Courtney's Week #20

¡Hola!

 

Well, I am happy to report that I am feeling better. To answer your question about the lasagna, I really don´t know what it had in it. They don´t have normal cheese here in Chile, or for that matter normal ground beef or meat in general, so it is really hard to decipher the tastes and what causes them in things like lasagna.

 

To answer your other question about all the drama in my apartment, well, today my companion and I are in Santiago because my companion needed to talk to Presidente. She was having a lot of issues with the the other Hermanas. But I am happy to report that I am just here, happy as can be just to be a missionary of Jesus Christ. But I´ve found that it is important to make my companion talk about her problems otherwise she will blow up into spurts of crying and shouting. So lesson of the week, open communication is important, even if the problems have nothing to do with you.

 

So no, it does not really snow in Chile. In Los Andes we are really close to the Andes mountains, (as indicated by the name) and so every time it snows there is snow in the mountains, but the most that happens in the actual town is what my companion calls "water snow" which is just when it is raining it is cold enough that a few droplets will fall a little slower. My companion has never actually seen snow fall, and the other Hermanas in my apartment actually asked permission from president to go to the mountain to see the snow because they had never seen it in their lives. ¡Que Triste! One of the Hermanas was actually almost crying when they recieved permission to go. But no, it is just super cold and rainy here, it usually stays just about freezing though. When I tell people how cold it is in Vernal and how we have snow that stays all year their like oh, so you are used to the cold. This is partly true, but the difference is that the missionaries are in the calle all day, wet and cold, and the houses are not heated by a heating system at all.

 

Okay, so here is my super super sad story. Here in Los Andes we really only had one family of investigators, se llama Larissa y sus hijos. Larissa is about 35 or so and she has 7 kids. Two are 23 and 18 years old and don´t live with here but the others are 16, 11, 10, 9, and 5. We knew she didn´t have un esposo and that she was not con vive, or living with someone. She is super super poor, I think I told you about their house earlier, but they are super super poor. Their baptismal date is for 28 de August, we had their pre-interviews with them just to make sure everything was okay before their actual interview. Larissa finally confessed that she was still married to her first husband, but had not had contact with him in 20 years. She told us that she didn´t think she could live the law of chastity because su pololo, or boyfriend was the provider for her family. She really wants to get baptized, but just doesn´t see a way that she can. We scheduled an appointed with the bishop, but its super sad. We will probably still baptize her kids, but personally I don´t think its best to baptize kids without a familia. The whole situation was just kind of heart-wrenching.

 

Well, I don´t really have much more to say. Next week is cambios, because my companion is having problems with the other Hermanas he pretty much promised her a change, so next week I will probably be directing the sector and have a new companion. I´ve decided that this is a good thing. My companion hates doing contacts because she has pretty much talked with everyone in our tiny sector before. I´m excited to kind of start over, I am determined that I am going to find investigators in this sector, I know that there are people here because otherwise there wouldn´t be missionaries.

 

So, Dad I really loved the pictures of you on the scaffolding. I don´t think in a million years Mom is going to join you at that height. I´m with Walker though, send us more pictures please. I know it is difficult because our family isn´t really a picture-taking family, but this will be a great opportunity to develop a new habit.

 

So just as a little after thought, so the other day my companion and I had to watch the Preach My Gospel movies during our studies, they are in English with Spanish subtitles. Oh my goodness, after listening to English for 2 hours, it was so so hard to speak in Spanish. It was so hard, my thought process is starting to switch entirely to Spanish. It is really really difficult to speak completely in English and today it even took a few minutes to try to write in English. This is a very good sign! I just can´t watch any more movies in English.

 

Love You!

 

Walker's Week #26

So I had a super awesome day today. First off, in my apartment there was a super huge wrestling match. Which is awesome cause there is nothing to break all the windows have bars and all the walls are cement. and all are mattresses are super bad so whats a little more.okay I´ll try to send you pictures or something. And if you see them you need to realize that there are 6 nineteen to twenty year old's living with each other.

So after that we went and played football. And Elder Haws ran into a tree. The only problem is is that this tree had thorns in it. So we took him to the Red Cross down the street, and they said that they couldn´t do anything and that there is a clinic right next door. So we went there and Elder Haws like started freaking out. Because there was a thorn in his blood vain in his wrist. So the clinic said that we needed an ambulance because he was going into shock and stuff. So we went back next store to get an ambulance and they wouldn´t give us one so we had to have the doctor call the ambulance which took like fifteen minutes to get there because the roads are so awesome. So they took him to the hospital with his comp and they told us he needed ID to get into the hospital. So me and my comp ran back to the church to get it and guess what, the other Elders had taken it back to the house. So we ran back to the house, got his ID, and took a taxi to the hospital. Meanwhile the ZL's were calling Pres. So we get to the hospital and they wouldn´t let us in. So we are just chilling in the line outside and Elder Dominguez (Zone Leader) and Elder Prince (Canadian) show up and they are like, President told us to get him treated in San Jose which is only 45 minutes away. But by the time we got in he was already in surgery so a few hour later they get back to the house and I guess there was a 3 inch thorn in his wrist that was through his vain and a bunch of others in his hand. Yep pretty eventful. So moral or the story "Trees are mean"
Well that is all my time
love you all adios

Courtney's Week #19

So this week my stomach had its first rejection of the food and water here. I am actually not sure if it was the food, but I did eat a very very mysterious lasagna Saturday and then I was up all night throwing up. Yesterday we had ward conference and so we had to be at the church at 8. I told my companion how I was sick and she was very concerned but I was determined that we were going to leave and be good missionaries. This was not the best idea ever. We ended up leaving the church before sacrament meeting and I threw up in the street on the way to our house. I was in bed for the rest of the day. Today I am feeling better, I only have a little bit of pain in my stomach. Right now my muscles hurt more than my stomach. They are really sore because I had chills all day yesterday. But no worries mom, my latina companions kept forcing drugs on me of who knows what orgin. All I know, is that these drugs do not have a direct translation into English. One that my companion makes me take every six hours hits my stomach like a rock everytime. I tried really hard to remain sleeping so I wouldn't have to take it, but she woke me up for my dose. Hopefully my body will be able to heal itself quickly regardless.

So Funny Strory. This week one of the families in the ward was sealed in the temple. The entire ward went to Santiago for it, even the youth went and did baptisms. The relief society wanted to have a little mini-reception waiting for them when they returned from the temple, so they asked us if we could decorate for the activity. They said they were planning on like 40 or 50 people. The members had been complaining that we don't serve them enough so this seemed like a good opportunity to fix that. They told us that they would have all the stuff ready for us when we came on Saturday. When we went to the chapel to do the decorating, all that they gave us was two tables, 3 tablecloths, 15 baloons, and about 20 feet of blue streamer. Oh and the tables weren't big like the tables in our chapels, the tables were big enough for maybe 4 or if you are lucky 6 people. This is all that they gave us!! Oh the balloons from the relief society president were white and gold, and then one of the other counselors was supposed to bring the streamers and more balloons. She brough the 20 feet of blue streamer and like 3 pink and 4 orange balloons. Who brings these colors for a reception? It was an adventure. Pretty much we did the impossible, we created more tables by bringing all the little tables from the classrooms and we made homemade white streamers. Oh and for the finishing touch my companion stole a 5x7 picture of the Santiago temple from the Primary room and put it in the entrance. It actually was pretty good for what we were given.

Funniest part of this story, all the food that was there were 2 cakes and 1 mini-package of saltine-like crackers. This is not sufficient for 40 people, but I just assumed that they had invited Jesus to the reception and he was going to bless (and multiply) the food. We left to go to our appointments for the day and the bishop called us, he asked us how the chapel was, and I told him that we worked a miracle, but then he asked us if the food was sufficient, and I told him no. He said that we needed to ask for money from someone so that we could buy french fries (which they eat like a meal) for all the ward. I told him no, that the missionaries have rules prohibiting such things such as begging for money. No, my real excuse was that we can't purchase things after 6 o'clock, because it is a rule, and besides that, we had citas that we had to go to. Who asks the missionaries to buy french fries for the whole ward? Apparently somewhere along the lines of communication it became our responsibility to do the whole reception, and so it was our fault that there wasn't enough food. Anyways, the ward didn't get back from the temple until 9:30 at night, and so no one was super hungry and everything turned out okay. But it was quite an adventure. We made a point to make sure that we had things to do all night so that we could not go to the actual reception because we did not want to hear criticism, but apparently everything turned out okay.

 So as far as missionary things, oh President is starting to make changes to the rules. The biggest change that we've recieved so far in my opinion is that the Hermanas will not be doing intercambios twice per change like we used to. It's only through direct assignment from president. This is a little bit sad because I like intercambios, it's really the only opportunitiy we have to learn from others. But oh well.

Not a whole lot happened this week in the work, but we taught more lessons and had more nuevo investigadores. Woohoo! This sector is a little bit more stiff than others. They have only had one baptism in the last year, but in two weeks we are going to have 5! Yeah! We're working hard and everything is going great.

Love and miss you all!!
Hermana Evans

Walker Week #25

Okay, so today is p-day and I went to this place called la parke sabana it is a huge park with soccer fields and basketball courts and a roller rink that i couldn´t use but we had like a huge activity where five zones came to this park. Its a pretty big deal because until now the only place we could find to play is the church parking lot

Oh super cool story, I was walking down the street and me and my comp looked up and it was all grey up ahead. We listened and could here rain coming so we got are umbrellas out, and looked up and there was a stream of water coming towards us. So we are like "shoot" and then it started pouring and I mean pouring, as in this road turned into a river that was half way up my shins in a matter a 2 or 3 minutes. so we got to the top of the hill and we couldn´t go the way we wanted to because it was so full of water. So we went the other way. So we are walking down the sidewalk and we find a place that we could cross. And we are sitting there waiting for a spot between the cars that we can cross and one came. Neither of us go. After that I said to my companion "hey why didn´t we cross" and as soon as I said that lightning hits the light post right across the street. It was so cool. You know in the movies when lightning hits light posts and sparks fly every where, yea that happens. It was so cool just standing there and bam, a flash of light and a very loud noise. Then sparks are flying and all the brackets are thrown off the pole. It was so cool and it was right where we would have been if we crossed the street. Anyways I have to go, love you all pura vida

Courtney's Week #18

Guess what! I had my four month mission anniversary! Crazy!!! Granted
I only have two months in Chile, but it is still totally crazy.

So this week, oh my goodness. So my companion and I share the ward and
the house with the other companionship of Hermanas. This companionship
had already been together for 4 months and they were starting to get
on each others nerves so one day they snapped and totally jumped the
line of authority and called president. They went to Santiago for
emergency interviews and all of that, he told them that there was
another companionship of Hermanas that was having problems and that he
would probably give them a transfer. Anyway, so when they found out
the other companionship that they would probably change with, they
realized that they were much happier with their current companion, and
they had a few blissful days of happiness and working really hard, but
they ended up changing anyways. I think that this is all super funny,
and I hope they learned their lesson about complaining about things.
Because now they both have really awful companions.

Anyway, so the new Hermana that lives with us is Hermana Amonzabel
from Bolivia. She was companions with my companion Hermana Martinez
just a few cambios ago and it was really bad. Sometimes there is a lot
of contention in the house with this situation, but I just remind her
that we are not here for anybody but our investigators and she is fine
until the next annoyance occurs. Personally, I just find the whole
situation a little bit funny. But I can respect that not all people
do, so I am trying really hard to be sensitive to the feelings of
others and not offend anyone.

But as for the work, we have a family of really great investigators.
It was super funny though because my companion thought that the name
of the mom was Claritza, and so for weeks she has been reporting to
the ward as Claritza, but when I came I asked her her name, and her
real name is Larissa. Super funny because the ward mission leader bore
his testimony yesterday and announced to the whole ward how great it
was to have Claritza and her kids there. So then the whole ward
started calling her Claritza. I am just really glad that she doesn´t
get offended easily.

This sector requires a lot more time in the street. Before we had to
run from cita to cita, but here we are in the calle knocking doors a
lot. Last week we fasted as a zone to find new investigators and we
saw a little more success. This past week we had 4 nuevos, which is a
lot better than the 0s that we´ve been having, but our nuevos really
aren´t golden and have a long long ways to go before baptism.

One thing that I have learned in the past few weeks is that the Lord
really is happy with my work here. I was really discouraged in the
beginning because I felt like such a failure as a missionary. I kept
praying for the golden investigators to fall into our laps like they
did in my last sector. But one thing that I have learned is that this
isn´t what I needed to pray for. I needed pray for help to find the
way to improve our contacts so people would want to talk to us and for
our lessons to be better and all of those good things. But what I
learned is that even though we are not teaching like crazy, I am doing
everything I can to constantly better myself and my companionship and
as I do this we are seeing more and more success and I know that the
Lord is satisfied with my work. We just have to always remember to
move upward and not be satisfied with where we are, because if we are
not growing we shrinking. Don´t ever allow your testimony to shrink!
Always do more than you did before!!

Anyways, this is my random thoughts for today. I love you Family!! I
miss you a lot!
Hermana Evans

Random funny fact. My companion can´t say my first name. Hee hee.

Walker's Week #24

Q. Dad asked, What is your favorite thing about the country so far?
Favorite thing about the country is definitely the rain, it is amazing how much water can fall out of the sky in 5 seconds.

Q. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best, how is the Spanish coming?
On a scale of one to ten I think I´m at 3. 3, that is a good number.

Q. Can you believe you have been out for a quarter of your mission already?
Another thing, it is not a quarter for like two more weeks, just to let you know. And it has flown.

Q. How much time do you get to do e-mails?
Oh I have an hour to read all emails, as in the two from Courtney, and the one from you guys, and the one from presidente. And then I have to write Pres and you, it is not very much time.

Q. Are you and Courtney E-mailing each other other than including each other in our e-mail?
Yes we email each other.

Q. What food do you like the Best, Worst?
Oh favorite food is piña. Not favorite food is beans. So this week I ate cow stomach, it was pretty awesome not going to lie.

So my companion is the District Leader so he got to go to San Jose this week for to days so I went on divisions con Tajar which is another area in Alajuela. and then we had interviews on Friday from 9 in the morning to 6 at night I was sitting in the church waiting for my 30 second interview. It was pretty fun but we did not work very much in our area. But oh well, so I have to go. love you all

Courtney's Week #17

Hola!!

 

So funny story before I start my email. The keyboard in this ciber started to have problems after like five minutes, the numbers that go along the top of the keyboard and the symbols that go with them and apparently the apostrophe scrambled themselves; so it´s a guessing game to find the question mark and the exclamation point. Anyways, the joys of being in Chile.

 

This week was really good. Oh I have a request really fast, but it may be a difficult if mom is in Canada still next week, but I really want my Chocolate chip cookie recipe from the Betty crocker cookbook. If you could type that up for me that would be great also any other recipes that are excellent, just as an advisement as to what recipes are best here is a little advisement as to what exists here in Chile as far as cooking ingredients. Brown sugar doesn´t exist, they sell like a brick that is really similar in taste, but if you want to use it you have to like grate it with a cheese grater, not so fun, but sometimes its worth it. Peanut butter exists and I use it on a daily basis, but instead of being a dollar for the little jar it is like eight dollars for the little jar. Oh and if you want chocolate chips, you either have to travel to the only store that has them, or what Hermana Stevens and I did was buy a chocolate bar and chop it up into little pieces.

 

Oh and just so you know, the pizza here is like cardboard with sauce and other weird substances on it. It´s pretty bad. The cheese here is really weird too. So pizza is not my favorite party food here in Chile.

 

Hey! I got the package from the ward with the letters from the primary, young women, and I think young men. Thanks! It was awesome! There were a lot of kids who mentioned things like, hey I don´t know if you remember me and stuff like that. Of course I remember them! Maybe it´s just because they don´t remember me. But it was great, it made me so happy. Oh just so you know, in my mission there are two Hermana Evans and also an Elder Evans. So make sure to put my first name on the mail and packages otherwise it goes to the other Hermana until she decides to pass it on to me.

 

As far as the missionary work here in my new sector, well it is a lot of time in the street searching for new people to teach and being rejected a lot. But we have a family of six that we are teaching and they all have a baptismal date for the 21 of Agosto! It is a mom and her 5 kids, they are the exception to what i said last week about the people here being a lot richer. This family lives in a box. Literally a box. You know the tree house that Aunt Teri has, it is more livable than their house, their house is a little bit bigger but that is it. They don´t have electricity or anything, I´m not even sure they have a bathroom. We have to go to their house early in the day because they live by candlesticks in the night time and during the day they open up the walls of their box to let in the light. There is a little space between the floor and the ground so that their house doesn´t flood when the water runs down the hill right next to their house, but this space also means lots of spiders. Anyways this family is really good and they are excited for their baptism. It just shows though that the humble and the meek really are blessed because they are more willing to accept God into their lives.

 

This week I realized one of my talents. I can pretty much get along well with almost all types of people and it is really easy for me to forget the judgement of others. The other Hermanas that live with us had lots of problems this week. They ended up calling President and going in for emergency interviews. Because of this we did intercambios with them several times this week. Even though I had heard so many things about how difficult it was to work with one of the Hermanas we were fine and had spiritual experiences. I had heard similar things about my current companion before I was with her. You just have to make sure that you are doing all that you can to be the best you can be and gently pull them along. I´ve determined that companionship study, which I did not particularly enjoy before, is really inspired and it is the only way that you can get two people that are on two different levels to the same level. Our first week together was rough, but the more we study and share experiences together the more I feel we are truly teaching what the people need. My companion goes home in November, and so I think she had kind of just lost her love for the gospel a little bit. When she taught it was almost as if the gospel was an assignment as opposed to a blessing and our mission being an opportunity rather than just something to complete. It is just so cool to see the effect that people can have on each other. You just have to remember that rather than stepping down to where they are, you need to just beckon them to come to you and help them. It´s really cool. I know that I am here to learn Spanish and to find and teach the people that are waiting for me here, but I think that I am also here to help my companion finish things out strong and remind her of what a blessing the gospel is for her and for the world.

 

So I have decided that the food from Columbia is definitely the weirdest that I´ve seen from my house of Latinas. Hermana Mera cooked some sort of foreign substance with who knows what in it. It pretty much looked like food that had been lost in the refrigerator for a few months. She was offering me some of her food the other night, but I wanted to make sure that it was indeed edible because it looked questionable to me. I asked pointing to the food "¿This is normal?" The other Hermanas started laughing, but she was not amused. I didn´t mean to be offensive, but she has not offered me anymore of her food since.

 

Oh, but to add to this story. This mysterious substance was in the fridge a few days later and the Member that usually feeds us on Sundays was going to be out of town, so she gave us a lasagna ahead of time. I cleared off a shelf in the refrigerator and went to put the pan of lasagna in apparently the top shelf doesn´t fully snap into place and everything fell. I caught the lasagna, but this mysterious substance spilled all over my pajamas and my foot. It was not a happy moment. It was between my toes and everything. District Leader and his companion called right then too, I tried to explain to him that I was distressed because I had a casserole on my foot and in between my toes, but I don´t know the word for casserole in Spanish. Also they don´t have a single word for toes in Spanish, they call them fingers of the foot which I don´t think has the same effect. So I am trying to teach all the Latinas the word tosies.

 

The Latinas are all supposed to study English during Language study each day. It´s so cute to help them with their English and listen to them try to speak it. It´s so funny sometimes, but then I remind myself that that is probably what I sound like with my Spanish, then it is not as funny. But one of the Hermanas that I live with, until yesterday she thought I had 4 or 5 months in Chile because of my Spanish. Hooray! I can kind of speak Spanish! But really my Spanish is sky-rocketing, I still have to say things like blankets for the bathroom when trying to describe towels. But this kind of guessing is pretty much a constant game and I am getting pretty good at it.

 

Out of time! Love you all!!

Walker's Week #23

So yes, me and my companion are still getting along. You keep asking this and I really don´t understand why, I mean its pretty easy.

So this week I decided I needed more than one set of sheets. So I went in search of more. This spur of the moment decision was caused by one of the elders in my house telling me I had bed bugs. But oh well, so I went and found some and guess what, the first time I go to use my card I find out it's expired. So mom and dad I would appreciate it very much if you sent me a new one. But there is one problem that goes with that. It is that you can´t trust the mail here so my companion says that boxes work. So I realize this is a problem but right now I owe my comp 20 bucks. So if you send me a box there are some things I miss. One is ice cream, there is not real ice cream here but I don´t think that would work in a box. Other is my ipod and it would be really nice if you put those speakers that were in my room in there to. That would be tuanis. Oh and some more white shirts would be good. but thats about it so.

How are things going there, have you sold my car yet. If not have you drove it anywhere or is it just sitting in the drive way hoping to be driven. Oh I was thinking that maybe Dad and Hunter could try reuphalstering it. So you can figure out how to do it. But if not oh well.

So how's the leg. Last I heard was nothing. I just heard it was getting better. So I´ve decided I am missing a whole lot of stuff. You guys start talking about stuff and I have no idea what it is. Any ways nothing really exciting really happened here this week.