Janelle's e-mails to her family

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

rainy monday...and every other day for the most part :)



May 17, 2010 (Ancud)

Hola familia y amigos! Well, week two is coming to a close. Such a great week.

Well, the past two days have been amazing! The work has really picked up Saturday and Sunday. We now have a full plate of new investigators. We got 7 new investigators in 2 days, and they are all really solid. They all had really solid commitments to read the BOM and pray. I´m so excited for this upcoming week. Also, some great news on Sunday--Vanesa spoke with her live in boyfriend about getting married, again. We told her to speak with the Spirit and bear her testimony of the blessings to him, and he´s now open to the idea! We were so excited! She told us in the bathroom in the church on Sunday, and we were all hugging and whisper-screaming. Ridiculo, but so great. I hope that this happens pronto, because she really wants to get baptized, and she has so much faith. We´re praying for her lots.

This week on Saturday I got to teach my first English class. The books from the MTC really helped out a lot with that, being as I can´t really speak Spanish yet. But we also got to teach in Primary. During my turn to teach we sang songs...I told the kids that I didn´t speak Spanish well yet and they needed to help me. They were all so cute while we were singing. They´d help me with the words. It was great.

Some general stuff that I´ve learned this week:

-Every Tuesday I need to eat nothing until lunch because we have a lunch appointment with a family, and the lady feeds us so much. SO much. I left this week so sick becauase I had to eat a big bowl of soup, two heaped plates of meat and rice, and a big cup of fruit. Whooooo....it was good, but when they say you can´t have too much of a good thing, they were lying. The other missionaries that we were eating with were all laughing at me...no one gave me a heads up. Lame. I guess I learned my lesson to never quite finish your plate until everyone else is done.

-It´s starting to get cold and rainy, but it´s also so green and beautiful here...you win some and lose some. I think it´s worth it though. Every day, we see something new that you could just stare at for hours because it is so beautiful. When it´s clear in the sky at night, the sunsets and the stars are unreal. I have never seen them so beautiful in my life. I´m going to try and take a picture of one of the sunsets sometime this week to send. So gorgeous.

-There are phases of culture shock. It started out all really cool and adventurous. Then it turned into a little bit of homesickness Thursday morning, but then I realized that this work really has nothing to do with me. Forget yourself and go to work. After that I was fine. Now it´s becoming a lot more everyday normal. I´m getting used to things quickly, thankfully. Still working on the Spanish, clearly. That´s an extended project, but I´m going to set specific goals daily so that I am not overwhelmed. I´m beginning to understand it a lot better though. That´s coming quicker than the speaking, but I think that´s normal. I love it, though. Lots of work, but it´s perfect.

-Being sick on the mission stinks. I have a little bit of a cold right now, and that stinks because you still work in spite of it. But my compi and I are sick together so we laugh about how we will cough while we´re teaching. A lot of people are sick around here now, I think it´s because the weather is getting colder now, but it´s no big deal. It only gets really bad when someone has a smoky house. Everyone here has a wood burning stove for a heater, so when their stove is smoky, it gets me coughing, but other than that it´s all good.

Ok funny story for the week really quick: So last Monday night after Pday was over, my comp and I were walking on our way to an appointment. By this time it´s dark already and it was really foggy that night, so in general it was a rather creepy setting. We walk past this fence and these three huge dogs all of a sudden start going crazy barking at us. It took us both by such surprise that we screamed and grabbed each other like a bunch of ditsy girls. Just as this happened, these two guys walked around the corner just in time to see this whole show...it was so so funny! We were so embarrassed, but we were laughing so hard about it. There are dogs everywhere here. In all the streets, for pets, the whole nine yards. We have never had problems with dogs in the streets, they follow us sometimes, but they are friendly. The ones in the fences are the ones we have to worry about. Before we go in someone’s fence to knock the door, we have to make sure that they don´t have a dog. It´s an adventure :)

Anywho, that´s all I´ve got this week. Next week I´ll send pictures of the apt. This week´s picture was taken right before I wrote this. We were going to spend some time today walking around taking pictures, but as you can see the weather did not permit this. So maybe next week we´ll get to see more of Ancud.

Sounds like everyone is doing great: the house got sold, the baby is on the way, Dad´s going to feel better, sound great. Love you mom and dad! Love you Scott, Eric, Michael, Chris! Love you rest of the fam! Take care. Be good.


LOVE YOU ALL!

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