Be Careful What You Pray For

May 11, 1013

Dear Family and Friends! 

Greetings from the middle of Osorno and the tip of South America, where the bread is hot, the rain is constant, the chocolate creamy and where life is good..

Here is the rundown. We were praying with all our little hearts to find more people to teach, and now we have people up the WAZOO. So poor Hermana Reese, who is teaching me to be more organized and I am teaching her how to take things and run with them, anyways Hermana Reese is now very stressed out because we have so MANY to visit. It´s the best! But in her own words ¨be careful what you pray for! Because heavenly father is listening!¨ We are teaching a bunch of young people, such as in their mid twenties, and I love it. Their questions are so interesting, and really insightful, For example, we are teaching German (Herman? Gernan? In all honesty we have no idea how to spell his name) and he looked at us all intently (Fun fact, he looks just like Frodo from Lord of the rings. green eyes included. Don’t ask me how he has green eyes, since he is Chilean. huh.) and asked ¨then what exactly is the gospel of Jesus Christ? And how do you know that you have a relationship with God? How have you felt God in your life?¨ And whew, us missionaries love those questions. He also got really interested when we talked about faith and pulled out his textbook and pointed out that Alma´s definition of faith is almost the same as intuition. Like I said, i think its a blast. It is a breath of fresh air after all the evangelicals and the other characters that we meet on the mission. We were teaching this older woman, Nora, who talked to us for twenty minutes about how she is absolutely convinced that a soul is bright purple and a super tiny ball in our body and she knows this because not only did she see the angel of death, but it also could have resulted from her previous life before she was reincarnated. Oh, and in her previous life she was a Russian Princess. Yup. Anyways back to the point...We taught two chicas, two college students, how to pray this week and I think there are few things more beautiful than seeing the first prayer of someone. I think before my mission, I thought everyone knew how to pray, and now i am learning that VERY few people actually know how. We were teaching Valentina and we asked her to say the closing prayer and then she looked at us and said ¨well, chicas, I have never prayed before!¨I love people´s first prayers. They are always so thankful, and sweet. Obviously, I love it when they say "and thank you for these nice hermanas who visit me" because BOTH chicas said this, and i thought my heart would burst. 

So, here are two skills I never thought I would need and I am learning they are essential, and in all honesty....i am seriously lacking in my handywoman skills.

1. How to chop firewood. With an axe. I think Chile is trying to singlehandedly destroy the amazon forest because everyone and their MOM burns firewood 24-7. Including us missionaries.

2. Dad, I am learning how to paint!!!! With a single hand brush...for a ceiling. Now I know, those roller brushes? Gifts from HEAVEN. We didn´t have one, so now i can write an endorsement for your company about the virtues of professional painters. We helped one of our investigators paint her living room, I managed to get paint on the ceiling, in my face and in my hair, and I had a blast.

3. How to make just about anything from plastic and paper. and TAPE!

Anyways, love you family and cant wait to chat tomorrow! Face to face! Also, thank you to Mel and Charity, I got your letters from  march this week! And my Package! Thank you SOOO much! The chocolate was to die for, 

And the huge picture of Thomas S Monson now lives in our window, with a sign that says "here we are mormons!" hahaha

We are off to prepare for our talks tomorrow in Sacrament meeting! And to try an amazing german panderia...Hope you all have a day as beautiful and tasty..

Besos!

Hermana Monroe