Oh hey family! I hope everyone is doing great in their parts of the world! I think mom and dad are going to Guam for Christmas right? That´s just what I figure though based on the emails... I actually am not sure. This was a cool week here in Arica! Well, it started off pretty tiring. We had to go do visa stuff for Hermana Arenas and it was so tiring. We had to get to the governant building at 5am and wait for 4 hours until it opened. Then, when Arenas went in to get the document signed, they told her that Peruvians have to go first to the Peru goverment building. Chileans treat Peruvians a little like we treat Mexicans, so she had to deal with a little bit of racism that day. We ended up having to run to the Peruvian place but then all they did was give us a little paper and we had to run back to the centro and pay for it and then run back. I guess we didn´t actually run, but we were walking really fast for 40 minutes each way. Then we had to go back later that day and then wake up at 5 am the next day again to go back to the government building. It was exhausting, but Heavenly Father blessed us with great lessons those afternoons, so everything was alright. We had to go back on Friday again with all the other new missionaries, but nobody was willing to go back at 5 (remember that we go to bed at 11:30pm) so we went at 8 and waited in line then. Haha.
One funny thing this week was that we were visiting a menos activa, Josefina, who is basically like your typical funny black lady in the states (is that politically unacceptable to say? I legit can´t remember). We asked her where her daughter was and she said ¨She´s in her room, communicating with spirits or something. She´s going to be punished!¨ We were really surprised. ¨Seriously?¨ ¨Yeah! It´s this new thing on the cell phones where you can talk to demonic spirits or something like that. All I hear is ·*insert her gargling something.* Freaks me out!¨ We were pretty weirded out (the daughter is like 14) but when the daughter came out, we asked her about it and she said ¨mooom! Oh please! I don´t do that!¨ Josefina was like: ¨Well then what is that sound I hear coming through your toom!¨ Isabella rolled her eyes and then looked at us, ¨do you know what wassup is?¨ Turns out her friend had just whispered ¨fattie¨ through the phone and her mom had thought they were like deamon spirits. She showed us and the mom was like ¨I mean what the heck is that!¨ We were laughing so hard.
On Saturday, we only had 2 lessons, but they were way cool lessons. The first one was with one of our investigators, Giovana, who is from Peru and has three daughters (Zhaire, Thyra, and Myra- they all rhyme...). We were teaching her a little bit right before we had to leave for lunch. She asked about baptism and we explained a little bit of that. Then her sister came and as she sat there listening, she was paying a ton of attention. Then as we were finishing, she asked, ¨I have a question. What is the difference between all the churches? I mean, how can we know who is right?¨ BING! The perfect lesson. We tried at first to explain it fast because the members were already waiting for us with lunch, but everytime we finished explaining one part of the restoration, she would ask a question that Perfectly led into the next part of the lesson. And as I recited the words of the first vision, I felt an overwhelming tingling sensation in my entire body. That has only happened once or twice in my whole mission and was incerdible for me. I can only hope that they felt the same spirit I was feeling. It was a really cool experience. Turns out that she lives in our sector too, so we´re really excited about the possibility of teaching her more. That night we helped out with a primary activity because we thought Giovana and her kids were going to go (they ended up legitimately not being able to go), and then we tried a bunch of people but nobody was home. I suggested going to a completely different part of the sector, but Hermana Arenas said, ¨we haven´t tried Candi yet!¨ So we went to Candi, another Peruvian lady who hasn´t really shown that much interest. She was there with one of her friends, who was kind of rude to us at the beginning. As we shared a scripture with Candi, I found myself directing the lesson to the friend, even though she showed basically zero interest and I knew she lived far away. After we had finished our little lesson, she started to tell us about a ton of experiences she has had that have to do with bad spirits. I won´t go into a lot of detail, but she told us about how she is scared because while she has learned to deal with it all, she´s now pregnant and has to think of someone else too. So BING, once again, we started all over and began to teach the Restauration again. It was cool because we focused 100% on the priesthood power, which is what I always focus on in lesson 1. (A lot of people use examples of the 4 pilars of the church and the example of the table and what happens if you take out the posts, but I like to focus purely on the Priesthood.) The weird part of the lesson was that we were outside under a patio roof thing and while we started the lesson normal, the family didn´t have lights outside and by the time we talked about Joseph Smith, it was almost pitch black. I had to use the cell phone to show the pictures in the pamphlet. My companion was a little freaked out, and it really was an odd experience because I was using really strong language to try and help this woman understand that THIS church is the ONLY church that has the priesthood power to be able to help her, but I couldn´t even really see her face. I promised her that if she prayed TONIGHTand received an answer, she could get a priesthood blessing as early as TOMORROW and be rid of the spirit. I passed along the reference as soon as we left, but I don´t know what happened. She wasn´t the most humble of people in the world, but I hope she understood what we were saying. So Saturday was a really cool and a real testimony to me of how powerful the Holy Ghost is and also what protection we have from our convenants. The last thing is much more light. On Sunday we got to church a little late because we were helping Giovana get her girls ready, and as we sat in the back with them, one of the high counselors got up and started talking about how lucky we were to be in this ward. He talked about how great the bishop is, the family so and so, and then said, ¨and you have two AWESOME Elders. Elder McConkie and Elder Hales. What great young men! Elder McConkie and Elder Hales!! What more could you possibly want!!¨ He was like crying when we was saying it. It was pretty funny. Apparently the family behind us was pointing to us and making signals, and the counselor in the bishopric later told us that we was whispering ¨and the hermanas¨but the guy didn´t even notice. Haha. Ah well. It´s hard for people to get used to sisters after having elders for a long time. And this ward has had a lot of really good missionaries in the last year so they haven´t quite decided if they´re sad or happy about us being here. But we´ll win them over soon! But it was a pretty funny experience.New Chilean president. Actually I guess it´s an old president. Everyone´s pretty unahppy about it because apparently she supports abortion, marijuana, and gay marriage. Bummer.Love you all! Christmas is so soon!Hermana Catron
One funny thing this week was that we were visiting a menos activa, Josefina, who is basically like your typical funny black lady in the states (is that politically unacceptable to say? I legit can´t remember). We asked her where her daughter was and she said ¨She´s in her room, communicating with spirits or something. She´s going to be punished!¨ We were really surprised. ¨Seriously?¨ ¨Yeah! It´s this new thing on the cell phones where you can talk to demonic spirits or something like that. All I hear is ·*insert her gargling something.* Freaks me out!¨ We were pretty weirded out (the daughter is like 14) but when the daughter came out, we asked her about it and she said ¨mooom! Oh please! I don´t do that!¨ Josefina was like: ¨Well then what is that sound I hear coming through your toom!¨ Isabella rolled her eyes and then looked at us, ¨do you know what wassup is?¨ Turns out her friend had just whispered ¨fattie¨ through the phone and her mom had thought they were like deamon spirits. She showed us and the mom was like ¨I mean what the heck is that!¨ We were laughing so hard.
On Saturday, we only had 2 lessons, but they were way cool lessons. The first one was with one of our investigators, Giovana, who is from Peru and has three daughters (Zhaire, Thyra, and Myra- they all rhyme...). We were teaching her a little bit right before we had to leave for lunch. She asked about baptism and we explained a little bit of that. Then her sister came and as she sat there listening, she was paying a ton of attention. Then as we were finishing, she asked, ¨I have a question. What is the difference between all the churches? I mean, how can we know who is right?¨ BING! The perfect lesson. We tried at first to explain it fast because the members were already waiting for us with lunch, but everytime we finished explaining one part of the restoration, she would ask a question that Perfectly led into the next part of the lesson. And as I recited the words of the first vision, I felt an overwhelming tingling sensation in my entire body. That has only happened once or twice in my whole mission and was incerdible for me. I can only hope that they felt the same spirit I was feeling. It was a really cool experience. Turns out that she lives in our sector too, so we´re really excited about the possibility of teaching her more. That night we helped out with a primary activity because we thought Giovana and her kids were going to go (they ended up legitimately not being able to go), and then we tried a bunch of people but nobody was home. I suggested going to a completely different part of the sector, but Hermana Arenas said, ¨we haven´t tried Candi yet!¨ So we went to Candi, another Peruvian lady who hasn´t really shown that much interest. She was there with one of her friends, who was kind of rude to us at the beginning. As we shared a scripture with Candi, I found myself directing the lesson to the friend, even though she showed basically zero interest and I knew she lived far away. After we had finished our little lesson, she started to tell us about a ton of experiences she has had that have to do with bad spirits. I won´t go into a lot of detail, but she told us about how she is scared because while she has learned to deal with it all, she´s now pregnant and has to think of someone else too. So BING, once again, we started all over and began to teach the Restauration again. It was cool because we focused 100% on the priesthood power, which is what I always focus on in lesson 1. (A lot of people use examples of the 4 pilars of the church and the example of the table and what happens if you take out the posts, but I like to focus purely on the Priesthood.) The weird part of the lesson was that we were outside under a patio roof thing and while we started the lesson normal, the family didn´t have lights outside and by the time we talked about Joseph Smith, it was almost pitch black. I had to use the cell phone to show the pictures in the pamphlet. My companion was a little freaked out, and it really was an odd experience because I was using really strong language to try and help this woman understand that THIS church is the ONLY church that has the priesthood power to be able to help her, but I couldn´t even really see her face. I promised her that if she prayed TONIGHTand received an answer, she could get a priesthood blessing as early as TOMORROW and be rid of the spirit. I passed along the reference as soon as we left, but I don´t know what happened. She wasn´t the most humble of people in the world, but I hope she understood what we were saying. So Saturday was a really cool and a real testimony to me of how powerful the Holy Ghost is and also what protection we have from our convenants. The last thing is much more light. On Sunday we got to church a little late because we were helping Giovana get her girls ready, and as we sat in the back with them, one of the high counselors got up and started talking about how lucky we were to be in this ward. He talked about how great the bishop is, the family so and so, and then said, ¨and you have two AWESOME Elders. Elder McConkie and Elder Hales. What great young men! Elder McConkie and Elder Hales!! What more could you possibly want!!¨ He was like crying when we was saying it. It was pretty funny. Apparently the family behind us was pointing to us and making signals, and the counselor in the bishopric later told us that we was whispering ¨and the hermanas¨but the guy didn´t even notice. Haha. Ah well. It´s hard for people to get used to sisters after having elders for a long time. And this ward has had a lot of really good missionaries in the last year so they haven´t quite decided if they´re sad or happy about us being here. But we´ll win them over soon! But it was a pretty funny experience.New Chilean president. Actually I guess it´s an old president. Everyone´s pretty unahppy about it because apparently she supports abortion, marijuana, and gay marriage. Bummer.Love you all! Christmas is so soon!Hermana Catron