Semana 2!

May 17, 2010

Week 2 in Chile and I am still alive! I might die from the amount of food we have to eat at one sitting, but thats okay. We eat almuerzo with a member every day and almuerzo is a big deal here. Everyone goes home to eat and there's dessert and everything. They feel like they have to feed the Hermanas a lot because we walk around all day so they think we are extra hungry haha. Not the case! But it's sweet, and you can't say no!

I had mission conference this week, so we took the bus 2 hours to Talca and I got to see Paigey again! It is so fun to see her, it's like I have a little piece of family and home in Chile with me. I love her! The other Hermanas in Chile are so cute. Everyone is good friends, the Elders too! I have 2 of my Elders from my district in the MTC in our zone boundaries so that is sooo nice to see them too, also like a little piece of home, and my comp from the MTC is there. We will only see everyone every 6 weeks now, I guess when we do cambios.

Anyways, we did lots of work this week, and the lady who was going to get baptized decided to all of the sudden not want to. We went to her house to see where she was when the Elders came to do an interview, and she actually literally ran when she saw us! She was smoking and didn't want us to see--but still!! Kind of funny, but we kind of felt like a lot of the people we thought were interested all of the sudden aren't anymore. We had one day where we had lesson after lesson planned and we have to walk to each one and they are not close at all, but we went to each one and I am not kidding every single one wasn't home, or were busy or something. That was a hard day but all you can do is laugh about it when you get home and massage your feet.

Everyone still here is super open and willing to share with us and invite us in, that's the beauty of being here. I love it, everyone is sooo nice and loving. Everyone wants to give you kisses and food and love and it's just great.

Well, today we made some compros for food for this week. It's amazzzzzing because there are these little negocios that sell different things and we went to a fruit and veggie one and I just got so excited I grabbed like 6 bags and just went to town! I got carrots (which are huuuge here), apples, avocados, tomatoes (which are AMAZING here), cilantro, and oranges all for about 2 dollars and 50 cents. Pretty amazing, huhhh?

I have a technique when it comes to eating almuerzo. Theres no way you can eat all that food going at a normal pace so I try and get really low to the plate and just start trucking. I don't talk, I don't look up, I barely even breathe...I only eat. The only fault with that is that they ask if you want more! I always say no but then they give you this look like you really should want more.

The bread here is amazing. Last week when I was talking about the smells here in Chile I forgot one very important one. Since Chileans love their bread soo so so much they make it fresh every day so it smells like warm french bread everywhere too. We actually just got some fresh bread before we came here. SO GOOD! It's different than any other bread though, it's just delicious. We also walked through the plaza, which is just like the center of town, and went to a little cart selling churros and I got a chocolate covered apple, which was also really delicious/healthy-ish?

I do have fleas, I have gotten a few bites but they don't itch at all. My comp says I am really lucky because then they just go away, but for some people they itch sooo bad and then you have big sores on your body. So I am realllly glad they don't itch. I have a few on my wrists? Which is so random and a few on my legs, but they just look like little red stamps, not swollen or anything.

Oh my gosh, okay--so there is a member here named Gaston and he is a convert of about a year but he LOVES loves loves the Hermanas, and he is seriously the funniest guy. He knows he cant hug us but he loves us so much that he gets as close as he can to a hug that he can. I wish there was some way I could explain him better but he calls us his Hermanitas and throws his arms up. We ate dinner at his house yesterday and I had heard that he served a lot. He served a realllly big bowl of thick soup with beans noodles and some kind of meat. WITH a longanessa. I dont know how you spell it but it is just literally the biggest piece of sausage I have ever seen! WITH bread, and homemade aji (which is so good). Aji is like chilean salsa but its just the red peppers, and he makes it with cilantro and salt. It's good...but he also had tomato salad, which I would have been fine just eating that for dinner! He is so funny though, and he loves to cook for the Hermanas because they always give him so much praise.

Anyways got to go! We still have stuff to do today. Oh send mail please! I only get mail once every 3 weeks because our area is so far from the office, but still send mail!!