Week 28

Hola Familia!

Jajaja, I guess I guilt tripped everyone into sending me emails! ;) I opened my email and had one from everyone! Which is a good feeling, keep it up jaja! This week was pretty great! Some pretty cool stuff, and a butt-ton of walking. You know how it is! It's actually getting harder to remember stuff so I can write about it! I'm trying to write stuff down in my agenda in my slots for Lunes, but even with that I don't remember everything. Sorry if I sound boring, but here goes! 

This week we did in fact have a baptism! We baptized our girls, las mellizas Catalina and Constanza! (Cata y Coni). 

It was absolutely fantastic! I love them so much! It's pretty funny with them, because even though they're twins, they could not be more different. They're nine years old, but Chilean girls are more mature looking, and so they look like they're older than Ashlyn. But Coni is super outgoing. Super friendly, but also super sassy. She sasses her mom right in front of us, which is kinda super funny but I feel like I'm not allowed to laugh jaja! But if you want to be completely lost, listen to Latinos argue, or listen to a Latina mom chastise her child. Only recently have I began to understand what they're saying, and it's kinda crazy!  But anyways, I'm off topic. So that's Coni. Cata is completely different. She is super super super shy. She always hides from us, doesn't really talk, or hides behind her mom or something. But we got her to open up a bit to us, which her mom said is super strange, because she doesn't do that. But I found out she likes to draw, so I asked to see her drawings, and after that we were friends! But Elder Barney bapized Coni, and I baptized Cata! The service was really great under the circumstances. We had it right after church, and a lot of people ended up not being able to go, including people we asked to do stuff. But we saved it, and the water was warmer this time. Actually, the water was perfect. A member also made some white tunics for us to use, which was so perfect, because we found out that nobody in Alto Hospicio has tunics for little girls. Thank you members! I'll try to download pictures to my onedrive today so you can see them. I love these girls! Their mom scared us a ton the day before, though. She is a menos activa, and hasn't been to church in a while. Like, two years. But when we went to make sure everything was alright, she told us straight up, "Actually no, they're not getting baptized tomorrow!" Downright scared us! So we got her talking, and turns out she just didn't want to go to church because supposedly 'she doesn't fall well with too many members'. I was like, what?! This is the salvation of your two little girls, and you're not going to allow it because you don't get along with some people?! I stayed quiet though and counted to diez, and we responded with love, and with persuasion, and all that good stuff that the scriptures say we need to have, and she ended up giving in! Jeje, we're just too good, she couldn't refuse us! But she ended up coming, and we watched her with the sisters, and they all responded as if they saw a family member that they haven't seen in years! And her too! 

We had another service project on Saturday, in the same place as before. Hermano Rojas lives in the middle of nowhere out in the desert an hour out of Pozo, and we went there to help finish building his house. I don't understand why he wants to live there, but he's there with his wife, and they make the trip to church every week, so what can I say? there house is legit just a frame, hastily put together by members, and some plywood to close it up, and nothing else. There's no floor, and the wood we used is whatever scraps they could find and put together to build something that won't fall. But that's ok, they like it! And he randomly pulled out these solar panels, and we made a box for them! I was so confused, because it seemed like they didn't have enough to afford a floor, and they whip out solar panels? What? Jajajaja, Chileans. But they like it! So what can I say?

Elder Barney is doing better. Way better, he doesn't feel sick anymore. I don't feel sick either, literally or hypothetically, so that's good! ;) We worked harder this week than I have ever worked, and all of our indicadores claves rose, which was awesome. We had an assistence of 74 people in church, 15 new investigators, 6 fechas bautismales, 14 lessons with a member present, and 5 investigators in church. The work is moving forward. Elder Barney is helping me with my vision to baptize, sí o sí. My vision for my mission has changed completely from what it was at first. He also helps me to be more obedient, too, and I can see the results, so that's awesome too! So our relationship is pretty good. We hit some rocky spots this week, but I feel like those are necessary for an even better relationship. So I'm happy. 

So here's the big part! We gon' talk in a week! WUT WUT!!! Jajaja I'm so excited!! So, we decided that we are going to call at 9:00 here, which should be around 6:00 there for you guys. Algo así (something like that). We want to do that, so that afterward, we don't have to work, it'll be the last thing we do jaja! I feel like that would not be fun to work right after talking with the family! So expect a call right around then from your's truly! (If I remember my skype password jejeje). But hey, I'm probably going to be super bad with talking, or finding something to talk about. So everyone write some questions or something that you're super curious about, or that you think I can talk about! Maybe I can talk the whole time in Spanish or something! ;) But yeah, I'll talk to you then! Take care everyone!

Les quiero a todos!

Elder Schmid