Welcome to Antarctica!!

Last week I was in this same internet cafe...sweating and almost dying from heat. Today I am wearing my snow boots, giant snow coat..about three different shirts...tights, leggings, five socks and a hat...and I´m still cold! WHAT HAPPENED?! I guess there is no such thing as seasons here. Only burning hot summer and arctic winter. They say all the missionaries gain about 30 pounds (no joke) in the winter. And I am okay with that...anything to stay warm!! More about that later.

This week was wonderful! I think I am finally starting to figure out how to do this thing RIGHT! There is always more to learn and improve of course...but we are making progress! 

Tuesday was my 6 month cumplemes! I woke up to beautfiul signs from all my lovely companions and lots of hugs and my favorite....speeches!! jajajaja My companion also tried making french toast for me. She did a pretty good job. I think she could pass as an american pretty soon! But it was a lovely day that ended with a meltdown over the thought of only having a year left in chile. Only one year left to be  amissionary! Thatis the most devastating thought I have ever thought! I started thinking....I have to return home. And suddenly...thats really scary. I mean there is school...are there really other things to study other than the scriptures and spanish? Dates...that sounds like just about the most awkward thing ever. Being alone with a boy is so not allowed!! Lock your heart!!! And days without kissing everyone...days without talking to everyone on the street...days without sharing the gospel every moment...days without a constant companion...days without spanish...days without bread and manjar...days without the andes surrounding...days without structure and organization...it´s just too much to think about!! I´m getting anxiety. I need to stop. Luckily I have a whole year to get used to the awful reality of leaving this heaven here. 

Moving on...

Congrats to MikaTika on the engagement! Not sure who the boy is but hopefully he is worthy of her! 

Also I dont think any picture has made me happier than seeing that sweet Jenny Sawyer and Jacob know each other por fin! Dream come true!! ;)

Thursday I had a mini cambio and went to Collou. It is a beautiful little town right on the edge of the mountains.It is absolutly gorgeous! Sorry I didnt have my camara with me.

So there are these abuelitos we are teaching. I dont know if I have mentioned them before. But they are three siblings...two sisters and a brother.They are all above the age of 80 and live together in a little house. They are the funniest three things I ever did meet!! The brothers name is Willfredo..and I will not lie. I have never loved anyone more! He is absolutly hilarious!! He also doesnt have any teeth. One night I offered him an apple I was eating...and he took it and started eating it. Watching him eat an apple without teeth was very fascinating. How he did it I do not know.

Friday we had the convert Hector acompany us the whole day.He is another one of the funniest people ever! He has a pretty good english vocabulary and was entertaining me the whole day. He also looked at my arm and let me know that something was very wrong. Between my dog rampage and flea bites it didn't look so great. He deemed it bad enough to go to the urgent care or something. So we walked over to a hospital.And sweet Chile...they treated me for free even though I´m not even a citizen! Anyways...they gave me some medicine for my flea bites because I have an allergy to them or something. I took the medicine the next morning and fell asleep exercising...fell asleep in the shower...fell asleep eating breakfast...fell asleep studying...and when we left I just slept through all the lessons. Finally my companion decided that having me as a zombie in lessons wasn't the best idea so she took me to a members house and I slept off whatever drug the hospital gave me. While I was sleeping the other hermanas showed up because we pretty much had a typhoon or something like that.

I have never experienced rain like we have here! It is insane! It shakes the street and houses. It sounds like bullets shooting down from the sky. This day also happened to be extremely windy and freezing and we all waited in this members house for the strom to pass. Well it wasnt just any member...it was the family gonzalez. Basically my second family here on this earth. While we were there Hermana Gonzalez decided that our rain gear was not good enough (I was sopping wet in about 2 seconds) and she made us all rain skirts and jackets! Just when we were about to leave...there was some shooting on the streets or something and we remembered that this day was a day to celebrate some mass murder or something. And was extremely dangerous. So we werent allowed to leave the house. Between the rain and being able to stay with my favorite family all day...it was basically heaven! I taught hermana Gonalez how to make cupcakes and brownies and we had hot chocolate and sopa pies and rice pudding....it was wonderful! We stayed until night and we could catch a taxi to deliver us to apartment. Yay for days when the streets are too dangerous to walk in!! I decided that this saturday for general conference we are going to make cinnamon rolls. I have no idea where I am going to find all the stuff to make them...but I am going to try!

Hermana Tejerina has some crazy life stories.I will share some of them. She is from Bolivia, yeah? And is only 23 years old. But she has already been primary president for 6 years! She had some awesome ideas about primary so I will share some of them. In her primary they had lots of problems with the kids (6 and 7 years old!!) leaving church and going to the sreets and buying hamburgers and stuff. The kids would say they were going to the bathroom and then sneak out. So she started walking with the kids to the bathroom when they said they had to go. She would tell them ¨Lots of kids have been lying and saying they need to go to the bathroom when they really dont need to...so I am going to stand outside this door and you are not to come out until I hear that you go "pee pee". That seemed to solve the problem. Maybe you could try that with the young woman or something jajaja.

When she received her mission call she got the whole primary really excited about missionary work. She had mini MTC days with the kids.They would all come in in the morning and study together...then they would havea lesson and practice teaching lessons and doing contacts...then she gave them all pamphlets and book of mormons and sent them out for 7 hours to proselyte! These are kids from the ages 5 to 12...

They would go and talk to people in stores and hand out book of mormons. Then they would all meet back at the church and talk about who they taught...who they thought was interested...who could progress etc.

I dont know if I would sent 5 year olds out alone to talk to strangers....but it sounds like such a great idea!

She also would go to each of their houses each week and have interviews...talking to them about how they were with their prayers, scriputres..what service they had done that week...what missionary stuff they had done. What a great primary president! I told her she must come home with me and help us out!

Okay...no time left. Thanks for all the letters and love! This week pray for Alejandro. We are hoping we can get him baptized this saturday. But we are going to need a milagro to do it!!

Oh and how wonderful that general conference is this weekend!! I am super excited to watch it in spanish!!! Actually I think Im really going to miss the voices of Elder Scott and Monson...but I am still excited!

Have a great week of preperation to listen to the voice of the prophet! Do we realize what a amazing opportunity this is!? Dont take it for granted! Make conference..all 4 sessions your FIRST priority this weekend!

Love you all!!

Hermana Orchard