I'm sorry my subject headings are always so boring.- 6/25

Helloo everyone!

Life is good. Today we went on a tour of Lebu, the city by the beach, with the zone! Some member in Canete works for a school teaching about tourism, and they needed to practice I guess. So they gave us all free breakfast, took us on the tour, and free lunch. And THEY were super grateful to US. I was like, shoot I didn't do anything I just ate good food and saw pretty sites! Haha but it was fun!

Okay. I don't have a lot of time. BUT I need to tell you about Giselle!! She is the daughter of that one family, where the mom was really sick and the Elders came and gave her a blessing? She is 15 and super awesome. She always walks us to the bus stop and waits for the bus to come pick us up after lessons at her house, and when she sees us in the street (she has twice) she runs up to say hi to us. It's awesome. Well yesterday we went to her house and watched the Restoration DVD with her. We'd only taught her once before but she's been reading the Book of Mormon and praying this whole time! And we asked her after the movie how she felt and she said she felt good. She says she knows it's true. And we were like wait.. what? En serio? So I asked her if she would be baptized and she said yes! And then Hermana Haycock was like why do you want to be baptized. And she was like ''Cause I know it's true.'' We were like, are you serious!! Obviously it's true. But we just weren't expecting it! So yeah, she has her baptism date for July 21st!! We were completely shocked, happily surprised. She needs to get permission from her parents but we're thinking it should be fine because we've been sharing with her mom and she said she's been reading the  BoM with her dad and he wants to come to church. Maybe the whole family will want to get baptized together! That would be amazing.   :) We shall see. 

So this cambio, I'm companera mayor. Which is called in English, senior companion I think? Yep. Means I have more responsibility.. Like we teach together and make decisions together. But I have more responsibility to make sure we're doing well, working hard, I start the lessons and lead planning, stuff like that. I'm a little stressed about it and it's hard sometimes because Hermana Haycock is sometimes.. lazy. Just like tired all the time and will try to convince me that it's okay if we go home early or if we sleep in on P-day and stuff. Ugh. It's hard. Because I don't want to be like NO HERMANA we can't do anything but obviously I'm gonna be obedient. It's just hard when she doesn't want to be or doesn't think there's anything wrong with it. It's hard to explain. But I am trying my best to be sympathetic to her problems but still working hard. The mission is hard for her. But I love her. 

This week I chopped wood!!! It was awesome. There's this grandma we're teaching, and she's poor so she can't pay anyone to chop her wood for her. We stopped by to visit her and I was like yeah I'll do it! Haha it was fun. We have pictures. My triceps were sore the next day, the axe was heavy! Don't worry parents, I didn't hurt anyone in the process.  :)

So something beautiful I realized- I completed one year of having my mission call on the same day Gustavo was confirmed a member of the Church- June 17th. How fantastic!! Two of the best days of my life, were on the same day one year apart. :)

We're kind of opening a sector, this area called Pewen that's 11km from Los Alamos. It was part of Lebu, but it's 17km from there and the Elders haven't gone there in forever. We called and got permission and so now it's part of our sector! So it will be kind of like opening an area. Pray that we will find families there who are ready for the Gospel!!

Well, that's all the time I have today. I hope you like the picture of Gustavo's baptism!! I will send more pictures some day soon, I promise. I love you all so much. Thank you, mucho, for your prayers. I need 'em! Love being here. I'm almost half way done with the mission, which is so depressing. Love this work, and I know it's true. 

Until next week--

Hermana Danielle Anderton

The worth of souls is GREAT in the sight of God. 6/18

Hola!!!!

Oh, we just had a great week!! Tuesday we had a conference in Concepcion, which was just fantastic. Learned a lot, loved it, got super excited for life and to be a missionary. Got to see a few friends that I haven't seen in awhile too. And Tuesday night we stayed in Concepcion in a house with 4 other Hermanas which was fun. Becauseee we taught Gustavo in Conce because he was working there!

In the beginning of the lession, he said he wanted to change his baptism to the following Saturday, becuase he was going to be in Conce until this past Saturday (16th) and he wanted to tell his family beforehand and all that. We were like ahhh what do we do. I was nervous, about to cry because I the cambio is tomorrow and if he moved it we maybe wouldn't have been able to see it, but also I know his family is so important and it's so important that they support him. Anyway, we just continued with the lesson and taught him and testified and I was praying in my head the whole time that something would work out. Well, his boss is a member of the church and I had this question in my mind when we were finishing up the lesson. I asked him, ''And what if you tell your boss that you're getting baptized on Saturday and ask him if you can have Friday be your last day of work so you can come home in time to tell your mom?'' And he was like, ''Yeah I was actually thinking the same thing. Okay let's do my baptism Saturday then.''   I was like wait... what? Really? So, yeah? Saturday? There won't be any problem? He said no. I think we all were crying we were so happy. Haha. It was great! So he came home and we had his baptism interview Saturday morning and his baptism SATURDAY!!!!! It was fantastic. Oh my gosh. One of the best baptisms I've been to. The Spirit was so strong, it was like my baptism how almost everyone there was crying. He and Estephania have been dating for 5 years, and she never thought he would be baptized. They have a 4 month old little boy and they are getting married in August!!!!! He was so excited. He shared his testimony after and he knows it is true. He loves the church and is so happy. His mom came too! And even she was crying. It was just so beautiful. His soon to be father in law baptized him. It was just so wonderful. The best part was after everything, when he and Estephania were hugging. They were both crying and just so happy. I wanted to die (of happiness). Yay!!!!! There is nothing better than this. I kind of feel like we didn't do much of anything. I mean yeah, we taught him, but he understood everything and he already knew about most of it beforehand. He always read when we gave him chapters to read in el Libro de Mormon, always prayed, got his answer, even had a dream about the church. He was just SO  prepared and so golden. The golden investigator. YES. I was talking to one of my zone leaders saying how I felt like we didn't do anything so it was kind of weird, but he told me that we worked so hard for so long and the people we taught weren't ready right now, so the Lord blessed us with someone who WAS ready, and it was all just easy for him. It was such a blessing. Wow. Love it!! I am SO coming to Los Alamos for their wedding August 17th!!!! Happy happy happy.    :)

Soo, cambios:  I am staying here with Hermana Haycock. Hermana Gomez is leaving, going to the south, a sector right next to Caupolican my first sector. We've heard it's even colder down there. Brrr. We will miss her! But BEST news, Hermana Haycock will go running with me!!!!! YESSSSS I'm so happy. She is great. We will have to do a lot of work, definitely gonna be heard, but I really love her. She is great at being happy and making me laugh. Sometimes I worry too much or don't have as much fun as I should. So she will be good for me to help me with that. We will see how it goes! I was kinda ready to leave Los Alamos. But, I love our zone and I trust President Martinez with the cambios. There is still work for me to do here, so here we go!

So, something kinda sad. Every single time I've been able to receive letters since I've been in Chile, I have. Spoiled, I know. Like whenever the zone leaders go up to Conce, they always bring me back something, whenever there's a conference I always get something, and the times I've been to the office there's been something for me. Well, this conference Tuesday, to my horror, I didn't get anything!!! How sad!!!!! I knew this day would come, when everyone would forget about me. -Sniff sniff-  Haha just kidding it's fine. I will live.

Funny story to close up, we were in the house of a recent convert, helping her prepare her first talk for sacrament meeting. Well, we were in her Grandma's house and there's a knock at the door and the people came in and it was the Jehova's Witnesses. They walked in and stared at us awkwardly for like a minute... and then went into the house to share with her grandpa. Hahahaha. We about died laughing. Oh well, we're all friends, right?   :) 

Okay my beloved family and friends, that's about it for today. I wanted to share a scipture. Two weeks ago two different people sent me emails with this same verse in it, and I feel it's perfect for our experience this weekend. ''And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!''  -Doctrine and Covenants 18:15.  That is so true. ALL the hard work, all the let downs, everything everything everything is SO worth the moment of hearing Gustavo share his testimony and seeing him be confirmed as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ in church on Sunday. This work is true. I love my calling as a missionary, and I will always remember the experiences I am having here.

Love you all, SO much. Have a great week.

Un abrazo,
Hermana Danielle Anderton

Interesting week June 5, 2012

Interesting week of not working. Ugh. Didn't like it too much. But I learned some more patience, haha. We have our new house and everything is good. We gave a lot of people the opportunity to help us, so, blessings for them haha. So everyone knows, this keyboard isn't letting me use the exclamation marks or smiley faces or question marks. So I'm gonna be more boring today it seems. Ha.

We should have a baptism with Gustavo next weekend. He is awesome. Soo ready. It was supposed to be this Saturday the 9th but he has been in Concepcion for like 10 days so we haven't been able to see him. Stinks. But we are going to see him in like an hour and talk to him about everything. PRAYYINGGG that he can be home enough that we can teach him and prepare him for his baptism for the 16th. That will be the last Saturday in the cambio and it would be soooo amazing if we could have a baptism that day. He is so ready, he knows it's true and understands all we teach him. He's ready and I so hope we get to be here for his baptism. Please pray also. Exclamation marks. Ha.

The family we met that are so wonderful is Paola and Nicole, who is 15. We haven't met the dad yet and there's also a little brother named Benjamin who's 5 or 6. They are so great. But with the storm and living in Canete and all the craziness of finding a new house, we haven't seen them. Ahhh it's killing me. But today, also, we have an appointment with them.

The trio is hard, I'll be honest. A lot of times I feel like I'm in the middle, trying to give both of my companions equal attention and love and being patient with their difficulties and my own. It's interesting. But I am definitely learning.

OH. Okay awesome. So we have this thing in the mission called Permaneced. I think I've talked about it before. It means stay.. Like, stay in the church. Anyway, we have a list of inactive families from our Bishop for us to visit, to really focus on them and to help them come back to church. Well like I said last week we hardly were able to do anything. It was rough. But we did get to do a few visits, one of them was a Permaneced family. The parents are young, like 30, and they have 3 boys one who is like 12 and is a member, one who is 8 but not baptized, and one who is like 5. They are so cute. Well we went to visit them and this time the dad was there and we got to meet him. We had a good little lesson with them and the dad said he did want to prepare his son to be baptized. So we're excited about that. They saíd they'd come to church, but as I've said before sadly most of the Chileans aren't good on their word. When people say they're going to do something a lot of time they just don't and it's hard. But anyway we were hoping they would come. Annddd they came to church. Lots of exclamation marks here. It was fast and testimony meeting AND the dad even shared his testimony. When we saw them Hermana Gomez turned to me and said ''At least we did one good thing this week.'' It made me cry, I was so happy to see them.

We are happy for another week, this time a full week to get to work to help the people here. I love the mission and all that I am learning, hard times, fun times, rain, well not so much rain, but sunshine and laughing and loving. Love life and the Gospel is true.  

Amor y abrazos,
Hermana Danielle Anderton

What a week! June 11, 2012

Ohh, hello my beloved family and friends.

 

This has been a really good week. Ups and downs like usual, but we got to see some pretty great ups. One of them was Wednesday morning when we went to visit this girl (like 25ish) Valeria. We talked to her once in the street and taught her a little lesson in her house. We went back to teach her again and she was just about to leave to go visit her mom who was sick. Her mom lives close and I was like well let's go with you. So we went to her house and when we walked in, oh gosh, the mom was in bed and in sooo much pain. She had super bad stomach pains and was like breathing super hard and moaning and shoot. I was like, what did we just do. Hah. So we were worried and had no idea what to do. Soooo of course we called our wonderful Zone Leaders. JUST SO HAPPENS they were like 15 minutes away on a bus when we called them. They were doing intercambios (exchanges) and so they were in commute back to their sector. It was perfect. Miracle. So they came straight there and gave the lady a Priesthood blessing. It was amazing. The Spirit was there so strong and after the mom calmed down a LOT. The Elders left and we taught the rest of the family. After a little bit the mom was sitting up in bed, not crying, actually EATING something, it was crazy. The Priesthood is completely real. It was amazing. And now we are teaching the family!

 

Guuuusttavooo!!! Is FANTASTIC. Okay so we moved his baptism to Saturday the 16th because he's worknig in Concepcion. But Sunday his girlriend in church told us that he was going to be in Conce until Sat. We were like noooo please no. So we called him and asked if we could do it Sunday morning then and he was like well I was actually thinking of moving it to the following Saturday, so it could be a little more calm I'll be home all the following week. I was like okay here's the thing. It's your baptism, and we want you to be comfortable. But you are so ready for this and we have a cambio the next week and we REALLY want to be there for your baptism. And he was like oh, okay, sure. Sunday morning then. Haha he's so great! Seriously. Golden investigator, thank you Heavenly Father!!! We are going to be Concepcion tomorrow for a conference, so we're going to teach him up there and stay the night in the house of other Hermanas. We are going to lose some sleep because we have to leave Conce at 6am Wednesday to get to our zone meeting, but, it's worth it.  Yay Gustavo!!!!!! Please keep praying that everything goes as planned.

 

Paola and Nicole. Ahh so sad. Paola is scared, because she's been Evangelical her whole life. She doesn't know what to do and is very confused, because she believes our church is true but it's hard for her to have faith and come to church to see what it's like. So we gotta have patience with her but hopefully they will be able to keep progressing. Another sad story, is Evelyn. Ugh she was so happy and excited about the church. Got her super strong answer during a prayer that it was true, was so excited and then just lost her excitement. She didn't like church the first time she went and we've just seen her less and less and now she's saying she doesn't have an answer that it's true. Yeah, it's sad. We taught her from the very beginning and she was so excited. Maybe right now just isn't her time. But it's a bummer for sure.

 

We are teaching this other family, who we just LOVE. Daniela, Maria Jose, and their mom Maria. We found them just contacting and they are so sweet. Maria Jose is 14 and Daniela is 17. I feel like I'm teaching myself!!! She's my age when I was learning about the church and she has my NAME! And she is super receptive and loves it. Oh my gosh it's awesome. We have the most beautiful experiences teaching that family, the Spirit is always so strong and beautiful there. AND Daniela and Maria Jose came to church yesterday!!!!! And they really liked it, and their dad is home (he works in I think Santiago) and we get to meet him tonight! AH! Suuuper excited.

 

So. We've heard that this winter it's supposed to be more cold  and less rain. Well. Let me just tell you, it is COLD. Someone should look up the temperature for Los Alamos, Chile, cause I have no idea. But it's cold. But I am so grateful, rain is so lame as a missionary, you walk around soaking wet all day and no one wants to let you in because you're wet and no one is in the streets to talk to either. Super lame. So, I am super grateful and praying that the weather man is right on this one.

 

Well, I've told you that I'm getting stronger, right? In the sense of like.. if it's cold, if I'm tired, etc. Well. I have taken it to a new level here with bucket showers. Yup. Me. Showering with a bucket. Not my very favorite thing to do, let me just tell you that. Our new house didn't have a shower head and we had to wait awhile to coordinate with the guy to install it. Ugh. Went almost 2 weeks showering with a bucket haha. We heated up water and mixed it with cold. It actually wasn't that bad. The worst part was washing my hair in the sink, the water is FREEZING, literally gave me a brain freeze from doing it. Haha but we have our shower installed now and I am a lot more grateful to have a normal shower.  :)

 

Well, that's it for today. We have cambios next week! I have no idea what they're gonna do with me. We shall see. I'll let y'all know next Monday! BAPTISM SUNDAY WOOOO! Okay. I love you all. I know this is the Church of Jesus Christ, and I am so happy to be here to help invite others come unto Him. Have a wonderful week.

 

Lots of love,
Hermana Danielle Anderton