Chile Chile Chile!

HOLA!!!!

Oh my gosh so I love Chile. I am seriously so blessed to be here! It is beautiful and the people are even more beautiful!! They are so warm and loving and I just love them so much. My trainer is Hermana Hamblin. She is GREAT!!! She has been here in Chile for just about 4 months, so not that long! But she is a really great missionary and is ready to train already. We work hard, so hard everyday. We walk a ton! I have blisters and my feet always hurt, but its okay :) This is what I signed up for. The first two days, Wednesday and Thursday, were really hot. Friday and Saturday were great, and it rained Sunday and today. It's raining a lot today. But that's okay. We are pretty good at staying positive. Well, Hermana Hamblin is better than me but I'm working on it. We have been working hard and have been blessed for it. We are seeing miracles already!!! I don't have time to write about everything this week. Sooo much happens every day. But I will tell you all about yesterday cause yesterday was wonderful.

So. Well first I need to mention Saturday real quick. We met this older man, Miguel, on the street and started talking to him, asking him how he was doing and such. He said not so well, and we talked to him about the gospel some more and told him we knew that life was hard but that through the gospel things can be much better. We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to church. So, back to Sunday...Went to church and got to meet the ward!!! I'd already met a few of the members throughout the week. But so it was fast Sunday and they had my share my testimony in the beginning of the meeting so everyone could get to know me a bit. Annddd guess what? Miguel came to church!! Ah! It was sooo exciting. We invite probably at least 20 people a day to come to church, but when someone actually comes that's way exciting. So he came and really liked it. After Sacrament meeting he stayed for Sunday school. Nacho, a 19 year old who is going on his mission to Argentina next month was the teacher. And it was only me and mi compañera, and Miguel in the class. So it was kind of a mini lesson for Miguel. Then, during class, Hermana Hamblin invited him to be baptized! Hahah I was like no way did she really just do that? Way to go compañera! Yes, she did do it, and yes, he agreed! He said like if he continues attending church and learning more and stuff, yes he will be baptized. SOOO we have a fecha (date) for him to be baptized on the 28th of this month!!! We are meeting with him again on Thursday to teach him again. So that was great. After church we went to lunch at this awesome family's house. They made suuuper good food. My favorite meal in Chile so far I think.. Chicken and rice and peas, but chicken rice and peas like 10x better than I've had in America. Soo good. They also had bread of course and this stuff called pevre I think? It's like salsa it was great. So an awesome meal, then we went to knock some doors and stuff. We went to visit this older lady, Ana, and when we got there she was crying! We were like oh no are you okay. Turns out her granddaughter has an autoimmune disease where like one side of her face is kinda falling? Like her eye is drooping and one side is just disfigured and they don't know what's wrong. She's like 4, it's really sad. We read scriptures with her and prayed with her, and she said she felt a lot better after. So that was really nice to be able to help her when she needed it. We were knocking more doors on our way home and we saw two ladies talking outside. I felt like we should go talk to them and we did... They were nice. One of the ladies, we found out like 10 minutes into the conversation, has two family members in the hospital right now! There was a car accident and one of her family members died and two more are in the hospital. Ahh. So sad. We talked a lot, to her and her friend. I think we were able to give them some comfort as well. It was a really neat experience. More happened yesterday but I don't really have time to write about it. But just try to believe me when I say we are literally seeing and being a part of miracles here. The other day we felt like we needed to knock a street, and turns out the first house we knocked the lady is a member but her husband doesn't like the church. We invited her to a ward activity we're having on saturday and she wants to come. Then later we met this guy, Mario, whose best friend is on a mission right now. And a couple other people who were just great, all in like 30 minutes. It was amazing. We are seriously being led to find those people who are ready for the Gospel. Yes, sometimes people don't want to talk to us or aren't super nice. But I don't worry too much about that because we have so many other great things and people to focus on. :)

The Spanish is still going really well. I was expecting to get here and not understand anything. But in fact I can understand a lot. I'm very grateful. Hermana Hamblin and I only speak Spanish outside of our house, which is sometimes difficult when our brains are tired, but it is definitely helping. The people here are shocked at how well I can speak and understand. I'm working hard, but it's definitely a blessing from the Lord. I know that for sure. I know I would not be able to understand and speak this much on my own. Oh. AWESOME news. They have Milka here!! Ahhhh the chocolate I fell in love with in Europe. I haven't bought any yet. But I will some day soon... :) Other awesome news, my compañera loves to run. Yay!! When I told her the first day I liked to run she was so happy haha it was great. We've run once but my shins hurt the next day, so we're gonna take it easy. Oh, also I'm giving a talk in Sacrament meeting next sunday. 10 minutes in Español... haha we will see how that goes. But I'm excited.

Anyway I'm out of time. But everyone, know that I am absolutely loving it here, and I am well taken care of by my wonderful compañera and so many of the Chileans. I love Chile and I love my mission!!
Praying for you all.

Love love love,
Hermana Anderton :)


Pictures: Hermana McKay and I our last Sunday at the MTC. The famous world map. The second picture is our District at the Provo temple, jumping for joy because it was our last day. Third picture is Hermana Hamblin and I just a few minutes after we found out we were companions! The next one is us at a park I think, I can't remember anymore what the 4th one is haha but the last one is us in some rain gear yesterday after we got home (yes our house is pink).