Holy Shrapnel I'm Building My Own Fire!!

Family!
Once again…say it with me…HOLY SHRAPNEL! What a phenominal week. First things first…Happy Birthdays to D. Spaff and the infamous Done Sean. You are both just wonderful. Done, you have a letter coming. No worries! 

Great, great, great week. Oh yeah, confessions this week. Katie- I totally stole your ensemble sweat pants and that green striped shirt you love from platos closet…I´m asking forgiveness. Mom, I stole from you an abundance of leggins....they have served me well because it´s freezing here! Family- EMAIL is the best way to reach me. The only family member I heard from this week was dad. BOO! Another cry to repentence--mike, ash, katie, james, sophie, mom! Hope you´re all well. Love you.
 
Okay, now for mission stuff. I find myself ¨backpack running¨all over the place. Blob will appreciate that. For those of you who don´t know, backpack running is awkwardly running to your destination while frantically pulling down on the shoulder straps trying to steady your backpack...it looks ridiculous. This behavior can be most frequently observed at BYU. Speaking of Blob, the most hilarious letter I have received from anyone is from Mr. Bob LeBaron. I think only Zabet can top it. Back to the backpack run. We are SO engaged in the work we are just running all the time in between things. It´s awesome! Also, the weather here is SO strange! Every five minutes it rains like its never going to stop (katie, liz, jess...like Guatemala) five minutes later wind like the apocalipse blows us away and almost broke my umbrella this week, five minutes later we are sweating and five minutes after that FREEZING. brau.

 
I´m going to explain the pictures now. The fire one is my first fire that I made all by myself. That´s our source of heat and there is nothing better than doing personal study with a hot drink in front of our fire. WOW!

H

The next picture is of a crazy old man. He is our papito. The mamita cooks us lunch every day and does our laundry and loves us. The papito is exactly how he looks. Super mischeivious and ALWAYS laughing and having a good time. I absolutely LOVE this man. Him and mamita joined the church like 16 years ago when they were living in Santiago and are super strong. They´ve been feeding missionaries for 15 years. 
The next picture was of Sunday, yesterday. Best day EVER! We reached our goal of 30 lessons taught with 50% with a member. It was a miracle! I never thought seeing people change their lives could be this happy! Every day here I learn just how much I do not know. I can and should be better in so many ways and in my knowledge of the Gospel and scriptures and in my relationship with God and the Savior, my comp, and the people. But my small knowledge is growing. This week, I learned that you can know something by it´s fruits. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ were imaginary, I wouldn´t feel the miraculous increase in peace and happiness that I have felt in my heart recently... I wouldn´t feel joy at kneeling with the familia Azocar and listening to the father pray for his children...I wouldn´t fall into my bed every night with immense satisfaction and happiness KNOWING, I mean knowing, that this work will go forth because it is God´s work and I am just a little instrument in this part of the world. It´s absolutely phenominal to take a step back and look at this work for what it really is. On the most intimate level, we are singing with, teaching, loving, and helping these people take steps in their lives that bring them closer to Christ. On an eternal scale, these people...these sons and daughters of God are gaining their eternal exaltation and taking a step in their eternal progression in become like God. I absolutely love it. We have our first baptism of Victoria and her daughter Deisy this Saturday. Please pray for them.
Dad, I don´t know how much more you could want. With the whole language thing, I really am not good. I´m not being falsly modest either. The Chilean accent is ridiculous, and I have absolutely zero patience with myself because I want to understand NOW and speak NOW and give some huge, eloquent discourse NOW. But I am learning line upon line and learning how to be patient and focusing on the things that I CAN do rather than on those that I CAN´T (thanks for that advice dad!) It´ll come one day. For now, I am content to bear simple testimony and teach parts of the lesson. Dad, I don´t need anything. Don´t send packages because they probably won´t get here and I can buy anything I need. There isn´t really that much to tell other than work, work, work, work. I never liked when missionaries gave huge histories of their investigators either because I didn´t know them. But we have a bunch and are working with wonderful people every day and hopefully helping them. Sometimes I look at my life right now and think how strange it is to be living in a dump house with and Argentine and working with her 24/7 and talking to random people in a country that I know little about in a language that I stink at. But it´s wonderful. In fact, it´s the best decision I´ve ever made in my life. I have so much of myself to work on. Infinite ways I could improve and I feel inadequate to even attempt the Lord´s work sometimes. Everything good that I´ve had, have, or will have in the future comes because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I read Isaiah 53-5 this morning and just sat in awe for like 10 minutes. EVERYTHING...family, accomplishment, life, love, happiness, possessions, forgiveness, experiences--come by and are 100% meaningless without the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am in awe that someone as undeserving as me has been this blessed. That I am loved eternally by my God. That although I don´t understand the way things REALLY are completely, He helps me. He really does. Everyone reading this, thanks for your examples--I´ve been overlyblessed with extraordinary people in my life. Keep doing what you´re doing and maybe ask the missionaries how you can help them this week. They are working really hard. LOVE YOU ALL! WRITE ME AN EMAIL SOMEONE!
Love Hna Bourne