YA PO HERE WE GO.

...I'd like to start this letter out by telling you what it means to be serving in Cachapoal. Our building is in el centro, which is great, because we're really close to everything. Internet cafe, food, the chapel. We're also the closest to the oficina de la misiòn, which is great because we get our packages/letters relatively fast. We also have a HUGE sector...twenty minutes en micro (bus) to get to one part of our sector named "Olivar" (I love that place.) It's really fun, because we get to work in a LOT of different types of areas...we've got the city of down-town Rancagua, we've got some shacks, we've got really rural areas, suburbs...it's quite the sector we've got.

We also live in the same building as the Comisarios, Secretarios and Asistentes. That means we've got to watch our behavior...(just kidding. We're always good...but they actually straight-man it up when they think we might run into them. Never know.) That also means that at the end of every transfer our apartment turns into "Hotel Cachapoal"...we have people staying with us over night for transfers, or people who are headed home to their houses, or people with medical needs (the mission nurse lives in our sector, too,) etc. I actually like it usually, because I get to know a lot more of the missionaries, and sometimes I get to see my friends from old sectors, etc. But one of the harder things is seeing the missionaries die. It puts my mission into perspective...we always ask them how they're feeling about going home, and almost everyone says they feel really contradicted...like...they would stay in the mission for another year if they could. For me, I love the mission, and I can't really imagine having to leave yet, because I have another year here! (Lucky me!) But it reminds me to keep enjoying the mission and to work really hard every day so that at the end of my mission, at least I can feel like I did what I could and that God is pleased with my work.

I say that because...CAMBIOS. It's the end of another six weeks, and we got the cambio call last Saturday night. Hermana Kenney and I were pretty uneasy, because we knew she was going to leave. (Gringos never stay together very long.) And........drum roll, please.............WE are staying together!! I honestly was absolutely shocked. I thought for sure she was leaving. That means I'll probably be in Cachapoal for a while, because now it's almost guarunteed that she'll leave next transfer, so I'll have to stay at least one more so that they don't white-wash our sector (...could happen, but I doubt it...)

ANYWAY, we are super excited! We have an Hermana with us right now who is dying tomorrow, so we're working in a little trio for the night. But we are going to start this cambio with a bang! We want to have a lot of success in these six weeks, so we're really going to keep working on helping our investigators progress! Even more!

The other day we got stopped by TWO different people asking us if we'd come teach them in their house. We went by one of them, and it's a girl our age (19) who has a two year old daughter and is living with her boyfriend. She is very interested, and we hope she will keep progressing!

We're also working with a young man who is 17 years old. He's very VERY active in the Catholic church, but he's been coming to church with us for the last month. He's integrated with the youth, he's reading the Book of Mormon, but he hasn't committed to baptism yet. Last night we had a lesson with him where he said that he knew that this church was true. He said that he felt it in our last lesson, and that the last time he walked into our church, he heard a voice that said that this church was the true church of God. If all this is true, we are very confused why he won't get baptized...but we are going to work with him a little more, to see what we can do!

I'm really sorry, but I didn't have much time this week to write...President needed us to go to the mission home to pick up the hermana that's dying tomorrow, so it took a lot of our P-day time, but I STILL LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND GOSH DARN IT KEEP READING AND PRAYING AND WRITING ME LETTERS PLEASE I MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Love, Hermana Thomas
Better letter next time. I promise.

Hello....Kenna's letter from February 2

¡HOLA! I LOVE YOU ALL A TON. Thank you all so much for your lovely, lovely letters! I love hearing from you! I honestly wish you could all spend just one day with me down here in good ol' Chile, so you could live my letters instead of just read them. I'm having a blast, but sometimes I feel like the letters just don't do Chile the justice it deserves. This place is awesome.

First of all, I'm going to do that cop-out I seem to have been doing the past couple weeks...it has something to do with my journal...and how I didn't do very good at keeping up with it this week...again...HEY BUT WAIT. There's more this time...here's the deal. I've been keeping my journal more like a...list. At the end of the day, I write some funny or spiritual experiences that I've had since the last time I wrote...in a list form. I've been justifying myself because I've thought, "my letters home every week pretty much are my journal entries." 

Well...President Eyring told me off the other day. Face to face, an apostle told me off. (Just kidding. It was through a magazine.) JUST as I shrugged off writing in my journal to read some articles in the "Liahona" (a church magazine,) I came across a message by Henry B. Eyring, in which he talks about how important it is to keep a journal. To top it off, he quoted a prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, who said this: "Those who keep a book of remembrance [a journal] are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives. Journals are a way of counting our blessings and of leaving an inventory of these blessings for our posterity." I thought about that, then opened my journal to read an entry I wrote back in the MTC, in which I talked primarily about KFC Chicken and catching a mouse in a garbage can. My posterity's gonna love that.............so, yeah. I'm re-thinking my journal, here.

 

 

So. What's new here? I've been tired! But that means I'm working hard. (No, Mom, don't worry. It's not "I'm dying of tuberculosis" tired.) We've come home every night absolutely wiped out. We had a few rough days this week...just contacting, contacting, contacting...this isn't too out of the ordinary. The only difference this week was that NO ONE. NO. ONE. Opened their doors for us. I don't know what was going on. And when they did, they closed them on us, or took a card and left before we could explain it, which means we couldn't technically count it as a contact...so that's been a little frustrating! But that's just a reality of the mission sometimes. People don't want to listen. Sometimes we talk to people who straight out tell us that they never discuss religion with other people....ISN'T THAT SO SCARY? What if you're wrong!?! (You are wrong, by the way, but) WHAT IF you're wrong? 

BUT. This week has also had some really great moments, too! For example, the other day our convert, Maria Elizabeth, told us that she's been talking to everyone--EVERYONE--about the gospel. She told us that she made a friend in a pharmacy who's about 30 years old, who was separated from her husband and had all these problems, etc, etc...anyway, Maria Elizabeth told her to stop smoking and to work things out with her husband so that she can have an eternal family, and that God would bless her. I guess that they met up a week later, and this lady is trying to follow her advice! Oh man, Maria Elizabeth is the greatest person in the world. She keeps talking about investigators like we're alligator wrestling...she says, "who was that investigator in church?" We say, "oh, that's Maria." And she says, "oh! Who conquered her??" (Like, which of the missionary companion-ships is teaching this person. "Conquering.") She keeps saying, "I'm going to conquer someone, too!"

So, yeah. Conquering in Chile.

We are also teaching a girl who is thirteen...we found her while we were contacting last week, and it turns out that all the members of her family are baptized members of the church except for her. Her parents went inactive because they moved from their original ward, so we are working on helping her mom and dad get back to church...the only problem is that her mom is being...very stubborn. When we ask the daughter if she'd like to be baptized, she always nods yes very confidently, but she tries to hide it from her mom...and her mom always answers for her, and says "well...we'll need to see." Every time. But, little by little, we are seeing progress there.

Hey, Dad, you're gonna love this...you just sent me a picture of you and one of your old college friends, which reminded me that when I skyped you guys on Christmas, the member family was sitting on the couch next to me, talking to my companion and occasionally looking at the screen...anyway, after I hung up with you, I switched with Hermana Kenney so that she could skype her family, and as soon as I sat down, the mom of the family said to me, "hey, what movie has your dad been in?" I told her none, but she was convinced, and started looking up possibilities on IMDB of movies that she's seen YOU in. Not an actor that looks like you...YOU. So. Don't let your head get too big, there. Chileans also call me "Barbie" when I'm sliming through the streets without having showered that morning.

We also had interviews with the president this week. Mine went really good, I felt the spirit so strong and he helped me with a lot of concerns I've been having personally. There were questions that he asked me during my interview that he could not have known were absolutely perfect, since I've only really expressed these concerns in my prayers. It was another testimony-building experience, where I really felt that the Lord is aware of me, and this is His work, and His hand is in every detail...even my interview with the president! I'm really grateful for President Warne, and all of our leaders in the mission. We're all just one big team, working to help our fellow brothers and sisters grow closer to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary.

¡Les extraño y amo muchisimo! Pienso en ustedes cada dia, y siempre estan en mis oraciones. ¡Espero que todo este bien y que esten leyendo sus escrituras, orando cada mañana y noche, y haciendo lo bueno en cada momento! 

HELLO HERMANA KENNEY'S MOM. (Hermana Kenney just asked for my blogspot address.)

I LOVE YOU ALL. KEEP DOING ALL THOSE THINGS I'VE BEEN SAYING BECAUSE THEY ARE IMPORTANT I KNOW THEY WILL BLESS YOUR LIVES. IIIIIIIIII LOOOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU AAAAAAAAAAALL.

Con muchooooo amor, Hermana Thomas