Sept 16, 2013
Dear American Family
and Friends
It´s 18th de
Septiembre time!!!! And it´s fabulous--like the fourth of July meets Prom and
Spring with a big Chilean twist and wayyy too much fried food.
But I have had this
realization that my letters lately have been slightly lame (fúme, as the Chileans
would say it) and so I am repenting and trying to send you a little bit more
information
I want to share with
you the most important people and the most important things in my life right
now..
Most Important People:
First of all,
obviously would be my companion, Hermana Mahterian. She is from California, we
met in college, and is an event planning major so our theme as a companionship
has been...drumroll----go BIG or go home. And oh boy. We eat, breathe and sleep
the work. and together, we have been planning all sorts of shenanigans such as
a night for all the woman named "the worth of woman" and a
"happiness booth" for the local fair. But seriously… we work SO hard.
(and eat more plain greek yogurt than anyone else i know.)
2. Mamita and Papita.
They are converts of about two years ago and are about the sweetest people you
will ever meet. Vladamir is like Dan and Mamita is like sister sabin and they
are SAINTS. They are our papitas because they feed us lunch every day (a grand
three course meal affair here in Chile with fresh bread every day) and built us
the little house that we live in behind their house, lend us things, brought us
soup when we didn’t feel well, and pray on a consistent basis that our families
can know that we are taken care of here in Chile. Since they don’t have any
children, they have adopted us and spoil us rotten.
3. Monica, Elmo,
Fernanda and Fam: Monica is the one that has been a member all of her life, is
one of the most beautiful woman I know (her most used line: ¡Que Linda!) but
her husband is a heavy drinker and a professor of philosophy and Fernanda is
her 17 year old daughter that just had her little baby girl, Fernandita. They
are one of the most kind family, and in this moment when they hit rock bottom,
they are all trying to receive their own personal testimony to see if the
church is true.
4. Gladys. Wow. Where
to begin with Hermana Gladys. She is what they call "eternal
investigador," since she has been investigating the church for YEARS and
years...and her daughter Kote is serving a mission in Columbia. So although she
doesn’t live in our sector, we went to visit her since she wanted to see sister
missionaries. We went and BAM, bore testimony that her daughter is working to
make families eternal and invited her to take the steps to make her family
eternal. She began to cry and said that she thinks that finally, her time has
arrived. Just this week, we got permission to have her as our investigador and,
but the morning before we found out, we were doing weekly planning and both
felt very prompted to put that we could have a baptism the next week (to our
utter surprise). We went to visit her, unsuspecting, and as we talked with her
she started telling us about her testimony about the church and we felt
prompted that SHE was who needed to be baptized. We bore our testimony, read
with her, prayed with her, invited, and she accepted. She said "my
daughter said that we would see miracles when the sisters came here to
Purranque, and I think the Lord sent you because it´s my time. I need to take
this step, I can stop smoking. It´s like having my daughter here." I
cried, Hermana Mahterian cried, she cried and it was beautiful. (hashtag
miracles...)
5. The other important
people...Fernanada and Fabian. They are the couple, with their daughter, who is
progressing RAPIDLY and this week, Fernanada went to church again,
participated, everyone loves her, and her daughter Katy went SPRINTING to the
primary after sacrament meeting because now she knows where all the fun is (hehe).
Fernanda wants all the books, all the hymns, and one of the elders told me
"yeah...she´ll probably be the RS president after she is baptized."
So now we just need to get Fabian on the same page. And a wedding. whew.
Okay...now for the
favorite things..
.
Our Free happiness
Booth. Purranque has a Feria every Saturday, or this huge local fair where
everyone sells clothes and food. So we came up with the idea to set up a booth
with music, pamphlets, pass a long cards and huge signs that say "Free
Happiness" and with information about the church. The whole time we were
planning it I was thinking about the advice of Michael before I left on my
mission. He said, "be creative! It´s so much easier to let people come to
you than to knock doors!" Honestly, It was so fun and I felt like part of
the community. All of Purranque was saying "Huh. The Mormons have a booth
over there. What in the world?" and the elders helped us out a million.
And it´s only going to get better (new and improved version next with with Mormon
messages coming up soon)
Noche de Mujeres: el
Valor de Mujeres. Hermana Mahterian and I have seen SO many families where only
the wife is a member, and it is HARD. Also, we are working with a program of
assignments to help less actives return and feel needed so we decided to
combine the two, and are having a grand activity with workshops (like a
"more healthy life" another about "the self esteem of
women" with the sister who is a psychologist and one "the secrets of
the kitchen" and things like that") and we have made invitations and
are just going crazy having fun planning this. It´s seriously right up my
alley--all the women self esteem stuff, you know, not the whole planning all
the details--and the relief society and all the sisters are getting enthused.
It´s in a week and a half and I am stoked!
Other favorite
things...TEA. we drink it here more than water. For example the other day, I
asked mamita if I could have water and she looked at me shocked "Water???
From the FAUCET Why in the world? But it is so cold!!? You don’t want
tea?"
But this week is going
to be crazy, get ready for the pictures next week of hermana mahterian dancing
the cueca!
Love and besitos!!
Hermana Monroe
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