My First Changes (Transfer)

¡MI AMORS!

 

Hey, sounds like you have been having a busy week up there in the northern country. How sad about that guy from Sunburst. We actually just had a member here in Chile pass away as well. I guess he was the Rancagua area institute guy. It was kind of tragic; I guess because people think that he killed himself. I´m not sure what happened, but I do know that the Area Seventy for Chile spoke at the funeral and none of the missionaries in the area got to go. I guess it's kind of a big deal. 

 

 

Wow, it sounds like Brent and Blake are doing awesome and the whole family! Happy to hear that Brent´s little misfortune turned out to be alright. I can´t wait to hear back from him and all his travel adventures. Hopefully he was practicing his spanish. I know I have been! HAHA

 

 

How's the diet coming? I´m on one too! It´s called eat all the fresh fruit you can diet because it tastes soo much better here than at home! :) I swear I haven´t eaten this many peaches in my entire life. People give us so many and when we eat at their houses we almost always have peaches for dessert! We also got this giant bag of plums and I´m just in fruit paradise. But it's starting to be fall time here, thank goodness, so I´m guessing fruit season is almost over..bummer.

 

 

I got a letter from Grandma and...YOUR PACKAGE!! I was so excited I just picked it up today. Grandma, mi abuela, hang in there it sounds like making blankets will help get your mind off of things. Maybe if you have time you could make one for me before I come home! :) Thanks for the letter and I´m sure it was Grandpa who put the little comic in! I loved it, it is so cute. I will have it taped to my wall so I can see it everyday! 

 

 

Sounds like the weather is getting pretty cold up there. The weather is just now slowly turning into fall and is starting to cool off. I love having to wake up in the morning and put a sweat shirt on and wear my slippers. It just feels better to wake up to crisp air. My companion said that winters here are really cold. But what makes them cold is that they don´t have indoor heating. So everyone just basically bundles up and toughs it out for 3 months. She says that it is so hard to get up in the mornings because sometimes you can see your breath in the house!! HAHA.  I´ll let you know how it goes when that happens!

 

 

This week was interesante! Miguel called us this week and told us that he doesn´t want to get baptized. WHAT!?! Well, don´t worry we talked to him and he still had his interview with my district leader, but we decided that he needs some time to work it out with himself. He knows everything, he just needs to know in his heart that he knows. If that makes any sense to you. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks. 

 

 

We have a baptism this Sunday again for a different investigator named Cristina. We have so many investigators right now my goal this week is to get batism dates with them all!! 

 

 

So, we have changes (transfers) this week but I just found out that I will be staying in Graneros with Hermana Dutton for another change!!!! YAY!! I was really excited because we have so much work to do, I didn't want to leave yet! Everything has been going really well with her. She is teaching me some really good things, and truly is an amazing teacher. She just has the type of personality that people are just drawn to.

 

 

I went on my first division this week. I think they call them exchanges in English. So, we live with two other Hermanas in our house and we split Greneros into two sectors. I got to go with Hermana Martinez for whole day. She is from Mexico and is this cute little Hermana. I have to be honest though I was super nervous to go with her. She seems just kind of quiet and my spanish is horrible.  I thought that it was going to be a really silent day. Plus I´ve never taught with anyone but Hermana Dutton and I didn´t know any of her investigators. But it was a really great day!  We talked the entire time! WOW, I understood everything and she could understand me! It was great, I just love her now she is so funny! I want to be her companion in the future, she is just a good missionary!

 

 

So something else that was completely awesome about this week. The day Miguel told us that he didn´t want to get baptized we went to meet him to talk about it. We were standing outside the hospital waiting for him and this little lady started walking toward us. I said hello and she came and gave me a beso on the cheek like she knew who we were. I thought that maybe she was a member that I hadn´t met yet but Hermana didn´t know her either. Turns out she talked to the missionaries at one time, if I remember correctly, and obtained a Book of Mormon. She told us that she has read it three times and knows it is true!! That just doesn't happen in real life does it? Well, it did. I wish I could tell you all the amazing things that take place during the week but thre is jsut so much.

 

 

Thanks mom for the scripture reference I´m definitely going to look it up later! My studies lately have been a lot about change and what it really means to be converted to the Lord. Something that has taken over my studies these last couple of days is what it really means to take upon the name of Christ. In D&C 20:37 says that when you want to serve Him with your whole heart and self--I wish I had my scriptures right now cuz I´m just going by memory, but then I also thought about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis. 

 

 

After the Anti-Nephi-Lehis had been converted unto the Lord they no longer wanted to be associated with their past and so they took on a new name and became a new people living in peace and happiness for years. This same change happens with us after baptism, except the name we take upon ourselvs is Christ´s name, no longer associated with the person we once were. Well, it turns out that this change of self is a huge process and right now I´m trying to learn about this process and what more we need to do to be called children of Christ! Cool huh? I´m reading the Book of Mormon too mom, but I´m reading it in Spanish.

 

 

Anyways, just because we are trying to become better everyday doesn´t mean that road is going to be easy. Actually, I know it's only through the rough patches that we can chipped and shaped into the person Heavenly Father needs us to be to build up the kingdom! Know that I love you all with all my heart and so much more! I miss and love you and am SOOOO GRATEFUL for everything you have done and are doing and will do for me!

 

 

ciao ciao (chow chow) cuídense! (take care)

 

todo mi amor,

Hermana Thacker

 

 

ps. I´ll send the other letter from last week!

 

(Recieved on Monday, February 27, 201)

We Sing To Everyone

Hey Familia

I can´t believe that my first change (transfer) in the mission is coming to an end! WOW! This next week will be the start of week number 5. I´m not quite sure how I feel about it yet, because it makes me nervous to think that I might have a new companion in a new area and I will have to start all over again.  I guess welcome to the mission right?! I love this quote by one of my teachers in the MTC, I think about it a lot, she said, "There is no comfort in change, and there is no change in comfort."  So, I guess bring on the discomfort. 

Dad, I would try to explain where I live to you but I only know how to get there by walking. I´m still not sure about directions here. Maybe I´ll figure it out this week and let you know. 

Anyways, so my week was pretty good. Ok so I must have missed typed last week but we only had 9 investigators last week in church, not 14. But this week we had 8 which is so amazing.

So, Miguel. He was supposed to get baptized yesterday, but he ended up traveling to the south for his sisters wedding this last week.  We couldn´t do anything about it. But while he was there his family kind of placed some doubts into his heart about getting baptized. Well, we talked to him yesterday after church with a couple that I love. (They are our investigators as well but we can count them as members because they have been coming to church for like a year. The only thing that keeps them from getting baptized is they are not married. Rodrigo was still going through a divorce and it just takes along time for things like that to take place, but I will talk about them next.) Anyways, Rodrigo and his "wife", Maribel, talked to him about there experience with the same struggles, but just bore testimony of doing what you know is right in your heart. We invited him again to be baptized for this next Sunday! YAY! And then we have another baptism the week after that and hopefully one the week after that!

Let me just tell you about this new investigator we got this week. Hermana and I were waiting outside the church for an appointment with Miguel. Well, Miguel didn´t show up and we had been waiting for almost a half hour. Finally we decided it was hopeless and said bye to the member who agreed to come to the lesson. We went to go lock up the church when this guy was standing outside the church just looking at the inscription. We walked over to him and started to talk to him. The moment we started to teach him that he was a son of God and that God has a plan for him, his eyes lit up. Then when we told him that we are representatives of Jesus Christ he was said, "REALLY!?"  It was one of the coolest contacts ever. 

He told us that he has everyting. He has money, a big house, horses, cars, but his family left him and he is alone. He told us that whatever it is that we have he needs it! I am really excited to hopefully teach him. He doesn´t live in Graneros but he works there so hopefully we can work something out. It was really neat. We even sang to him on the sidewalk. We sing to everyone. Hermana Dutton has a really pretty voice and I can harmonize so it makes it fun to sing for other people.

Ok, so to answer some of the questions. I get one hour to email every Monday and we usually are in Rancagua because we can go to see the other missionaries, go to the office and pick up our mail (instead of waiting for it to get to us). I didn´t get the box today like I was hoping; it usually takes about 2 weeks or so to get to the mission office. So I´m sure by next week I will have it. I am super excited to get it.

About the language. . . ya lets not talk about it! Haha, no I´m sure I am getting better everyday, it's just slow progress. I have to remind myself that it takes time to learn a whole other language, but I just want to know it right now. I have to learn how to balance finding joy in the journey because this journey of learning a language is just kind of exhausting and sometimes depressing.  I know that everyday I can understand a little more and I definitely know that I know more than I did in the MTC....soooo slowly but surely. I will learn this language, but right now when I speak people can understand me and thats all I really need right now. 

It was cute in the cab on our way to Rancagua today I sat in back with this little old lady and we spoke to each other the whole ride. Convesation is slow but I at least could understand enough to keep talking to her. She was sweet and just smiled at my spanish. People do that alot, I will say somethign and they will just give me this cute little smile that says, "Oh, your so cute for trying". Haha...I hate it sometimes ;D hahaha

The weather is so nice here but it can be pretty stinking hot. NO air conditioning! Funny story: last night we got done teaching we were already late for our next appointment and, since we walk everywhere, we had to run...literally. Well, it's like 9:15 and still hot and sticky and by the time we get there I´m really sweating. At the end of the lesson with this family we are shaking everyone's hands goodbye and one of the boys points to his armpit and says,"Are you sweating?"  Hahaha..I was like.."Si, hace calor"..ya it's HOT... I just laughed, haha.  Good times on the mission.

Mom, I´m going to take a picture of the horno, or oven that they cook everything in like their empanadas. Maybe dad can build one for you so when I get home we can have legit emapanadas!! And then gourmet night will be that much more better! Everyone has one in their backyards. It's cool looking. 

Everything is good.  My comp and I are good, I am just so blessed.

 

I love you all sooo much!! ¡¡¡¡LES AMO MUCHO!!!! La Iglesia es verdadera. Cristo vive. Dios nos ama. ¡Todo es bien!

Hasta proximo Lunes

 

Hermana Thacker

(Recieved on Mon, Feb 20, 2012)