Ahora, sí!

Dearest fam and friends,

I'm so, so, so sorry that it has been so long since the last time I wrote a decent letter. I just haven't had a ton of time the past couple of P-days and I just had a lot going on, or at least I felt like I had a lot going on, haha!

We're officially in week two of the new transfer. Transfers were last Wednesday, but Hermana Levrino and I didn't have a cambio. We're staying together here in La Union. So I will be in La Union for at least another 6 weeks! If I'm being completely honest, this sector has been pretty difficult since I got here. A lot of different hermanas here in La Union were really sick and had to stay in the house, so the work was really impeded here for a decent chunk of time. We have two(ish) investigators right now and we have to be patient with them. We're working on finding, but it hasn't been very easy either. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I have to remember that it's not my time, not my schedule.. It's His time, His 'agenda', His work.. It's not about me. 

My job is to work my little heart out, and I could do better. I'm imperfect and, although I'd like to be flawless, I'm hopelessly flawed. But that's life. "Heavenly Father doesn't expect perfection, He expects progression" ..not really sure who said that, but it definitely wasn't me. For now I'm trying find peace in my imperfections and work, work, work.. it's still not easy, but it's not supposed to be. 

Also, GUESS WHAT!? Hermana Ruiz was called to be an Hermana Líder in Rahue (Osorno) and we are going to have intercambios together on Wednesday!! I am SOoOooOO stoked! I miss my mommy, haha!! I really just can't believe that I already have 7 months on the mission and that she had about the same when I entered the mission field! SCARY! Time goes by too fast! Tranquilo, por favor! 

Other than that.. we have conference with President on Wednesday, Zone meeting Thursday, and I'm super ready for General Conference this weekend!! The first session starts at 1:00pm here in Chile.. it obviously has to start later due to the time difference, but I just find it strange, haha! 

lds.org dice que "Dios tiene un mensaje para ti en la conferencia general" y yo puedo testificar de las palabras de 'mi compañera' haha! But really, I'm way pumped! Hopefully all you girlies got to watch the women's session on Saturday! (I didn't get the chance) ..but I'm excited to read the talks! woot woot! Super ready for some personal revelation!!  

Okay, getting back into the swing of things still. I don't have much more to write, but it's a work in progress! I'll do my best to make it even more interesting! Love you all! Thank you for your love and support! Don't forget to participate in General Conference this weekend and have a great week!!

besitospo!

Hermana Sessions

here are some pics.. I had a staring contest with a sheep 

Remember when I said I'd write this week..

me too. SORRY AGAIN! I really do love you all! Please know that! 

CON MUCHO AMOR, y perdóname por favor..

besitos!

Hermana Session

It's been an interesting week.. I at least have pictures!!

On Sunday we ate with a family that lives in campo (the countryside, haha) ..it was breathtakingly beautiful to say the least!

Love you all so much! Please take care! I'm so sorry, I will write next week!! 

hugs,

Hermana Sessions

Hoy es Lunes

This week was a bit of a slow one.. but some super good things happened too!

A ver.. we contacted a reference that we received from the Zone Leaders and had a lesson with him last Wednesday. We talked with him for a really long time about a lot of different things and were able to teach him The Restoration as well. He had a lot of questions and basically wanted to know what he needed to do to become a member of the church.. so that's pretty awesome! He'd like to meet with the bishop so we are going to try to set up a lesson with the bishop sometime this week! 

We also found another woman knocking doors and singing hymns. When I asked if we could sing a hymn for her and her family she looked at me like I was crazy, but we explained why we wanted to share the hymn and were able to enter her home and get to know her. She has A LOT of questions about religion in general, but is looking to find the truth. She told us that she's really analytical which was super evident, but we have another lesson with her scheduled for Thursday and we're hoping to be able to teach her and help answer her questions. 

V came to church again on Sunday so that was super awesome! She really likes to run right after sacrament meeting though! Hermana Levrino was directing the hymns again and I turned my head for two seconds only to turn back around and hear her say, "choa mamita, hasta miércoles!" ..uh yeah, okay.. "choa! nos vemos miércoles!" I really tried to get her to stay, but she's a sneaky one.

Sunday afternoon was the baptism of the bishop's older daughter. It was so special and the spirit was so strong!! I don't know what it is, but I don't know that I'll ever be able to attend a baptism without shedding a tear or two. Some kids from the primary sang "I'm trying to be like Jesus" and it was just too cute! lloré un poquito.. and my companion thought I was losing it. I think it's because it's still such a recent memory for me.. I don't know I'm trying to justify the uncontrollable tears. 

Other than that.. a stray dog followed us for a good 30 minutes today. He even followed us into a few stores.. or waited for us outside and then continued to follow. I was really trying to be patient, but he was really starting to get on my nerves. So I was humming "I'm trying to be like Jesus" and resisting the urge to kick him, que horrible! 

I hope that you all had an amazing week! Que tengan una semana maravillosa!! Love you all SOoOOoOo much! 

besitos!!

Hermana Sessions

(here's an ugly photo of my super fun tan lines.. just for kicks! enjoy!)

Blueberries ...

this week...

We had a lesson with our investigator V. She is 80-something years old and is too cute! She really is super great, and she even came to sacrament meeting this week! Hermana Levrino was directing the hymns during sacrament (something I really can't do.. haha) and I sat with V near the back of the chapel. WOOT WOOT! Lessons with her are always really spiritual.. but we have to be patient with her until she feels that she's received her answer, knows that it's true, and understands the importance of baptism. I know that it'll all come together.. the Lord's timing is always perfect! ..even when it might not seem that way at first.

We've also received a few really interesting references with a lot of potential! So we're super excited to see where things go with that!  Other than that, I have been eating SOOOOOOO many arándanos (blueberries)! Seriously I love them so much! I eat them for breakfast pretty much every day, and on top of that our mamita has been serving them for dessert, so basically I'm just waiting to turn blue and blow up like a balloon like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I really think that there's a high possibility.

I think that's really all that I have for you guys this week. SUUUUPER fome, I know! ..but I'm out of time and my companion wants to get her haircut before our p-day ends!

I hope all is well back in gringolandia!! Please remember how much I love you all and most importantly that Heavenly Father loves you ..EVEN MORE! ..I know, right? He is always there for you, and is waiting to hear from you everyday, don't forget to tell him what's up. He's there to help you always.. and "He's your biggest cheerleader" -Hermana Ruiz!

besitos!

Hermana Sessions

Thursday marks 6 months.. COMO!?!

I cannot believe that I have almost been gone for 6 months.. then again, in some ways it feels like it's been years.. but most of the time it feels like I just left! It's super weird to think that I am almost a third of the way through my mission. Time flies! I still feel so young on the mission.. and I still have so much to learn and SO MUCH room for improvement! I still really need to learn how to speak Spanish well too! Luckily I have a Latina companion! woot woot! Anyway, it's super crazy, I really can't believe it. I have a year to work my butt off. 

So my glasses have been really loose for a while. In Valdivia, every time I tried to take them somewhere to get them tightened the people would always tell me that they don't fix glasses unless I were to buy a pair from them. Well the other day my companion took me into an eyeglasses shop in centro and I was doubting that they would fix them and had kind of a bummer attitude about it, and what do you know the lady took my glasses, tightened them up, fixed my frames and handed them back.. free of charge! I was so happy I could hardly see straight! I still need to write that lady a letter and buy her some chocolate or something because I really didn't have faith that she would fix them, and she just did it like it was nothing! It was such a good day haha! 

We had intercambios on Wednesday and I spent the day in our sector with Hermana Parkison, who I met in Valdivia! She is just sooo great and I had a lot of fun with her, and learned a lot from her example! She's gringa too, from utah but she has a bit more time on the mission, so it was really neat to have her share experiences with me and to feel a little better about where I'm at with my Spanish right now and all of that. Love her!!

Then on Friday we went to Puerto Montt so I could see someone about getting inserts made for my super lame rabbit feet. Puerto Montt is 3 hours south of La Union so it was a day full of traveling.. a total of six hours. Anywho.. the bus ride there was super interesting. Trunkiest bus ride possible, I'm certain. They had 80's love songs playing the entire time, it was just too much! The best was that we were on the phone with our Zone Leaders.. and they were like, "uh, hermanas.. where are you??" haha! Oh my goodness it was too trunky. I've only been out six months.

What else.. I feel like so much has happened, but I'm having a hard time remembering this past week. It has been a super long week. We passed by for an older man in our ward who is less active. I wasn't feeling super great that day so I was leaning against a post by his front door trying to understand what was going on, but basically he was mad that we couldn't enter his house because he lives alone, and it's a mission rule that we can't enter without a woman. He was just upset about a lot of different things and we tried to reason with him and solve his problems, but he wasn't really having it. After about 40 minutes of talking to him outside of his house and having him tell us that he'd prefer that we don't come by to visit him we finally asked if we could at least leave him with a prayer. He agreed, and we offered a prayer and suddenly we all felt a lot more peaceful. We said goodbye and told him if he really doesn't want us to visit that we'll respect that, and he totally had a change of heart and asked us to come by. We are now going to find hermanas in the ward that are willing to come to citas with us on Tuesday nights so we can teach him. For me it was a huge testimony builder of the power of prayer. It wasn't until then that I could feel the Spirit working through us and he was calm and cared to listen to us. Next time we'll be sure to start with a prayer even if we're outside on the doorstep.. but really!

Oh the mission.. I'm out of time, but I love you all so much! Tengan una semana muy buena por favor!! 

besitos!

Hermana Sessions

LA UNION ...

Well.. here I am in La Union! I actually have loved it here so far. It is really pretty here, even though everyone I talk to here says that Valdivia is prettier.. and in some areas, maybe it is, but I really think it's beautiful here. I definitely don't know my way around yet, but hopefully that will come soon. The capilla (uh church building) here is really nice too, and the ward is AWESOME! The bishop is super young and has a cute little family. Two daughters, the oldest is 7, and his wife is expecting again.. I believe a boy this time around. The members here are super awesome.

We have a little house here. It's super chiquitito, but really cute. This seems really big to me right now, but I honestly can't tell if it's bigger than my last or not because I'm so unfamiliar with it all. We have a mamita that feeds us every day except for Mondays and Sundays so hopefully I don't gain even more weight here.. but I guess I can't do much about it if I want to eat. My companion’s birthday was the 11th and we had GIANT hamburgers and she was planning on us eating two. Seriously it was bigger than my face! I ate one.. and then thought I might die.

My companion, Hermana Levrino, is super sweet! She's from Argentina and her parents served as mission presidents there a few years back. She just turned 20 on the 11th.. has two brothers who are 18 (I'm pretty sure they're twins), a younger sister (not quite sure how old she is), and a little brother who's 11. She made me cupcakes and decorated the wall above my bed for me when I first got here! She is so cute! She doesn't have quite the accent from Argentina though.. and it's a tad bit difficult for me. I need to really learn the language though, so hopefully this will be super good for me!

I feel like I stick out even more here than I did in my last sector. Maybe it was because my other companions spoke English, I can't be sure, but I really feel like an alien, haha. Our ward mission leader has three daughters and the youngest is probably like 6, if I had to guess, and when I first met her she was immediately obsessed with my hair, haha! Every time I've seen her since then she always says something along the lines of, "hi, prettiest hermana" haha! She's too cute and I just have to laugh!

Oh my goodness.. funny story kind of. The other night we had correlation with our ward mission leader where we talk about the people we're teaching and how the ward can help. Anyway it ended late and we had to take a collectivo to get home before 10:00, which is 30 minutes after we're supposed to be home, but we have until 10:00 if we're teaching a lesson or in a meeting.. like correlation. Anyway we finally flagged down a collectivo and it was kind of sketchy, but we had to get home so yeah. There were these weird blue lights inside and the driver and I think his friend.. who was trying to take selfies of us the entire way to our house. Then when we got there we had them drop us off a couple houses away so they didn't know where we lived and we felt a lot of relief. Then just as we got to our house Hermana Isom called and wanted to talk to me about my feet and caulquier problema that I have haha.. so I'm talking to her in English, meanwhile my companion realizes she doesn't have the keys and is freaking out and speaking Spanish, but my brain can't handle both, so I'm trying to keep calm so Hermana Isom isn't worried.. and luckily the collective happened to pick someone up and pass us heading the opposite direction so that my companion could flag him down and get the keys.. and somehow we made it inside before 10:00, but I just have to laugh. My brain definitely doesn't process both languages at one, and poor Hermama Isom was trying to check up on me and I wasn't even giving her my full attention. YAPO. 

I was surprisingly really sad to leave Valdivia and to leave my sector. I was really sad to leave Cata because she is just SO special and I want the absolute best for her! I know that Heavenly Father has been preparing her to be baptized and make the decision to follow Jesus Christ! But, I'm super excited to be here in La Union. I'm excited to find people to teach and to work with the members here because they are amazing! I love that the gospel is always applicable in every situation. I love that we can be talking to someone about caulquier cosa (something random) and somehow we are able to relate it to the gospel. I love being a missionary and I love sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the people here in Chile! I'm excited to work hard here to be able to find the people that are being prepared to receive the gospel here in this sector! Being a missionary is something so special, but we are all here on earth to spread the gospel.. we are all missionaries here to aid in the Lord's work. So just do it! Share at every opportunity and try not to be timid like me, haha! 

Love you all so much!!!

besitos,

Hermana Sessions