HAPPY 2010!

FAMILIA!
Possibly the sweetest thing in the entire world to talk to each of you and hear your voices! I loved it and ended the phone call feeling refreshed and ready to go. I had such a happy Christmas! To give you a glimpse, that picture is from the 25th. The office elders are in my zone and they ran into the mission home…tights and all…singing and singing and dancing (in a mission appropriate fashion, of course). We all died laughing. We ate together and talked about what we were grateful for and prayed together…then it was back to work! But later that night at midnight, Viajito Pascual (old santa man) walked up and down our street ringing a bell for all the kids to come get some candy…I thought it was pretty creepy…especially because they are usually drunk…whatevs. Ah, Chile.

Shout outs to everyone! I love you all! Merry Christmas and happy new year.
Zablamm…I think literally right now you are in the temple getting married. CONGRATS and know that I´m thinking of you and love you both.

Cambios happened on the 30th and I´m staying in Ovejeria with a trio. I´m accustomed to life in a trio and we´re working well. Chau to Hermana Rivas and bienvenida to Hermana Aponte straight from Buenos Aires, Argentina! I don´t know what the deal is with me and the Argentine companions, but I love her. She´s tall (for a Latina) and lanky and trips over her own legs and drops things all the time. She´s gorgeous and plays the piano, is really timid (we´ll change that :)) and has one cambio (six weeks) more than me in the mission.

 When we were in the terminal during cambios, I met Hermana Kelly from Alabama…the most recent gringa…which officially makes me NOT the newest gringa! BOOYAH! She was adorable. About 19 gringos came and they were all hilariously dazed and didn´t understand anything (I can relate!) But it was fun to see some progress in my language and with my surroundings and all that..they´ll all be wonderful. I met an Elder Ashton who went to Olympus. He asked me to pray for him and his language, so my companionship does every prayer now…it´s getting hilarious. I´m going to ask all my blog fans to say a prayer for Elder Ashton too! Thanks everyone!

Funny thing in the terminal. As a trio, we have to contact 30 people every day…so we got to work while we were waiting for Aponte. We passed this random guy and I contacted him and at the end, his girlfriend with piercings and dyed hair everywhere grabbed his hand and pulled him away…giving me a dirty look. Whatever. 10 minutes later, we passed them walking down the road and all I said was ¨hola¨and she yelled a bad word at me. Ten minutes thereafter she found me in the bus terminal and ran up behind me and hit me with the bags she was holding, told me to stay away from her pololo (a Chileism meaning boyfriend that lives with you) and yelled out a few more obscenities. Bless her heart. 

Later that day, we three were hard at work in Ovejeria, when, all of a sudden, the goat that was in this front yard escaped it´s bondage and started to run free along Felisardo Ansejo (the main road). The drivers here in chile WILL hit a human being crossing the road…how much more will they hit a runaway goat. Concern for this liberated quadroped filled my heart…I began to chase it down the road. I was holding my umbrella which has a mind of it´s own…it opened spontaneously and scared the living daylights out of the poor animal even more and it began to run faster. So here I am chasing a goat with my umbrella in Chile…happy new year. Luckily, the owner came running out about 3 minutes into the episode. I contacted him and we´ll be visiting him later…the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Anywho, all is really well in my end of the world. The other picture is me with Hna Eva. She is incredible. She´s a member who´s missing a leg..she has a prosthesis and uses a crutch but comes RUNNING every time we call her. ILOVE members like her and want to serve like that.

Family, I love you. Thanks for your letters andsupport. Katie,I LOVE YOU. You leave in TWO DAYS HOLY SHRAPNEL! Just take and enjoy things as they come. It will not be at all like you expect, but better. Things always are. Be ready to learn. Be ready to change. Be ready to have an adventure. Don´t waste a minute because one day, you´ll wake up in your own bed at home and it will have passed like a dream. RELISH EVERY DAY! I LOVE YOU…get me your address there so I can write…I can only write one email a week. LOVE YOU ALL!