Transfers, training and tears

Oh my.

I dont know where to start. This week has for sure been the toughest yet. 

But first...Emily did WHAT??? 

I mean I guess its not that surprising..but a helicopter too??? I dont know if I want to laugh or cry at that....

Last monday was normal. Except the whole day I had the strongest impressions that I needed to buy warmer clothes...and print pictures...and write my converts and roommates letters. But I ignored all of the thoughts because I knew I had two more weeks to do all of that. But I just couldnt shake a feeling of...not sure..sentiment..or something all day.

Tuesday we went to zone class like normal. 

Right before the opening prayer we got a phone call from president. We ran out of the room to answer it. 

Hermana De Leon answered. She looked really scared...and then kept grabbing my hand and looked like she was crying. I was sure someone in her family had died. I was preparing mysef for that when she got off the phone. Then with big tears she shocked me and said "we have a emergency transfer...you are leaving"

I felt like someone had just slapped my face and thrown me off a building. And immediately I was crying. And dear Hermana De Leon was crying. And we were sobbing and hugging and sobbing and hysterical. We both knew we were going to be seperated in two weeks...but two weeks and one day is very different! All I knew at this point is that I was going to a place called Linares and I was going to be senior companion. 

We walked back into zone class looking like we had just got back from a funeral. We suffered through the class...quietly crying as all the elders stared weirdly. Then I had to get up at the end and announce what had happened and say bye. I couldnt look at Hermana Tejerinas face at all. I just cried. And looked at all these missionaries who have become my family...and cried and cried and cried. 

Then we went to lunch where I had to tell my favorite member family that I was leaving and I cried and cried and cried.

Then we all packed up my stuff the whole day while I cried and cried and cried. I only had two hours to say good bye to everyone...so I could only pick my favorite 4 families. Which was good because I am sure you can guess what I did the whole time....yes I just cried and cried and cried.

At night we tried to have a last little party in our apartment..we bought completos and french fries but I felt too sick and sad to eat. We had a little speech time and my heart broke as I watched my companions cry. And we all just badically cried for the whole time. No one slept at all

Thats pretty much all I need to say. There were lots of tears. I´ll come back to this part later. 

We went to the bus station super early the next morning. We had last goodbye hugs and I bordered the bus. Sure that my heart had broken for good. Knowing that since I was going to a place so far away...and my companions have such a short time left on their missions and live in such obscure countries....the chances of us seeing each other again on this earth are very slim. And that is the saddest thought ever!!!

I had a 5 hour bus ride as I was taken out far far away. Basically to the middle of nowhere. A little town called Linares. Right on the edge of the Andes. It feels almost like another world here.

My new companions picked me up at the train station. And we walked with all my stuff to a little old yellow house. 

Have I mentioned yet who my copçmpanion is? A gringa...american. And I am training her! She is brand new. And cant speak spanish. 

I think the president is crazy. Having me train already. I barely just finished my training. My daughter looked a little scared when she realized her madre had almost the same time in the mission as she had! 

I was very scared at first to train. To not have a translator with me all the time. Every morning for two hours she just looks at me with wide eyes and expects me to train or teach her or something. And somehow...I realize that I actually have a lot to say. 

We have had some lessons where people say they cant understand either of us. And where I really cant understand them either. But overall it hasnt been a total train wreck. 

I think the hardest part is that I feel like I need to be perfect. I need to be the perfect example and teach her perfectly or I am failing and will ruin her mission. But I know thats not really how it is. I just need to work on being patient and forgiving with myself right now. 

Also being patient with my daughter.

Because it requires a lot of patience. I dont think any experience has been quite so frusterating in my life. I dont really know how to explain it. Maybe my thoughts will be clearer next week.

But trying to figure out where everything is...who we need to teach..what to teach...and trying to do everyone by myself is hard. Im not really enjoying it too much. But i know it will get better. 

So I am in a branch here. And the members really dont like us missionaries very much. But the people in general and very nice. They are much more receptive than in Chillancito and I have lots of hope for this place. 

We found a beautfiul family with three cute little boys to teach this week. We taught them the plan of salvation and I think it was the first time I really understood it. 

I have always had a hard time with goodbyes. Especially this week having to say goodbye to my companions who have meant so much to me and who have changed me so much. I was trying to get hermana Tejerina to promise to visit me in the states last min before I left. The thought of not being able to see her again was just too much. And she said something very enlightening..."hermana...how many more years are you going to live?

"probably like 70 at the most right?...yes...well than this is just goodbye for 70 years. Because after that we will both be dead and can be next door neighbors in heaven...forever...and we will never have to say goodbye again."

Goodbyes are really hard. Every time we moved houses and had to leave everyone behind it was hard. When I left for college that was hard. Leaving everyone to come on my mission was hard. But here...the goodbyes just seem more permanent. Because they are. But then I remembered what I am here for. To teach people....that because Christ died for us...we can be with our families and our friends and all the people we love...for eternity. And we will never have to say good bye again. Everything here is just temporary and is just a teeny tiny moment in the eternities. We have forever with all these people that we love so much. 

And we have them forever because we have a Savior who lived and died for us. And how wonderful is that! And how grateful I am for Him! And how happy I will be when I can walk into heaven and again see convert Maria who always held my hand so tightly during church..who was so scared to get baptized because she didnt feel perfect...who always prays for me and my health. And Carolina...who taught me how to make lemon pie and always gave me gloves to wear because I always forgot mine. And Willfredo...who was the entertainment of my life. And Hector...who spoke english in the funniest way and made so many long days delightfully fun..and gave me chocolate manjar eggs when he knew I was leaving. And Hermana Gonzalez..who opened her heart and home so instantly and made me feel like I had a family here in Chile. And my sweet hermana De Leon...who scared me so much at first but has alwasy been the perfect example of obedience, humility and diligence. Who sang in english just to make me laugh...who would rap as I jumped along the street..who took care of me every time I was sick...who shared her boyfriends love letters with me so I could practice reading spanish....who made me tortillas and ahi and who was always extremely patient. And Hermana Tejerina...who taught me how to really love people. Who inspired me to be the best missionary possible and to love my scriptures. And who made weird soups for me that I now am weirdly addicted to. Who stayed up with me when I was sad or stressed and always told me the truth about my face growing larger. 

Yes...it will be a good day. There really arent any endings in eternity...just bright beginnings! 

And I am excited to be here...to meet new people who I know I will love.  And to have the opportunity to progress through training. 

Dont take our plan of Salvation for granted! It is the greatest blessing we could ever have...and one I dont think we will ever comprehend. 

Hermana Orchard

Tsunamis, parasites and LU!

Oh my stars!

This week has been an adventure!

I´m not sure where to start...so I will start with what went down Tuesday night. 

We were all sitting in the church building (well us four missionaries and our ward mission leader) and we were having correlacion. We were talking about our investigators and what not when someone ran into the room screaming about a tsunami...earthquake...8.2..bla bla bla.

Well it wasnt really bla bla bla....I heard the word tsunami and suddenly my lifetime of nightmares ran into my head and I was in total panic mode. 

All I was able to translate into my head (which was filled with images from Day after tomorrow and basically no logic or anything else) was thatv we had to go back to our house...Right away! 

We ran. I screamed the whole way. Acting like a missionary was not exactly in my head during these moments. It was a long 10 min run in which we learned from random passerbys that there had been a huge earthqauke somewhere in chile...and we had huge tsunamis and possible earthqaukes heading towards us...they were planned to hit at 11:00. So we had 30 mins to bunker down in our apt. 

I knew we were far enough away from the ocean that the chances of the tsunami hitting us were small....but we changed into our pjs quickly and sat between our beds covered in pillows....anxiously waiting for the first set of temblors. And we waited. And waited. 

Got some chocolate out. Waited some more. 

The hardest part was just having no idea what was going on. We couldnt look on the internet or the news...or radio..nothing!

Finally we fell asleep and if there was an earthquake during the night it wasnt strong enough to wake me up. 

My poor hermanas that live on the beach had to evacuate their house in the middle of the night in the cold and climb up a hill. haha hmmm

Other exciting things that happened this week....oh yes. I found out I have little bugs living under my skin eating me from the inside. 

Yes. I have received (or at least discovered..who knows how many I have) my first parasite. You know all that talking I have been doing about my endless bug bites...well.

For the last month it has gotten so much worse. I will wake up covered in blood in my bed. And then I will have itching attacks randomly. Where my body feels like it is literally on fire and I am almost in tears because my body just itches so much! I used to have these in the night and would scracth so much in my sleep that I would wake up with huge bruises. So we started tying my hands together in my sleep so I wouldnt be able to itch. Just like they do to babies! 

I wont go into all the details...like how during the day I can feel little something crawling around on my skin...yet I would get so confused because I saw that there was nothing there. But then there would be huge bite marks....ohh so horrible

Anyways...went to the doctor finally about it and came to find out that I have scabies. I didnt know what that was but it sounded really awful. Who knows where I got it from. I kiss every person in my path and sit in some terribly dirty places. In case you dont know..scabies is a parasite of little bugs that burrow under your skin and live there...and bite you. And lay eggs under your skin until you have about a whole village of little bugs...living under your skin. I know, I know. I will stop. It is disgusting and there is probably nothing worse in the world. 

Its also super contagious so the doctor had to come to our house and give us all a strong medicine to take. All the bugs inside me are supposedly dead. But I need to take the meds again in two weeks to kill the eggs they have left. 

Am I giving too much detail?

Its okay if no one ever wants to touch me again. 

But Im just very grateful I dont have to wake up in blood anymore or feel little things running all over me todo el rato. 

Anyways! 

Conference was wonderful, wasnt it? I chose to watch it all in spanish. It just made me appreciate all the english hymns so much more! I could not get over how white everyone looked! Wow everyone looked so pale! I was looking at the choir and was just amazed at the whiteness of skin! 

I could talk about each talk...but will refrain. I know you all were righteous and watched it too. 

Today we visited the University of Concepcion. It is supposedly one of the most beautiful campuses in the world....and I would have to agree. It was breathtaking. It was also super clean and I had a hard time realizing that I was still in Chile. 

I went on a cooking spree this week and smoethered my companions with pancakes pretty much every morning. 

Last week I read an awesome talk by Monson called something about seeing the potential or importance in others. Its oct 2012 if you wantr to look it up. But it talks about our responsibility to have the ability to see others as they could be. Everyone has so much potential. We cant even begin to imagine the potential we have...and the potential everyone has. I mean...each person here has the potential to create worlds! Just think of what people could become if we gave them the opportunity. If we had a little bit more faith in people...and give them a little bit more of a chance. We all know that if you want someone to be nice and honest and good..you have to believe they are that way..and treat them as if they were already that way. Sometimes that is very hard to do...but this week I really tried to do that. To really see others as God sees them...and see their potential. And I think its changing my mission..and my life. 

Its getting me to go talk to the people who normally only whistle at us and swear..and getting me to go to areas that before I was pretty afraid of. And the results have been interesting...if nothing short of miraculous. 

I think if I could learn one thing from my mission...and life..it would be the ability to see others as Christ sees them. And that includes myself too. If we all believed in our OWN potential a bit more..just think of what we could accomplish!

We were not meant to just be weak humans here. We have great things to accomplish! 

I also thought this week...

Did I give up my life for 18 months to come here and just do small things....or to do GREAT things? 

I need to remember that more often. And we all do. 

Lets use our "4 mins" more wisely!

Love you all! 

Have a great week! 

Is it Easter this week? I dont even know

Hermana Orchard

We found a chinese restaurant last week...it just tasted like chilean food though haha but it was fun

Pancakes I made

Everywhere you go are just random piles of trash

Willfredo...my favorite man in the world

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

All Dogs go to Chile

Can you believe next week is April??!! 

How crazy is that! Want to hear something even crazier?

Tomorrow I complete 6 months in the mission....1/3 of my mission is done!

I only have a year left!!

See you in 365 days!

ha

This week I completed many different life goals. 

The first is I learned how to make Chilean Lemon pie! Its pretty much the best thing ever so learning to make it was essential. Mom said my last letter was only about food so I am going to try and not talk about it much in this letter...which is hard because I am hungry..

But anyways...Carolina (basically my best little 18 year old friend here....3rd companion....star member ward missionary) taught me! We had a lovely time making it. Then it was time to go home for the night so me and Hermana De Leon started walking home....with the pie in my arms. We were normally walking along...singing...saying hola to every creature....when a pack of dogs ran by. About three different ones came and crashed into me with such force that I completely fell down...and the pie went up up up and down down down on the ground. Rey triste. 

At first my companion was only worried about our smashed pie...and then she saw my arm. 

I had happened to fall on glass (as there is glass and trash in every inch of the streets here) and scraped up my arm and hand pretty bad. We ran home and spent the next hour trying to dig out the glass and stop the blood. My arm survived. But sadly the pie did not. Just another experience that makes me wish there were pounds here. Really...WHERE ARE THE POUNDS??

Other life goal completed

Our relief society has been having knitting parties every saturday. We take our older investigators to them and its great. Except I cant knit. I have tried thousands of times....well okay maybe only like four or five times in my life....

But it just hasnt been something I have been able to do. 

Luckily I live with the amazing and incredibly patient Hermana Tejerina....who spent 6 hours with me as I cried..threw fits...threw needles...and just COULD NOT learn how to tie those tiny knots. 

But miracle of all miracles....last night I finally figured it out. Hermana Tejerina cried tears of joy that she did not have to resist the urge to suffercate me anymore. 

I plan to make everybody scarfs! But first me....because its really cold here now!

Oh Hermana Tejerina...such patience. Anyone who can be patient enough with me to teach me both spanish AND how to knit! What a rockstar.

Last Monday we had an activity for the hermanas at the house of the president. I love going to his house. It has carpet!!! And you dont have to wear your shoes inside! Or a sweatshirt or kill bugs every five mins! Its basically heaven!! We ate french toast which was great...but they had WHIPPED CREAM!! Oh such tears of happiness.

To try and get people to our English class, we have turned it into an English/American foods class. Last week we made brownies. Brownies are kind of a magical thing here. Everyone knows what they are...but no one knows how to make them or really what they are. People were fascinated. It was pretty funny. They didnt turn out too great but you would have thought that I set pure gold on the table.

Saturday I needed to stay at a ward activity to our convert Maria...but we had some appts far away so my companion took a member and went and did that. I walked Maria back to her house and waited for my companion there. She took a really long time coming to get me so I got to hang out with Maria for awhile. Her daughter is a profesional chef of pastries or something. She came out and said "What American food have you been missing lately?". I have thought about that a lot and without hesitation said "pancakes". Not only did she make me wonderful pancakes with manjar and dulce de leche....but also amazing fried fish....and hot chocolate and basically I was in heaven.

Opps. I have already spent half this letter talking about food.

Okay. We have been setting really high goals for contacts lately. This last week we were returning back to our house at night but still had about 15 more contacts to reach our goal. We passed a soccer game and counted the players on the field. 15. Perfect. We thought maybe if we just kind of stood on the side of the field they would stop the game and we could contact them all at once. But they didnt. We didnt have much time so I basically just ran out into the field yelling in english and they all stopped and looked pretty surprised. We were able to give them all a nice little presentation and invite them all to church. A few of them seemed interested. A few threatened us and told us to get off the field. We`ll see what happens. It was pretty funny. My poor companion...I don't think she ever knows what to do with me.

That is super cool about your missionary experience yesterday! It is amazing how some people are just so ready and prepared! Members are so important to have in lessons. We have been teaching this one lady for probably three months now. She has made progress in different areas but just never commits to baptism. We had pretty much given up on her when we passed by her house with a recent convert. We had him share his baptism experience and this lady who is always so hard...and who we just have not been able to connect with cried. And committed to baptism!! Oh the members are so important!!

Our little family has been struggling but I think they are finally back on track. They have a little daughter who is 2 years old and pretty much the most darling thing on this earth.  She will run up to me and yell "asha"...the closest thing she can say to orchard. It melts my heart. Oh please pray for them!

Chile is the best! I never want to leave. I can't imagine the experiences and love I would have missed if I had decided to not serve a mission. There is nothing better. I am convinced of that with 200% of my corazon.

Have a great week!!

Hermana Orchard

Completos and mountains of food...aka I'm getting fat!!!

Whoohooo! Another week has come and gone. Crazy. Somedays I literally feel like I arrived here in Chile yesterday. And then I try to remember what it is like in America...

Can you really walk down the street without a crowd of 40 dogs?

Do people really have CARPET in their houses??

Was there a time when I didn't wake up drenched in blood from a night of fleas snacking?

Was there a time when I wasn't a missionary?

And sometimes it feels like I have only been here my whole life.

Either way...its going by super fast, but I love every moment dearly!!

First of all....HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!

All my companions agreed that based on your pictures you must be turning 25. One of my companions thought your picture (of you surfing or something) was of an american model and tried to tape it up in her study room. No joke. It was kind of awkward. Anyways....

One day at lunch a member mentioned that they have some Mormon movies....and we just happened to get a teeny tiny DVD player....so naturally we had to have a movie night!!

We also discovered (worst/best discovery ever) that there is a little food place that delivers! So we ordered a bunch of completos and french fries and watched The Other Side of Heaven on my bed. It was fun.

In case I havent talked about completos yet...they are basically hot dogs. Well...its a hot dog that is in a huge thing of bread. Kind of like a loaf of french bread or something. Not sure how to describe it...but they toast the bread around the hot dog and MOUNTAIN it with gaucemole, tomatoes, mayonnaise, ketchup and basically every thing possible. They are really good. Like really really good. We also eat french fries all the time. Everyone makes homemade french fries. They are also really good. Another thing I havent mentioned is that food is really cheap here. You can just walk by a little panaderia and but bread, empanaadas, ice cream, little pastels or anything for basically nothing. 

And these little panaderias are about every 5 feet. People have them outside their houses...or just about everywhere. Like yesterday...we were walking down this random street in the cerro when we passed a sign that said "Calsone rotos...10 pesos". 10 pesos is like a penny. I said to my comp "what is that" and a lady out of no where came and invited us into her house where she had mountaisn of these scone things smothered in this sugar thing. We bought some and happily walked down the street eat heaven. One day we will be rolling down these streets eating..ahhh

One more quick thing about food....everyone here has tea parties! Its the best! Every night. And we CANNOT teach a lesson without sitting down and eating with them first. Lots of tea and this coffee type thing. Lots of bread with cheese, jams, manjar and sopa pies. Lots of scones...and little cakes. I love it. And hate it. But I do love how everyone just stops everything to sit down and eat...with whoever is there! Chile is so much more family and people centered than us. No one ever has their phones out....I never see computers or tvs or ipods. People are always just talking. Sitting on their porch talking...sitting around the table talking....eating...talking...cooking...talking. 

And no one cares about getting fat. Most people are fat. But no one cares. And it makes eating time so much more enjoyable. People just eat what they want. There are no party downers who sit on the edge not eating because they are watching their weight or anything. Obviously there are good and bad parts to this...but its really refreshing. Here the value of peoples personalitys and hearts completely drowns out how someone looks. Which is good....because as my companion likes to tell me...my face is cresending. (growing). 

A word about gorwing up in latin america. I have really been trying to figure out what growing up in Latin America is like. When I told my companions that school doesnt get out til 3:00 and after kids have to do homework...they were shocked! Down here school gets out at 12:00...for all ages. And after people dont really have homework. The whole family comes home for lunch and has a couple of hours together before the parents go back to work. Whole families live together...grandparents..cousins...and everyone gets along! 

You can drop by someones house at midnight and they will immediately invite you in and feed you. I cant think of many people who would be happy with me dropping by their house unannounced at midnight. 

One other kind of weird thing. My companions....who are into their 20s have never had a job! Apparently the parents are expected to pay for EVERYTHING until the children are married. Even if the family is poor...the kids aren't supposed to work or get jobs. Its a huge shame on the family if the kids have to get a job before their marriage. (Even after they pay for a lot too). So my question was..."what on earth did you do your whole life if you got done with school by noon?"....hang out with friends...help my grandma cook...sew...go to dances...

It sounds kind of crazy....but good. What a nice slow way of living.  Nothing's rushed...no one is stressed...everyone just helps each other out and is just...nice and I don't know how to describe it. We can learn a lot from this culture. Not exactly the kids not working part (that is not what I am trying to get at here) but the slowing down thing. People care much more about spending time with their family than spending time working to make money. 

I have gone on enough tangents this week. 

A few more little tidbits....I started teaching piano classes! In the chapel. No one has pianos here or knows how to play. Its kind of hard to teach without books and in spanish but just the chance I have to touch a piano again (even if it isn't real) is priceless!! 

I have been completely attacked by fleas this week. I wake up in blood and find little fleas dead all over my sheets. I spray everything...I wash my sheets all the time. I don't know what to do. I have little bites covering my entire body. It looks like I have the chicken pox or something. At night I can feel them crawling under my clothes and biting me. Its horrible. Pray I can find a solution. p.s....they only eat us americans!! 

Alright....thats good for now. I´ll have a much more organized ermail next week. 

Hermana Orchard

These grandmas were my first lesson here in Chile