks or so. But when
we went there, there were 9 blocks--9 SQUARE blocks. Never been
touched. We found lots of great people. I just got a jolt of
enthusiasm. Not even because of the new territory. But people just
seemed more receptive. as I realized that, EVERYONE was more
receptive. They hadn´t changed. I had. My attitude had. It was
beautiful Spring weather. I was friends with everyone. I was on top of
the world! I loved today! I loved teaching. I loved the weather. I
loved mhy sector. I loved the people. I loved the Gospel. I loved my
family. I loved EVERYTHING!!! I´m celebrating by eating popcorn and
powdered milk. Okay, when I got the milk I wasn´t thinking, "yipee" so
much as "skimpy." I´m trying to budget better. But I´m still
celebrating.

Wednesday: Well, today was less "mind-blowingly awesome" than
yesterday, to say the least. It was actually really sad. The morning
was fine. We got up, studied, and did some practices. We did a few
contacts in the morning before we had to walk to lunch, about 2 miles
away. ooph. The afternoon is when things start going downhill. We had
our appt. with JOrge. He accepted everything yesterday, that had to do
with tithing. He´s fine with donating money. But when we met with him
today, he told us he doesn´t want to get baptized on Saturday anymore.
He said it´s very important to him, and doesn´t want to do it, unless
he´s 100% willing to obey. It turns out that when we were showing him
how to fill out the tithing slip, we briefly mentioned what fasting
was. well, that scared the poop out of the poor man. He said that
skipping meals isn´t part of who he is. Not eating, to him, is as bad
as drinking coffee or alcohol. He pulled out a receipt that showed how
much he weighs. That, I noticed, showed that he´s conscious of his
eating. Maybe he can´t NOT eat. we´re preparing a lesson for him for
tomorrow. I don´t want to lose him. He´s a real friend, trying to do
what´s right. He´ll keep listening tryhing to understand. He just
needs more timem. That´s fine with me. I´ve never been in it for the
numbers. we did contacts in the afternoon, finding lots of "future
investigators." I like it here. I know the streets, I know the people,
and I like where I am with everything.

Thursday: Today was an okay day. It was overcast, but it didn´t rain,
for which I´m grateful. I spent the whole morning studying myu guts
out to learn as much about fasting as I could. I gulped it, I absorbed
it, it was a desperation search. I don´t want to lose Jorge. He´s so
close. But after learning more about it, I realized that it´s an iffy
commandment. You´re not a sinner if you don´t fast. It´s more like a
tool at our disposal. It´s not even on the Baptisimal interview list.
I called Pres. Martinez to ask and he said Jorge could get baptized
without being able to fast at first. Comprehension will come later. We
put together a careful lesson (´cuase you can´t just say, "It´s
alright if you ignore this ONE commandment so you can get baptized in
our church."). We did it, and I was so anxious/excited. We knocked at
his door and heard his son telling him to get the door. Then the son
said Jorge wasn´t home. AH! I don´t know what to think. Jorge´s a
good, honest man. I know he is. He wants to be transparent with us. I
don´t think he was avoiding us, but he didn´t answer/return our calls,
either. When we had our WArd Correllation meeting, Hno. Garcia said,
"I told you two he wasn´t ready. He has to wait until after the 18th,
´cause he wants to get drunk." I wanted to slap the man for
dishonoring Jorge´s integrity. If Jorge´s anything, he´s honest and
simple. He´s just confused about fasting, NOT alcohol. Hopefully we
can get a hold of him tomorrow.I heard that a comet whose passing will
happen on the 27th of this month, and will cause a monster earthquake
in midwest USA. I hope my family will be alright.

Friday: We were busy all day, today. During our study together, we
started Chapter 7 in Preach My Gospel: How to improve and study the
language. For me, my learning has slowed ´cause my vocab. just lacks
some outlying words. But for most normal conversations, I´m alright.
Tomorrow, we´re gonna make a Language study plan fr my hijo, so he can
learn English better. We had to cut our study short, because of an
appt. we´d made. We walked all the way over there, only to find that
her daughter had called from school, a few minutes earlier and was in
a diabetic emergency. By that time, we had to take a bus to eat lunch
with Hna. Roa. We did some service afterward, and got back to our
sector at 5:00. We picked up our clothes and then had to take a bus at
6:00 to interview someone from santa Barbara. It was 5:55 and a
10-minute walk. I wanted to cut down the street where the buses
usually pass, to try and catch it on the way. But I had a feeling to
go 3 streets farther away, and I was relieved to see it was passing
just as we got there. There had been a detour and the Spirit helped us
arrive on time. The candidate, Carol, passed. We came back, and Elder
Cottrell stayed with us, because Carol wanted him to come from temuco
and baptize her. I let him sleep in my bed. At 5:00 AM, one of the
sides of the top bunk gave out, and all the boards, and the mattress,
AND Elder Cotrell fell on Elder Zuñiga. I was laughing so hard! both
were okay. Elder Zuñiga wasn´t even hurt.

Saturday: Today was pretty dull, as far as Missionary Work goes. It´s
the day before Independance Day where they eat lots of food. Today,
they took all their efforts, and put them into making the food for
tomorrow. No time for Gringo Missionaries. In the Morning, we read
about how to study the language some more, and how to make a language
study plan. My hijo´s English is really coming along. I reviewed all
my notebooks, and found some of my first language study plans from the
MTC: Those were good times. Our three backup plans for the morning
fell through. That wasn´t cool. For lunch, we had a big soup, after
which I was full. Then we had 4 empanadas, and 2 desserts. Ha! The
average Chilean gains 10 lbs. during this week...until they go to the
bathroom :) We did contacts alla fternoon. We got into one house, but
it turned out it was because she felt sorry for us, and admired us for
leaving our hosues. She wasn´t interested in our message, or anything.
A waste of time. We saw Hna. Rodriguez and her family on the Highway,
and they pulled over to tell us they want to celebrate with us on
Monday or Tuesday (When Chile parties, they do it for days at a time).
I was down for that. We worked some more, before visiting Hna. Gloria.
She´s happy and well. I´m still laughing over last night. Elder Zuñiga
wasn´t hurt, miraculously. It was so funny!

Sunday: Today was Chile´s INdependance Day. It wasn´t as coola s last
year´s, but it was also better in some ways. There weren´t a lot of
people in church, but I got to learn a lot about the 12 tribes of
Istrael from Mouricio Rodriguez. That´s always been a tricky subject
for me, and something I´d like to study when I get back. As we were
leaving Church, I told Hno. Amstein that I liked his tie (black w/
yellow stripes). He unbuttoned his colloar, loosened his tie, and held
it out saying, "Have it." and walked off. I was like, "What the
heck?!" So that was awesome. We had lunch with Hna. Pinar. We didn´t
have any of the typical Chilean food, as is tradition, but we had
delicious pork and, for the first time in my mission, STEAK (w/o
cartilage)!!! Our drink was diced peach with orange crush. It was
awesome. After that, we watched "Emma Smith: My story." The love she
shared with her husband wa sso beautiful. The first time I watched it,
I was really excited to go preach to everyone. But today I thought of
my family. Cassie and Devin are gonna be my best friends after the
Mission, and I´ll be theirs. We did contacts for a while with zero
results. I´m gonna be home for the next 4th of July. Sometimes, you
can´t help but think of your family, on the mission. Especially on
family days. I called the Millahual family. That made me really happy.