March 30, 2015 - Maipu!

It truly has been a week of miracles!!                                                             March 30, 2015

Tuesday: zone conference!  We had 3 zones at this conference.  We are the only sisters in our zone, there were none in one, and 3 sets in the other zone.  It was so fun to meet some other sisters.  There aren´t very many of us in this mission, so I am hoping to get to know more throughout my time.

 waiting for the train to get to zone conference

 all of the Hermana's at zone conference, the other 3 sets are in another zone

 Wednesday: We talked to soooooooo many people today, somewhere between 30-50!  We are trying to meet people to teach, so lots of abrir la boca.

 Thursday: Oh my! So in trying to find a young man´s house, we started talking to this family, who set up an appointment with us!  We didn´t end up finding his house, but more on this for

Saturday.  We also had a woman, in trying to find an antiguo investigador, come up to us, ask us what religion we are, and tell us, I am interested, when can you teach me!!! What??  We are going by today, so we are praying that she will be there.

 Friday: So, again, we had lecciones planned, but all of them fell through, which is basically what happens every day, but we still had faith that Saturday would be better

 Saturday:  What, another day!! Amazing!  So, we finally found the young man´s house, and he is interested, and we are going by tonight!!  Hopefully we can bring the spirit with us.  Also, the family!!!  They have been so prepared by God!  Life has been really hard for them, especially recently, and they have had bad experiences with other churches in the past.  Therefore, we are emphasizing how this is a church of Christ, not man, and are not pushing them too fast.  There are three generations, the grandma, her children, spouses, and grandkids.  We taught 5 of them on Saturday, all except the grandkids, there are three ages 20, 6, and 2.  They have such an amazing spirit in their home, we are praying that they will maintain their interest and pray and ask Heavenly Father, and that all will be well with them.  Also, the 2 yr. old is sooo cute.  He just runs around, screams :), and even blew us kisses, ran in while we were teaching about prayer and clapped his hands excitedly.  They can only do Saturdays, when all are together, but we are going to drop by throughout the week to check on them, maybe give a short spiritual thought to whoever is there

Sunday:  I got to play for choir again!  And I might start playing for church, as right now they just use recordings.  As those who know me know, I am sooo excited to serve in this way, I just love it so much, love piano!  Also, a truck full of really drunk guys drove past us on our way to church, calling out for a miracle, then they passed by again, calling out for us to save them.  We couldn´t help but laugh, we can´t save them.  I also was so worried for them, they were sooo drunk and should not have been driving, I hope they didn´t get hurt or hurt anyone else.

Random advice:

* Bring as many underclothes as you can! Way more than the 8-10 recommended

* Girls- bring as many no-show socks as you want, you can never ever have too many.

* Go for durability, not cuteness in shoes, at least in walking missions

So, we found out that there is a Walmart, so we are going to try and find it today.  Otherwise we have been using little minimarkets, panaderias, and vea (kind of like Raley’s, but smaller).

So, in preparing to go home, Hermana Jasso is starting a diet today (she has this and next transfer left).  So to have unity, I am joining in on this, basically, she wants to actually work out in the morning, as she doesn´t always (yay! this includes running, though at a very slow pace, but it is still running!!!).  Also eating healthier, so she is on a strict no soda, and one treat a week.  Which means me too, soda, easy easy, treats, a bit harder...  to give you an idea, she is accusing me that I will get diabetes with all the sweet stuff I like.  This will be for the next 2 months, and then the last week or 2 before she goes home, we are not following this at all :)

Sé que nosotros tenemos un Padre Celestial.  Él tiene mucho amor por nosotros.  Podemos orar por ayuda y Él nos da. No estamos nunca solo.  Nunca.  Estoy agradecida por esté conocimiento y la ayuda que yo recibo. 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Quain

our funky washing machine, it just soaks the clothes, so they smell good, but aren´t cleaner

 

Questions:

How do you get your clothes clean then? Do you hang out to dry or have a dryer?

They just don´t really get cleaned :), we are hoping to maybe find someone that we can use their washer at least every once in a while so they can actually get clean.  We hang dry too. 

What did you do in zone conference? Do you have Elder & Hermana Zone leaders? So is Hermana Jasso Zone leader? What does STL stand for? Maybe you could manually move the clothes around a bit to help them get clean? ;) Like with a big stick, ha.
In zone conference, we learned from our zone leaders, assistants to the President, Hermana Goates, and President Goates, it is kind of like a big seminar.  We start altogether, but then split up by zone and go to the different classes.  There is one set of Elders as zone leaders, and then Hermana Jasso is a sister training leader-STL, (female version almost of zone leaders, Spencer could also help explain).  Usually it is a companionship, but I am a trainee, so she is solo as sister training leader.  She is over me and one other set of sisters in a completely different zone, an hour and a half away.  There is maybe a 1-5 ratio of Hermanas’ to Elders here, maybe, so sister training leaders are sometimes over sisters pretty far away.  And we all cover big areas, so other missionaries are easily super far away anyway.

I have thought of just doing a more manual washing, as we have to manually bring the water by buckets into the machine anyway, and scrubbing my clothes, especially garments.  Or maybe find a big stick :)

How are your Sundays - church meetings?
We have all three hours, if you go on the lds tools, we are at the stake center of Maipú, and Spencer is good at figuring it out.  At 9-12 we have Relief Society first, sometimes only 4 of us at the beginning, but we can sometimes grow up to maybe 10 by the end, then gospel principles, then Sacrament, we have been having really good attendance, about 60 in Sacrament meeting, typical is 40.  We then go back and do studies, go to choir, then only have an hour and a half for proselyting. 

Do you eat any meals with the members? Does your ward have the missionary spirit?

They either feed us or give us viandas, togo lunches, as we do lunches with members.  We are working on building up the spirit, they have it in them!  They are super supportive and want to help out, which is awesome!