Thursday, December 21, 2017

¡Bienvenidos a Chile!

I find it very strange that I am not in cultural shock right now because I have only been here for three days, and it is quite different than home. I am in the city, but a more poor part of the city where there are lots of stray dogs and apartments with clothes hanging out the window. I love it though! It is the heat of summer so i am getting comfortable feeling gross and drinking lots of water haha If i didn´t have a way to check the date, I would never know it is Christmas time.

The members here are great, and we always have a place to go for lunch, which is the big meal of the day. Equally so, my companion is great! Her name is Hermana Vargas and she is from here in Chile! She lives in a town that I forget the name of that is south of here. She knows quite a bit of English which is nice, and she has only been out in the field for 4 months so I think we are both learning more or less. Our relationship is like any relationship, it needs work. As you can imagine, there is a little bit of a language barrier, but we can usually get by it when I perform some very unique dance moves to get her laughing or when she makes me our very nutritous dinner of tom ramen with lots of cheese hahahah It is great. 

Since we have been here, we have taught only two lessons which is less than preferable to me because I love teaching, but our investigadors are great. And by teaching I mean bearing my testimony because I don´t have the ability to actual teach yet. Anyway we are teaching two sisters who are 15 and 13 and they are so cute and kept asking me to sing Justin Beiber in English for them and kept wanting to play Simon says and then laughing every time it was my turn! When I left middle school, I never though 13 year old girls would be ever be intimidating to me again... boy was I wrong. Our other investigador is a 14 year old boy named Bastian. We were contacted by his mother because she was looking for a way to help him with his drug problem so she is encouraging the lessons a lot. He has a baptism date, so hopefully he will be able to follow through.

When i got here all the missionaries told me not to worry that I would pick up the language eventually, so I am SERIOUSLY relying on that. I don´t know what language they taught me in the CCM but I swear it was not the same language they speak here. I get confused when someone asks me where I am from or how old i am... Chileano Spanish and Mexican spanish are too very different things. I honestly just walk down the street saying Hola to literally everyone and smiling because I know nothing else! It´s all right though hahah Surprisingly I haven´t gotten frustrated yet, I just kind of laugh at how ridiculous I must look haha 

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!!


Hermana BeverI find it very strange that I am not in cultural shock right now because I have only been here for three days, and it is quite different than home. I am in the city, but a more poor part of the city where there are lots of stray dogs and apartments with clothes hanging out the window. I love it though! It is the heat of summer so i am getting comfortable feeling gross and drinking lots of water haha If i didn´t have a way to check the date, I would never know it is Christmas time.

The members here are great, and we always have a place to go for lunch, which is the big meal of the day. Equally so, my companion is great! Her name is Hermana Vargas and she is from here in Chile! She lives in a town that I forget the name of that is south of here. She knows quite a bit of English which is nice, and she has only been out in the field for 4 months so I think we are both learning more or less. Our relationship is like any relationship, it needs work. As you can imagine, there is a little bit of a language barrier, but we can usually get by it when I perform some very unique dance moves to get her laughing or when she makes me our very nutritous dinner of tom ramen with lots of cheese hahahah It is great. 

Since we have been here, we have taught only two lessons which is less than preferable to me because I love teaching, but our investigadors are great. And by teaching I mean bearing my testimony because I don´t have the ability to actual teach yet. Anyway we are teaching two sisters who are 15 and 13 and they are so cute and kept asking me to sing Justin Beiber in English for them and kept wanting to play Simon says and then laughing every time it was my turn! When I left middle school, I never though 13 year old girls would be ever be intimidating to me again... boy was I wrong. Our other investigador is a 14 year old boy named Bastian. We were contacted by his mother because she was looking for a way to help him with his drug problem so she is encouraging the lessons a lot. He has a baptism date, so hopefully he will be able to follow through.

When i got here all the missionaries told me not to worry that I would pick up the language eventually, so I am SERIOUSLY relying on that. I don´t know what language they taught me in the CCM but I swear it was not the same language they speak here. I get confused when someone asks me where I am from or how old i am... Chileano Spanish and Mexican spanish are too very different things. I honestly just walk down the street saying Hola to literally everyone and smiling because I know nothing else! It´s all right though hahah Surprisingly I haven´t gotten frustrated yet, I just kind of laugh at how ridiculous I must look haha 

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!!

Hermana Bever