Let's blitz Emily with e-mails this week!

(**Mother's note:Emily's e-mails are getting WAY too lame...I think she is tired and will fill us in on everything when she gets home... ( Thursday-March 3rd at 1 pm SL International) I think it would be great for all you dear friends and family to just blitz her this week with long wordy e-mails... She's got 3 more weeks of  hard work and then it's fall into her father's arms at the bus depot at 9:30 pm on Feb. 23!  They'll take a jeep ride through Patagonia, visit her contacts, then to Santiago and the temple, and home...  FYI- March 13th- 10:30 a.m. for her homecoming talk.  Thanks for supporting her through this adventure.  You have all given her great strength!  Love you, Judi)

emily.bourne@myldsmail.net

Hello Family friends and blog-stalkers,

 

It seems as though we are having a lame-off. Who really can write the lamest email? In my opinion....YOU win.  In your opinion....I win.  I guess we never really will know. What a shame!

 

SHOUT OUT birthdays!!!! Beckra Swim happy 35th! wow, how time flies and my namesake...Haven Emily HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! AHHHHHH.

 

Well, today I finished the Bible. I have officially read every single word in Spanish and in English.

Speaking of apostasy....I got spit on the other day.

 

So here´s how it went down. From stepping foot into this beautiful,wonderful country, I have been rejected in the most awesome ways (ie...being called Satan, being told to go away using words they only use for dogs, the classic ¨I´m late¨ or ¨I´m really busy¨ which makes me laugh every time because the first is always true and the second is never true, the other day I said hello to this man and introduced us as missionaries and he shook my hand and turned and walked in the other direction without one word, I´ve been called to repentance, the silent Chilean shake of the hand tactic, and the underappreciated ¨no hay nadie(english: there isn´t anyone!)¨´ shouted from inside the house that we are knocking, people have told me I worship Peter Smith, I´ve been called stupid, naieve, way to young, ugly, and a robot), but NEVER have I been spit upon.  So we went up to this door and knocked and Juan opened up.  He is a wonderful, loving father to two beautiful girls and we started telling him he could have an eternal family.  He smiled and responded that he was very interested and a big ball of Chilean spittle flew out of his mouth my accident and landed right on my cheek.  He got so embarrased! I just wiped it away and put a date to return right then and there. 

 

Lame story, I know...but I´m running out of ideas because I don´t really care about email at all any more. SORRY!

 

We´re baptizing Hernán on Saturday.  His baptism is 100% the hand of our Heavenly Father....it always is.  I love this work more than anything else I´ve done in my entire life. (you all are second) and my companion is up there. She was born in Cordoba but has lived mostly in Chile....she is the bomb.comand we are bearing our little testimonies to the bone.  We enjoy every single day together. I LOVE comps like her!

 

People, I love you all.  Write to me! Chao no mas!

 

How are you? I´m just wonderful. 

( mother's note: Since Emmy won't send any pictures for her blog I threatened to put pictures from her past... (even her "fat" period.....)Here to her left are her two "aunts" that just got married, and I sort of think Ashley Rindlesbach is on her right on the end?....) We'll be getting current pictures soon...

Emily and Bethany Pinnock- her friend who just returned from California, Oakland Mission...

Mom, I know you keep writing me wanting details and all that jazz but I don´t know what to write.  I suspect you want my innermost feelings as the very best thing that has ever happened in my life comes to a close. I can´t believe it and it catches in my throat every time I think about it, so I´ve chosen to shove it out of my mind and focus on praying, studying, and serving.  Very rarely do I think about the end of all of this because we are working the hardest that I ever had in my entire mission.  I am exhausted all day, every day...I don´t sleep and my body aches...and I am the happiest I´ve ever been in my entire life. 

The promptings of the Spirit have become almost palpable to me...it´s scary.  For example..Saturday night it wa 9pm (we have to be in the house at 930 or 10 if we are teaching a lesson).  The work and walking and rain and sleepiness of the week just washed over me and it was all I had to put one foot in front of the other.  All of our citas had fallen through and we were in camino to the house really slowly.  My mind (aka natural man aka Satan) thought...good, we´ll walk slowly to the house..maybe do a few more contacts and finally I´ll get to plan and sleep!  but then something deep down in my heart (aka the Spirit!) said ¨No!¨ you know Hermana Bourne, there is someone waiting for you today."  I began to pray for more guidance...where...when.  A street came to my mind and I told my comp.  She said...let´s just go visit this member.  I succumbed and said..yeah, okay and we headed for the house. how embarrasing!!! But then I felt the street name and the peace that accompanies the Spirit enter into my heart and mind.  I said sorry compy, but we have to go over here.  She´s awesome and started getting excited.  We arrived at the street at 915 and I walked past the first door...my comp rang the doorbell and a woman from the second story said ¨good evening...wait just one minute, I´m coming down¨ she opened the door and let us right in without asking anything.  we entered, taught, testified and had a really edifying experience. she listened, understood, and asked really wonderful questions (which is something akin to finding a bar of gold in the street).  We got to the house just speechless and grateful to have been led so forcefully by the Spirit.  I feel it now and I stand in awe of the reality of this personage of Spirit. Truly, it is the greatest gift we can receive here on earth.

Blob, thank you for the talk....I know it´s going to help me. 

Katie, I´m not going to be an EFY counselor.  I´m sorry love! I´m shooting for working at the MTC in the summer...so you can go to Uganda and do all the sweet jazz you want and be a counselor and we´ll live together...but the whole EFY jazz isn´t going to work out. LOVE YOU!

What a wonderful thing to be a missionary. I am humbled and very, very grateful to maybe be an instrument in the hands of Heavenly Father to help His children feel the Spirit, receive the peace and ordinances that lead to eternal life.  I am thankful to have come to know my Savior a little more through obedience to the commandments, some suffering, and many hours in prayer, study, and fasting.  It´s really easy to forget what matters most and even MORE easy to not do those things that matter most.  I hope I can keep this clarity. 

I love you all. Thanks for being awesome and thanks for writing to me every once in a while! LOVE YOU

Hermana bourne

 

Stupidalmostendofthemission.....(5 weeks...)

"Aunt" Lizzie and "Aunt" Jessie's double reception!  I'm there!!!!

Okay, could I have looked creepier at the wedding!? I WISH my legs looked like those of Sarah Palin...way to go with the creepy cardboard cutout. That skirt is WAY to short for a sister missionary...gross!  Wow, a big congrats to Liz and Jess! I´ve been living with people alone 24 hours a day 7 days a week for more than a year now and from my limited experience, I´m going to wish you good luck on the unbelievably hilarious experience it is to figure out how to live with someone! Can´t wait to hear the stories, because, man! Have I got some for you! The reception looked wonderful and fun and very Bourne as usual.  Everyone in the family looks great! YAY eternal matrimony!

Some weird stuff...I thought I had already written all the hilarious things that the Chileans do but I found another one this week.  For some reason....ALL of the old men here (specifically Coyhaique and Aysen) wear berrets...those french hats.  How they migrated down here...I have no idea...but they did. 

 Also, chilean equivalent alert. DONE SEAN, your name is Oscar and you are seventeen years old.  This is the greatest chilean equivalent I have ever seen down here....it. was. so. creepy. Way to go Done!

What else? I´m still alive, still working my hardest.  What a great time of the mission.  I really am just enjoying every single day.  I´m really trying to improve and pray with purpose, study, fast, find, teach, and baptize and we are finding, teaching, and going to baptize some really phenominal people. I love you all.  I know Christ lives. I´m not trunky. I´m going to stay out here forever!!!

Hermana Bourne

Okay people, let me paint you a picture:

The Ayseninos haven´t seen the sun in centuries.  It rains all day every day- every night every morning - every evening and every Thursday (yay weekly planning!) So when the pueblo was founded and the foundation layed, it was done in cold rain.  For some reason, the sun decided to go south-polar on us and burn us all day every day (it burns us more than our contacts in the street!). The temperatures are reaching highs this part of the world has never seen.  Fires are starting spontaneously and the paved streets are exploding...seriously, the streets are cracking and raised up from the sheer heat of it all.  I think some of the highest temperatures we´ve had are in the high 70s low 80s.  Bless Aysen´s heart.

Wow, Liz, you looked so beautiful and radiant on your wedding day! My comp got annoyed because all day I kept saying.  Liz gets married in two hours! Liz is entering the temple right now! Liz and Clark are eternal companions! Clark and Liz have been eternal companions for 4 hours!  Wow, you were in my prayers and Jess, don´t expect anything less from me Wednesday.  What a wonderful thing!

People, I wish I could have you meet all of the wonderful members and investigators here in Aysen.  People are listening, praying, reading, and coming to church.  I love when the work works and we are thrusting in our sickels! True, there still is the occasional investigator who is hungover when we go to pick him up for church (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!) or the less active who promises to come the NEXT Sunday and never does. But for the most part, I just feel happy, calm, content, kind of weird, and  I feel the Spirit all the time here.  It´s a PHENOMINAL way to live, the "mission bubble."

Mom, I KNEW you´d LOVE the post it note.

  (mother's note: Biggest personal letter I have gotten in 8 months fit nicely onto a "post-it".  So if you're not getting any letters from Emmy- don't feel bad!)

Love you all, really!

Hermana Bourne

People! YOU are so trunky!!

I´m NOT home yet people.  Man, you are trunky.  I am thoroughly enjoying to the end.  What a blessing to be in the service of God.  I love to get doors slammed in my face and people ignoring me in the street like I don´t exist, I love eating horendous amounts of food and getting bitten by dogs, I love walking day after day after day after day after day just trying to feel that one whisper of the Spirit, and I love seeing people take those microscopic steps that lead them to the waters of baptism.  We had three investigators show up at church happy as clams...there was a combination of reverence and appropriate testimony bearing that is a thing of beauty to be rivaled with.  WHAT. A. BLESSING.

Grandma Cynthia and mom, THANK YOU for the hilariously wonderful packages...they made me and the compi´s day!

We have DIED of heat stroke this week.  For the first time this century, the sun appeared in Aysen. We are really close to a giant hole in the ozone and so the sun is really strong here. It was so unbearable that we´ve been praying for clouds...today we are back to the beautiful downpour that makes our sunburns sizzle.

I saw two Chilean equivalents this week. One. James Bourne, we are teaching you and you come to church and the activities and all the little young Chilean women in the ward want to visit you with us.  You are guileless and know that a valid baptism means a big change in your life.  Your name is Luis and you are just so innocent and wonderful it´s a joy to teach you the gospel.  Second. Tiffany Andrews.  I didn´t know you spoke Spanish nor had two children.  We contacted you in the street and you were so happy to talk to us.  I looked down at your flip-flopped clad feet and saw ten teeny, tiny, stubby toes and smiled. I love you!

Lizzie, ah my love you are betrothed to be marriaged this week.  Wow, I´m thinking about you tomorrow and Wednesday.  Clarky, way to go!  You are both so wonderful and I´m happy to have you as my aunt and uncle! Jess and Pete, same to you! 

 A big congrats to H Dawg Holland....got some pictures of your wedding and you look absolutely wonderful and stunning! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY for eternal marriage. Way to go everyone.

We´re just trucking along here in Aysen. 

I am still the happiest person on earth.

I love being a missionary.

Kathy Jones, get like 90 hours ready for me. we are going to sit and talk in English, Russian and Spanish. Beckra, bring the chopsticks. I love you both.

I´m going to be REALLY weird....

Hermana Bourne

 

Hi fam. Still alive down here.  I´ll send incredible pictures next week of our outing to all of these waterfalls and lakes we went to today.