Okay. So here are this week's adventures:
My birthday falls on a Saturday, so I'm going to spend it doing what missionaries do: Workin' good and hard. But I have a sneaky suspicion that my companion is trying to secretly plan something. Hehehe
Anyways, we received calls for Cambios last Saturday and I was told that I would be going to Santa Cruz, and my companion would be Hermana Peralta.
My reaction was about the same as it was when I heard that I was going to be with Hermana Rajapakse again: "WHAT???? I LOVE THAT PERUANA!!!!"
We were housemates in Paine for three months. It was awesome. And now we're comps! The difference is, I understand and speak Spanish now, so we can actually have good conversations. Hahahaha
I live in a little shoebox house with Hermana Peralta and two other Latina sisters. So at this point it's Spanish or die. WOOO! Hermana Morales is from Ecuador and the other hermana is from Mexico. None of these sisters speak English. Hermana Morales knows a lot of words, but that's about it. Awesomesauce!
When I arrived in the house, we did our introductions, then Hermana Peralta told me, "Oh, by the way, we have English classes every Saturday. You're the new Gringa in the house, so you can teach English class."
Okay. Challenge accepted.
We had our first zone meeting this last week and met the other missionaries in our group. I can already tell you that this is going to be an AWESOME cambio, because four of the 8 original Paine missionaries are together again: Hermana Darley (That's me!) Hermana Peralta, Elder Junior and Elder Ancajima. There are also two missionaries from my CCM group: Elder Judd from my first district in the CCM, and Elder Paynemil from one of the Latino groups in the CCM. He loved to pick on me when I didn't speak any Spanish. But now I can fight fire with fire! Muahahaha! They're super cool.
That same Wednesday I got sick. I don't get sick often, but when I do, whooooo it's bad. I got a cold. I would have just continued working, but this was like cold-zilla. I felt like death. So I called the nurse and asked for permission to stay in. I ended up sleeping for four hours, telling Hermana Peralta that I wanted to work, went out, felt like death again, and went home and slept for the rest of the night. I didn't feel as bad the next day, but I used up about half of our stash of toilet paper this week just blowing my nose. Ewwww.
Santa Cruz is, as the members of my ward in Talca described it, BEAUTIFUL. It's super diverse with the poorest of poor and the sparkliest of wealthy. Fields and city, palm trees and HUUUUUGE green mountains.
My sector is divided into three parts, so we travel by bus A LOT.
My first day in my new sector, we were eating Once with a convert family, and I tried pig's head cheese on bread.
...Don't eat pig's head cheese, people. It was nasty.
The branch that I'm working in is teeny tiny. Our branch president is only in his early 30s, and he's only been in the calling for four months. So he frequently asks the missionaries to help, and he shows us that he's super willing to do his part in the missionary work, too. He's really cool.
In other stories, Hermana Peralta went over to a recent convert's house to help her make lunch, and the lady asked us to make homemade french fries. She pointed out the potato sack and the knives, so we got to work.
As I was squatting next to a bucket and trying to peel my potato, Hermana Peralta was laughing at me because my progress was so slow. Then this 85-year-old lady takes the knife and potato from me and says, "No, it's like this..." and peels it like the stinking Tazmanian Devil.
Okay then. So the Gringa can't peel potatoes like the Chileans do.
Hermana Peralta and I are working to reactivate a lot of people here. Supposedly we have a lot of converts, but a lot of them have gone inactive. (As I was saying, our branch is teeny tiny.) We have like 40 people who attend. And even that's pretty on and off.
We found a girl named Natalie this last week. We taught her about The Restoration and the Book of Mormon, then we did a follow up lesson and taught her about the Plan of Salvation. She accepted a baptismal date for August 1st. Her only challenge right now is getting the support of her family. She doesn't want to attend church alone, so we're trying to get her grandmother to participate in the lessons and go with her so that she can feel more supported.
But Natalie is super great. Other than attending church, she's keeping her commitments, and she listens well. =)
We have another person with a baptismal date named Amador. He's REALLY smart and has a lot of knowledge of the bible, but he doesn't bible bash with his knowledge. If he has questions or doubts, we talk them out. He's going to be baptized the 25th of July. He asks really good questions and he says that the lessons make him feel good, and going to church leaves him with a good feeling inside. He's progressing well.
Anyways, that's all for now!
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