Courtney's Week #65

 

Hola!

Well, this week has been super awesome. I have been working really really really hard this week on loving my companion and trying to find constructive ways to help her learn. It has been a little bit of a struggle but things are starting to progress. 

So this week was so awesome, oh, I already said that. But de verdad, it was full of ,miracles! So yesterday was the most awesome. So we are teaching this family called the Familia Martín. It is a super super big family that we have been teaching for a while, but the problem is that the adults that live in the house aren´t really commited, but there are lots of kids that live there too. Catalina (15), Javiera (14), Carolina (10), y Benjamin (8). Really the kids have a strong desire to get baptized but it is kind of hard since their parents don´t have that desire, but this week Catalina y Javiera went to church and they brought one of their cousins with them. It was super super awesome. 

Then a few hours later we were a little bit late for an appointment but for some reason I felt like we needed to pass by a few houses of old investigators that we had records of from like two years ago. There was one lady on our list called Bernarda, we went to the house and there were people leaving we talked to them and said that we were looking for Bernarda, they acted a little bit surprised, but went to go look for Bernarda. Bernarda came to the gate and she actually didn´t even live there, but she was visiting her daughter for a few hours because she just had her hair done in the salon accross the street. Bernarda just had heart surgery and is super ready to hear a message about God. My heart was full of gratitude, only God could have put so many circumstances like that together. 

So my companion had a really bad experience while trying to do our street contacts a couple days ago and it scared her a little bit and became super reluctant to do her contacts. So anyways, yesterday I encouraged her to talk with a lady in the street and this is mas o menos how the conversation went:

Hermana Ruiz: But they´re catholic.

Yo: It´s okay, our message is for everyone.

Very scared look from Hermana Ruiz, a nudge from me and she started talking to the lady. 

Hermana Ruiz: What´s your name?

Lady: Why do you want to know my name?

Hermana Ruiz: We´re missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Lady: Oh yeah. I´m a Jehovah´s Witness. 

Hermana Ruiz (very timidly): Our message is for everyone.

Lady: Yes I´ve studied a lot about your religion. You guys focus on the The Book of Mormon instead of the bible. But it says in Galations that anything that isn´t in the bible is maldito, so your religion and the book of mormon are maldito.

 

Note-I will let you guys translate the word maldito to English. But needless to say, Hermana Ruiz was dumbfounded and I was not exactly rejoicing.  

I started talking to the lady after trying my best not to be super defensive and angry which is how I felt, but in the end as it says in the Book of Mormon when the anti-christs tried to argue with the prophets, she was confounded in her words. Oh Yeah! That´s what happens when you argue with a representative of Jesus Christ, so I guess that´s a little cocky. But really it was a cool experience to see how God will put the correct words in your mouth if we are righteous and we have studied. 

Well, I am out of time. 

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #71

So this week wasn´t so good, so we are teaching this awesome family (Guillermo and Angelica). They are so awesome but this week one of Guillermo's nephews died so they took off to Nicaragua. So this week we went up to some cross on top of a mountain. So of coarse I had to get to the top. Yeah I was the only one. And then we have a nice view of San Jose.

So it is freezing in here, I´m just going to go, adios.

Courtney's Week #64

Hola!

Well, how are things going. So my new trainee is...Hermana Ruiz. She is from Peru. This change there were 4 hermanas that arrived, 3 were from Peru and 1 from Nicoragua. I was kind of a little disappointed just because I haven´t really had the best luck with Latina compañeras during my mission. I think I must have just a very strong Gringa culture, so anyways it is definitely going to be a challenge trying to train poor Hermana Ruiz. I´m still working on trying to overcome the little things that don´t really matter but that kind of drive me crazy, for example she has a tendency to pet my tummy, especially right after meals and when we are taking photos. It kind of drives me crazy super fast, but anyways, just the little things that don´t really matter. 

So Hermana Ruiz is super super shy, so that has been a struggle, even though she already speaks the language I think that Hermana Ruiz will be 10 times more difficult than Hermana Wilcock. Poor Hermana Ruiz pretty much breaks out in tears every time I give her suggestions to improve. Bah! Well, no one said that things were going to be easy, right? I am sure that in the end, with muchisimo pacience, love, and help she will be a great missionary. But one thing that is super funny when we do street contacts if the person doesn´t stop instead of walking calmly beside them she kind of hops along sideways. It is really funny to watch and every time I just give thanks that at least she had the nerve to talk to someone. 

So Funny story, we had just finished the meeting for all the trainers and the new missionaries where we had just met our new companions and then everyone went down to the subway with all of the suitcases and everything to go to our individual sectors. So we got on and so did some other elders, well the door started to close and one of the brand new missionaries got stuck outside without his trainer. The elders tried prying open the door, but in the end the brand new missionary was left behind and the subway took off. It was so sad, the new missionary was pretty much in tears. There were other elders that didn´t make it on the train either and so they all just met back up in the next station, but it was super sad. His trainer didn´t even have his companion for 10 minutes and already lost him. 

Last week I was in intercambios while I was waiting for my companion to arrive and I taught a lesson with one of the other trainers in her sector. The investigators were kids and in the middle of the lesson they started to lose attention a little bit, so immediately I pulled out my nursery leader skills and had them put their hands on their head, on their shoulders, and then fold their arms. The other trainer was in shock, she was amazed at how well it worked and said she was definitely going to use that trick again. It was kind of funny to see how much I had learned in the nursery and how it helps me in my mission in funny ways. 

Well, that´s all for this week!

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #70

Hey what's up, so this week was pretty uneventful. Just lots of rain. Saturday it rained a lot all day and the mountain started coming down on a members house. Well not really the mountain just a lot of water it was pretty sweet for me not so much for them, but I thought it was cool. So I tried to use my debit card the other day and it didn´t work so yea that was exciting. So my companion is from Honduras "go figure that one" he is pretty cool. He is kind of shy but we´re working on that. So I don´t really have anything to say so adios

Courtney's Week #63

Hola!

Well, so I guess I will start out with the cambios. Hermana Wilcock finished her training yesterday and today she was sent to a different part of the mission with a missionary from Argentina. She will be great! Training is difficult, I feel as though I learned so much in the last two changes. I have never cried with cambios of companions, but I sure cried today. Hermana Wilcock is so awesome, I am very grateful for the opportunity that I had to be with her and to be her trainer. 

So, may seem hard to believe after I just talked about how hard it was to train, but tomorrow I will recieve my new companion and I will be training again. I am kind of a little reluctant, but excited at the same time. 

A little funny story, I guess its not really that funny, but still. So the secretary in the office changed recently to a different Elder. I called this morning to find out who I would be with and where until my new companion arrives tomorrow and he told me that I would be with two other missionaries but in my own sector, so I went to the office to drop off Hermana Wilcock with her new companion and found out that the secretary didn't call the other missionaries at all. So the new plan I am going to Lampa to spend the night and I did not bring anything with me. So I will be using the same clothes tomorrow and everything and maybe sleeping in them as well. As far as hygiene products I haven't quite figured that part out yet. Oh well, it will be a great first impression for my new companion, right?

So now I really do have a funny story, this week we were walking in the part of our sector that is super countryish and this guy passed us in the street and was like "Hey, be careful of the wizards over there." It was probably the most random thing to say, but it was super funny. 

Other thing, this actually happened two weeks ago, but I forgot to tell you guys. So the member who usually conducts the music in Sacrament meeting was late to arrive, and so they asked me if I could do it. So here in Chile there aren't a whole lot of people who know how to play the piano, and so in a lot of wards what you do is the person who is conducting sings like the first line of the song so that everyone knows the tone and then everyone sings acapella. The opening song was "I know that my redeemer lives," but just like in English there are two different songs that start like that and they are on the same page. Well, being super excited because one of our investigators just showed up and not really paying attention, I gave the tone for the wrong song, and started everyone singing. People started singing the two different songs, it was pretty much a disaster. I had to stop the music and start over. It was pretty funny, but a little embarrassing too. 

Well, that's all I have for this week. I will let you guys know how things go with my new companion. I do not even know if it is a Latina or una Norte Americana, but I will know by tomorrow. Cuidense mucho!

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

Walkers's Week #69

Hey, whats up
So guess what I didn´t have changes, woot woot. And neither did my companion. This last week we had another baptism two of the kids of Magali. Their names are Jackson age of 16 and Dixon who is like 13. And their sister or the daughter of Magali wants to be baptized this Saturday. So we are trying and see if we can baptize the dad too.
So we are changing Mission Presidents. Our president pretty much told us good bye today. So today when we were all shaking his hand and telling him bye he shook my hand and told me I was doing a good job in Santa Ana. That is probably the best I have felt in all my mission. So I´m kind of late today because there was an accident on the highway. So its going to be kind of short, but good bye.

Courtney's Week #62

Well, this week was super awesome. But I guess before I get started I should probably let you guys know about what is going on with my neck. So my headaches have gotten super strong and so I talked to the Mission President's Wife about it. Turns out that they can't find a chiropractor here in Chile, But Hermana Eulitt one of the couple missionaries that fixes all the doctor appointments for the mission knows an old lady that used to have a little business type thing fixing people, but she retired a while ago. So they suggested that I give it a try. Well, the good news and the bad news is that the grandma didn't even pop my neck. That is good news because I'm am almost positive she is not licensed to do that. She had a lot of little diplomas on her wall, but I started reading them they were for things like cosmetology and things like that. The bad news is that I am positive that the vertebrates in my neck are the source of the problem. 

But funny story about that, so we went with the Hermana Eullit to this old lady's house. I told my companion ahead of time that there was no way she was going to leave me alone in some old lady's house. But when we got there the old lady wanted Hermana Eulitt to come in too because they are friends or something. Anyways so I told her about the problem that I have with headaches and how I treated it in the past and she was like "okay, well I like to treat things for the whole body because the whole body is connected, so lets get started, take off your clothes." I was like "what in the world--I do not want to take all my clothes off, that doesn't sound very fun." So then she was like "oh well it appears as though you have lots of layers on so I guess you can leave a few layers on" So in the end of things I had my garments, my black tights, my bra, and a long sleeve undershirt that I had on, but I still felt very naked, especially for a missionary. She gave me pretty much a full body massage which I feel was very much needed after over a year of walking and proselyting in a foreign country, but I am not really sure it did any good for my neck or my headaches. My companion told me she was well-tempted to take a picture as I was sitting there, the thing is the lady kept telling me to relax, how am I supposed to relax when I don't have very many clothes on?

Anyways, other news so my companion got a "Dear John letter" this week from her ex-boyfriend that she dated for five years, but she is actually okay with that. After discussing for a while she decided "I guess that is just God's way to show me a big sign that I have something else in store for me" it was pretty cool. But I have to say, her "Dear John" was about the worse that I have ever heard. It said in the very first line. "Well, I guess I will jump right to the point. I am engaged and getting married in August." But then after that he pretty much confessed that he was still in love with her. It was pathetic. 

Also this week, my companion through a little surprise celebration for my one year anniversary in Chile. Well, almost surprise, it is kind of hard to do anything surprise when you are together all of the time, but nonetheless it was still awesome, and I was a little bit surprised. 

So as far as missionary things, this week we focused a lot on helping our investigators to actually read The Book of Mormon, the result was pretty awesome, we would read with them for a little bit and afterwards they didn't want to stop reading. It was really cool to see also the change that it make in our investigators in their countenance and everything. The Book of Mormon is True!! It can change your life, just put forth the effort to read it! 

So we had interviews with President this week, it was actually a little weird because I didn't really have anything to say because everything is going great. Changes are next week though, I really really hope that we stay the same, I love my companion and this is a really awesome sector. 

Well, I am out of time. I love you all!

Hermana Evans