VIVA CHILE!!!!
Place: Hualqui
Companion: Hermana Sanchez Date: 01-30-12
Hola Mi Familia!!!!!
Buenas Tardes! How is everything going? I really hope all is going well. It was so good to talk to you last Monday, it made my day so much to be able to hear your voices! and to hear the things are going well! Things are going amazing here in Chile! I absolutely love it here! Ok I have a question, I just saw your email and it said that you only have 16 pictures on the it? That is really weird? I just figured out why it is because I was printing picutres out at the same time that I made the CD so it probably only put that pictures that I decided to print out, well we are in luck because I didn´t erase the memory card, so I´ll try to make another one here soon and I´ll send it to you. Ok well that answers that question, and as for packages I haven´t asked yet give me another week and I´ll figure some more things out there was a lot to take in this week and I´m staring to settle in. haha guess what according to President Humphrey, who is so amazing by the way, there was a 7.0 earthquake the day before I came in, crazy, but no worries the Lord watches out for us! and nothing has happened since I have been here! It is all safe!
Very funny story! So while at the MTC my companions and I were talking about how we were hoping we would get a native companion, and I actually said a prayer asking that I would get a native companions, and guess what as we all know prayers are answered!! Because I have a native companion from El Salvador, as you have read her name is Hermana Sanchez! I love her so much she is such an amazing missionary, but I have to admit it is really hard having a native companion, porque it is hard to understand eachother at times because of the language barrier, pero she is able to understand enough English where I can communitcate to her for understanding if I don´t understand which is really nice. And what really helps is in our house we are living in there is four of us Hermana Sanchez and me, then there is Hna´s Kramer and Carmona. Something cool if because Hermana Sanchez is my trainer she is my "Mom" and I´m her daughter, that is what they call us here, and we is really cool is because Hna. Sanchez is sisters with Hna Carmona´s mom, me and Hna. Carmona are cousins! :) I know it is somewhat confusing but not too bad. I was born here in Hualqui (Which remember the H is silent so it is pronounced like wal-kee, or somthing like that) and each week you are in the mission you gain a year, so I´m now offically a year old! and I´m going to get older! :)
Hermana Kramer is from Utah so I have someone to translate for me when I really don´t understand, and Hermana Carmona is from Spain! They are both amazing it is good to have Hermana Kramer to talk to, and we are so much alike what is even cooler, and I love, love, love Hermana Carmona, she is the funniest, most outgoing missionary there is! haha the other night we had just gotten done with daily planning and I was getting ready for bed when all of a sudden I see out of the corner of my eye Hermana Carmona with a water bottle and she totaly sprayed me with the water and said "YOU ARE BAPTIZED!!" No worries I totally got her back! :) haha pero I shouldn´t of told her that everytime I say sorry, which those who know me know I say that a lot, I told her everytime I said it she could baptized me! But I have been much better at not saying it, I have only said it four times, and she is definitly keeping track cause she loves "baptizing" me, pero I´m really scared cause I don´t know when she is going to do it, because it has been a few days and she still hasn´t gotten me! I guess you´ll hear next week if I have been baptized multiple times or not.
haha but I love all of my hermanas! They are so helpful with me and helping me learn the Spanish! haha for one example the other day I was learning how to do contacting better, because I have the goal to contact 15 personas cada dia, and so they were helping me pronouce the words right and to figures out what to say and to have more confidence in myself which I´m getting better at, pero the funny part was Hermana Carmona went into the bathroom and we pretended like it was a house to knock on the door, (oh as a side note we don´t knock on doors here in chile, you have to yell "halo" porque everyone has fences so we can´t get to the door.) ok but back to the story I would knock on the door and she would answer it and would pretend to be someone else that I was contacting. haha I tell you the experience that we had was like the "outtakes" in a movie because we just kept laughing or I kept messing up, we did it about 20 times and she would do something different each time, but it was funny, at one point I actually did the contact completely perfect and Hermana Carmona screamed and jumped at me because I got it completely right, scared me half to death at first porque she charged at me trying to jump in my arms, but it was so funny!
Hermana Sanchez is absolutely amazing! She really pushes me to so my best, at speaking the language, she has me do different goals each day, the first day I got here she had me contact, which I´ll be honest scared me, because Chileans speak super, super, super fast, it is so hard to understand them, pero I´m understanding little by little here and there. It just comes with time. She has had me be the one who invites that person to be baptized and I have done it about 3 times so far. oh and the other day we were on the bus and she looked at me and said, "ok time to contact" and just left me and sat somewhere else. So I had to contact the person that sat next to me! I did it because she asked me the first person that sat next to me I didn´t understand anything, except for yo soy catolico, meaning I´m catholic, he spoke fast. but that is how it is, I´ll hear "catholic, daughter, baptism" only for example not nessicarily and I have to put it together to guess at what they are saying, and then later that night she did it again and I said next to a lady that I contacted and told her in my best spanish about the gospel and she told me she was catholic and then began to take out her bible to tell me things which luckily we got to our stop, cause I would not be able to be a situation like that alone porque I´m really slow right now but again "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little" and I´ll understand what is going on. During our lessons I really don´t say much, I´ll bear my testimony, which is really good because it is the most important thing I have, but It is going well! I really love it here and the people are amazing we are teach 9 people at the moment and just to name a few are Fernanda, who is a 14 year old girl and she is so sweet and really listens to everything we have to say, I hope she continues to progress! and Then there is Jeremy and Elizabeth, both of them came to church with us the other day, and then we went to there house later and gave Elizabeth a book of mormon and then we had I scones with them, I´m sure it is called something else but I can´t remember, but that is what they looked like, and we had avacadoes and tomatoes on them. All of our investigators are amazing, please keep them in your prayers! The people in Chile are so humble and so nice here, just last night when we were at Elizabeth´s she went up stair really fast and came back and gave Hna. Sanchez and I a pair of earrings! they are beautiful! but people here will just give missionaries things, and I guess we get quite a few earrings, according to Hna. Kramer, so amy you are going to have fun when I get home! :)
I need to wrap this letter up becaue it looks like Hna. Sanchez wants to go, but I will write more next monday on P-day! Oh by the say Dad you DearElder got to me so it looks like that is a good way to send letters, I´ll find out about packages, but I really don´t need anything I don´t want you to spend that much, it is expensive. Ok well I have to go I love you all so much and again I hope all is going well! Know that things are amazing here! Oh by the way people here love the family picture I have of you guys cause I keep it in my Spanish scriptures and I show people to explain about my family, so there are people in Chile who know what you look like! No worries is a really good picture! :) Take Care I love all of you so much! and I will share more wonderful experiences of Hualqui in about a week!
Love Always and Forever!
Hermana Aubrey Jo England
