Me gustaría orar...

Hola!!

Okay sooo yeah I have ten minutes to write this email! Ahh!! I have to send President Martinez an update every week, and I wrote back to Mom and Dad first, of course... Soo yeah this will be a shorter email but esta bien!! (it´s fine).

So to explain my subject heading this week... I think it was Tuesday night/Wednesday in the middle of the night. I had a cough (oh yeah I was just sick for like a week. But I am better now) and I was coughing in the middle of the night. It woke up Hermana Hamblin and this is the conversation we had:

Hna. H: Hermana?
Me: Yeah?
Hna. H: Me gustaría orar. (I would like to pray)
Me: Right now?
Hna. H: ...silence..
Me: It´s the middle of the night...
Hna. H looks at the clock, and figures out it's 2:30am. I said yeah, you can pray in a few hours. Hahaha. It was funny. This will make more sense if you know that we pray together every night before bed and every morning when we wake up, so that's why she was offering to pray. But it was hilarious.

Anyway, since this email is gonna be short I will just make a few quick notes and send it off!
1. Everyone, you can still send me dear elders in my mission! It's still free, I just won't get them as often. But yeah go to dearelder.com and then click the Chile Concepcion South mission. And you can go ahead and write me there if you don't want to send a real letter!

2. If you DO send me a letter, it should be fine. But if anyone happens to decide to send me a package, put Jesus pictures on it, like on the seals of the box because sometimes people like to open packages and see if there's anything good inside. But they don't want to cut through Jesus or virgin Mary or anything, so it will be safer that way.

3. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday, yes in Espanol, and it went really well! The Spirit definitely helped me through it. My Spanish is pretty good, but I was definitely doing better than I could have done on my own. So it was great :)

4. Here when people sneeze, they say salud (health) for the first sneeze, dinero (money) for the second one, and amor (love) for the third one. Know how I always sneeze in three's? Well, not here I don't! Just two. Hahaha, because I can't have amor now anyway... So I guess dinero would be better anyway :)

5. We were contacting and we met this girl Stephanie. She told us we could stop by her house and teach her family. We went to her house and her dad didn't want us to come in, but we asked him if there was anyone he knew who we could visit. He sent us next door and we met a lady named Soledad. She had a dog in the front yard and we went and knocked on the door, when she opened she was surprised. She asked us "How did you get in?" She told us the dog always always growls and barks at everyone that walks by. But he just sat there and smiled at us. We smiled and Hermana Hamblin said "It's because we're amigos." and then I said "It's because we're representatives of Jesus Christ." :) That was fun. Turns out she's met with lots of missionaries before, but never got baptized. Who knows, maybe now she's ready.

6. Same day we had a miracle with an inactive family we visited. The mom spent a long time telling us their story, she really opened up to us. We shared a scripture with her, "And, if ye keep my commandments and endure to the end, ye shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God." We asked her what she needed to do to have eternal life and right away she was like "I know I need to go back to church. I'll go next Sunday." Wooow, so cool!! They've been inactive for like 7 years. So I really hope she does come back.

7. We set a baptisimal date with one of our investigators, Domatila!! She's 80 and is soo sweet. Two of her daughters are members and Domatila has been learning about the church for a few months now. She was scared to get baptized because she's been Catholic her whole life, but I was able to share my conversion story with her and promise her that if she has an answer from God that this church is right, she has nothing to worry about. She says she has her answer and she will be getting baptized on the 28th :)!!

8. One last funny story then I gotta go. The word for umbrella is paragua. I brought mine yesterday cause in the morning there were clouds, but after church it was sunny. So when we went to lunch at a member's house they were like kinda laughing at me cause it was super hot and sunny. Then they said well you can use your paragua para sol. Para means for.... LIGHTBULB flicked on in my head, para AGUA, like the umbrella is for rain, or it can be for sun, para SOL. I was like so excited I realized and they were laughing so hard they almost cried. Hahaha. It was great.


Well, gotta go. We had a really great week, went running this morning and cleaned the house which was fun. Yes my house is teeny tiny but that's okay. I like having to light a match outside and turn on the gas to have hot water. I'm a missionary in Chile, it's an experience! In all honesty we could fit our entire house into my parlor back home. But it's okay! Day 1 I was like oh no... But I am already used to it and we have all we need. :) Hermana Hamblin and I are doing great, we work hard and are seeing miracles as a result. Don't worry, we have our fun too. :)

Love you all so much! Ciao!!

Con amor,
Hermana Anderton


(Will try to send more pictures next week)