Almost six months in the mission. No puedo creerlo!

Hola familia mia. Hey ya´ll, Hermana Kelley and I (apparently) are the two Hermanas in the missions with accents. I think President (being from Oklahoma and all) thought it would be a good thing to put us together to enhance each other´s accents...nice....I say ya´ll a lot more now...it´s kind of dangerous. Who knew I would pick that up in Chile, hahahah... I hope all is well back in the good old United States. It sounds like from the letters things are going pretty good.

Well, I have the most amazing news EVER!!!!!! KAREN IS GETTING BAPTIZED! She is a miracle in my life. If you´re wondering why you haven´t heard tons about her...well it´s because she had her baptismal interview exactly only one month after we contacted her in the street. She was so utterly prepared, it blows my mind. She is such a sweet girl. She is 20 years old, but looks like she is about 15 years old just because she is so tiny. She is a spit fire though, and she is always correcting our Spanish...it´s pretty funny. But she is so, so smart. She is very intellectual, and she told us the other day that she can´t believe she is doing this because it all doesn´t make perfect sense to her yet, but I just laughed and told her...well, everything doesn´t make perfect sense to me either yet, but that´s the Lord´s way of showing us that we have to work with faith more than intellect. I love her so much, and I am so grateful to get to see her change and evolve and understand more and more the past month. She is amazing. She just gets it. It´s so beautiful. She´ll be baptized the 28 of August. Please, please pray for her and her family. She means so very much to me. I think I am just as nervous as she is for this, but I didn´t tell her so. She is so, so ready and prepared. It´s so cool!

Also this week, we talked to Marcelo about baptism again and he really wants to get baptized. We found out that he is attending seminary and basically any other church activity he can get his hands on. He knows so much already that we haven´t even taught him. He´s going to get baptized the 11th of September. The only problem is that he has to get his parents’ permission to do it, obviously. We have taught his mom and his sister, and they are awesome. I think his mom doesn´t have any problem with it...she´s just happy he´s so happy, but I have yet to meet his father. Marcelo tells me he is very active in another church and is not happy at all that he is attending all these Church things. So please pray for him that his heart will be softened and that we will be able to teach his whole family these things.

What else is new....OH. Some really cool news: Tonight we travel to Puerto Montt (on the continent) and then in the morning we will head to Osorno to have a Mission Conference with Elder Richard G. Scott! We are so so, so excited. (I´m going to try and take a picture with my arm around him like Eric and Steve Young....just kidding....about the arm around him...I´m a missionary). Hahah. But anyway, we won´t get back to work until Wednesday, so that will be a little hard on our goals next week, but I´m not complaining at all :) I´m so, so excited. I am pretty sure he can speak Spanish too, so that will be neat to hear him speak in Spanish. Yay!

Oh mom, in reference to my little black jacket...it is getting pretty worn out just from being wet all the time, so I have been thinking about finding something else here to wear underneath my rain jacket. They have some really nice jackets here that are really warm, but still thin enough to layer under rain coats and great in the rain. I´m thinking I am going to try and find one of those. They are pretty pricey...I think like 80-100 dollars or something, but let me know what you think. A lot of the Elders have them and they say they are the best thing since sliced bread....a very good investment. Anyway...let me know your thoughts. I´m thinking I could probably get a month or two more out of mine, but I need to start looking for another that looks a little nicer. I am so glad that I brought my black jacket though...it´s like having two rain coats on at one time....HEAVEN. Eventually with all the rain..."waterproof" isn´t as waterproof as you might like...so it´s nice to have a double layer.

Anyway I love you all tons. Tons and tons. Thank you for everything. Dad, thank you for the pep talk at the end of your last letter...I needed that today. You are so great

Oh and momma, after the mish you and I need to road trip it to Alabama and hang out with Hna Kelley and her momma. We are making plans. From what she´s told me ya´ll (hahaha) will get along great. It´s going to be great.

Oh and Hna Aponte called me on Hna Lovell´s cell phone the other day during a conference and she told me that she is using cualquier ropa; hahaha pobresita! (I have a feeling that I might go there next....ummm yeah.)

Welp. Love you all tons!!!!