October 7

I Love conference! I think I actually go through a depression when it´s over. It´s like better than Christmas and it´s a great jump start for missionaries to be able to invite people to come listen to a prophet this very weekend. You know just mix it up a little. There was a lot to get out of this conference but I personally learned a lot about following the spirit through humility and knowledge and of course obedience. There is nothing that a missionary could need more than the promptings and love of the spirit.

We listened to conference in Spanish. They sometimes have it in English I think but they had a hard time getting the satellite for Spanish so I don’t think they cared about English at that point. It’s alright though. I think the only voice I missed the most was elder Holland of course. Also we didn’t get to watch the women’s conference because they couldn’t {t get the satellite in time. sad.

Conference was super awesome. It’s funny cause when we watch it at home I feel like I’m in the conference center like they’re all so close but this time I felt so super far away. It was weird seeing motab and feeling like I had to stretch my ears to hear them.  I did loved singing called to serve picturing everyone in the world singing it at the same time in their own language including my family dressed in their Sunday best at home.

I hope you all listen to the prophet and continue to help the missionaries in a bigger way than ever. This work is seriously impossible to do by ourselves and the only time I have ever said ¨wow, this is hard¨ is when I didn’t have the help of the ward. The church is designed to help the individual person because God loves us all individually. I know more than ever how important visiting teaching and home teaching are. The best way to help the missionaries is with the work. I would give up lunch every day of the week if you would just go do your visits. I´m excited to hear about your missionary experiences! Just think Tate could baptize them all before he even leaves for the mish! And don’t wait until Christmas! People need the gospel now! Also we totally stayed for the priesthood session. What? It was perfect for missionaries in every which way and I learned more about how to teach during that than in any of the other sessions. I’m excited to study deep into the articles of faith. I hope you are too!

So the place that I’m in now isn’t dangerous at all. It’s a cute town surrounded by fields and I still love it and we can take out the camera. Ha-ha. A lady in the ward does our laundry and we still and always will have 4 sisters now here in Pitrufquen. The work is growing! The other two are from Mexico and Paraguay. Hermana Orosco y Hermana Leon. It’s getting warmer but just kind of sporadic- I never know what I should wear. But I have broken into my spring apparel for 2 of the days. I don’t think I’m going to like the heat as a missionary to be honest. Being outside in that is not fun. I’d rather just buddle up.

So... big news!! We bought a house! YUP! Okay we found another house because ours is too small... I feel funny saying that. We’re not very humble I guess. But the new house is great! It’s huge! And super cute. It looks just like a cabin. I’ll take pictures of the inside when we move in in about 10 days.

Love you all so much! For real!

Hermana VandeMerwe

September 30

Wahoo! We had our baptism and confirmation this week! I love this family. Super awesome. We are going to work with him so he can get the priesthood soon and then become branch president and then his kids will grow up and go on missions and he’s going to be mission president and it’s just going to be great!!!

So I don’t think I told you but I am working with plan Alma now that I’m in a branch with 6 missionaries. So we are working with less actives and recent converts. The thing is they just made changes to the plans and so now we can also work with investigators if we find them. And the other people can work with the inactives if they find them. The thing is, it’s a great great great plan that would work super well but I think there’s just too much pride. Before others would turn in complete families to us and we would give them our investigators but now they only give us the less actives it’s just a race to find the family home first. But moral of the story is I do a lot of work with inactives and the conversos, but I like it a lot because I’m excited to help lots of people work toward the priesthood and the temple. We always focus on the men. Men men men because we need priesthood to get a temple here so we contact all the men ever but the problem is they never make it to that point. Just baptism. So anyways. The work is progressing

I’m so glad Tate is doing so well in his concerts and dances. I want to see some pictures!

I haven’t heard about the ski resorts but I know there are some. Some people took little trips to the ¨snow¨¨ also I didn’t know we had a rugby team here. No one talks about it. I didn’t know dad played rugby in college.... but I kind of remember saying that the last time I found out. My memory is as bad as moms sometimes. LOL. I’m just kidding mom. I´m just walking in your every footstep and I like it.

Thanks for cleaning the church! That is such a big help! I wish we had people to clean our chapel! Really bad actually. I almost just started crying because of how great that would be if a family came to the church to clean. lol!

Love you all to the moon and back!

Hermana VandeMerwe

September 23

WOW! I have so much to tell you and so little time! Thanks for all of your letters this week! It was fun to hear from everyone. Okay so I guess I’ll start from the beginning. 

First I took a 5 hour bus ride to Temuco. It was horrible. I was sick the whole time. i took Dramamine but I guess I just don{t react to that any more. golly. So I mainly slept or tried to. When I arrived I met my new companion, hermana Horan. She’s super awesome and laughs all the time so she’s super fun to be around and we get along just great. We took a 40 min bus ride to Picrtufquen and here I am! It’s so darling. Every house is like one of those houses that people are always looking to take pictures in front of, like rustic and colorful. I love it love it love! Our house is laughable not as colorful but still cute. We walk down like this hallway thing to go to some backyard and then up the stairs. The other sisters hate it but I think it{s fun. It’s like a treehouse. (kind of-really it’s just upstairs but whatever) plus it comes complete with a dog and a baby. We have some gym thing downstairs. Looks a little deserted but I hear there are people that use it.  And we just got 2 new sisters for this area so they just squeezed them in with us. Our bunk beds have about 18 inches in between them. lol. But it’s a lot of fun. We workout and dance in our 1 foot space each in the morning. 

Our sector is really big but it covers one branch. It has about the same assistance that our ward in la marina covered. But we’ve just got to get the priesthood!! We have 6 missionaries. 4 hermanas and 2 elders. I love everyone in the ward so far. There are a few leaving on missions soon so that’s really fun. Our yw president is 19, her mom is the RS president and the primary president is also the seminary teacher. There’s lots of multiple calling people. 

Whew okay so now for the 18th!!! Super fun we spent the day with our adorable family.... wait for it... our investigator.. that is.... GETTING BAPTISED on Saturday!!!!!! His wife got baptized a few months back and he just needed a little more time but we’ve got him now! They’re super adorable. Young and have a little 2 year old. They are super great with the missionaries and already act like members making sure we have food and everything. So we went to the parade I told you about. Really it was just all of the school kids walking in a line in their uniforms. They didn’t look very happy about it. Followed by a few fireman and a line of taxis. We ate lots of empanadas which I really don’t think are that good at all but oh well. And then went to the rodeo! The rodeo was fun! It was just like ours except that at the end of the catch the pig game they said “and now your dad can come over and get it” they just threw it in a bag and that was the prize. They did it again with the moms. “You’ll have dinner tomorrow!!!” lol. Just throw the pig in a bag and there you go. We didn’t work that night but instead went inside early to do lesson plans. 

The next day was crazy. Everything. EVERYTHING was closed and there wasn’t a soul on the street. We didn’t really get in any houses. But we visited a converso reciente who gave us a ton of Chilean food. Like more empanadas, shishkabobs, and mote with huesos. This was right after our lunch that we made ourselves... it wasn’t very good we were scraping for things in the house but somehow managed to eat a ton. Later that day we saw our Family Fray in the street and they gave us a sandwich. Then we went to a FHE where we ate more empanadas and more cookie things which also aren’t very good.... 

The next day we spent the entire day at the church for the 18th activity there. Super fun! I learned the cueca which is super fun to do. We had a competition. I think I would’ve won but they didn’t want a gringa to show them up so... 

We also played lots of games like the jump sack game (I totally won) and relays then did lots of karaoke and more dancing in the night. They somehow turned on cotton eye joe and were just amazed at the 3 gringos (me, hermana horan, elder ricks) that just started doing it. They loved it. lol. Ate some more empanadas and lunch and that was that.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hermana VandeMerwe

September 16

National Holiday in Chile this week--Cambria was unable to write! :)

September 9

I¨M LEAVING!!! Goodbye North, Ocean Breeze, Marina, Rain Drops, Candalaria, Sector La Marina. Hello South, Campo, Trees, spring, Sector Pitrufquen!!!

I´m being transferred to the furthest south we go. Funny because right now I´m as north as we go so it will be quite the change. I leave tomorrow. I´m not sure how long the bus is but probably like 5 or 6 hours. My new companion is Hermana Hernan- at least that´s what I heard from the Latinas. She´s another gringa and I hear she´s great! I also hear it´s beautiful and getting nice and warm. By the way today I have only one layer on-- :O   I will let you know all about it! 

This week I found out that it´s a law that we have a Chile flag outside for the 18th! We better buy a flag! lol. They also said it wasn´t enforced so I´m not too worried! We´ve also had some people tell us we´re all creatures or that we´re all devils. Of course the missionaries are angels... yet they still don´t listen to us. hmm where have I heard that story before? 

I learned a little bit of the national dance- la cueca but I need to practice a lot more if I´m going to be ready for the 18th! 

I haven´t received my package yet but I´m sure soon. I also haven´t heard about problems at all for packages to Chile so don´t fret. We have the mission home where the president lives and the mission office. The mission office looks like a church and has a sign in the front. No it doesn´t look like whatever you saw on mapquest. As far as organization we carry around our planners with us everywhere we go all still paper down here. 

We haven´t started our English class yet- slackers I guess you could say but I´d rather not think of it like that we just put other things above that! I´ll go see if there´s one in Pitrufquen. 

Thanks for your letters! I love you! 

Hermana VandeMerwe

September 2

So we write our emails from an internet cafe thing and right now there´s a bunch of people screaming things as they play their little games... ugh thank heavens I can easily tune out Spanish. 

Yesterday at church there was a mom during our quite relief society lesson playing Gangnam Style for her baby to watch to keep him from crying... LOl. I´m not sure which one is better. And there was drum practice outside so that was just grand. 

We had a contact approach us and ask us a question and then continue by saying, well president Hinkley said in "this" conference that... and in his hand... preach my gospel. weird? Yes. very. He had read the whole thing and had more notes in it than I do in mine. He said his grandma collects religious books but really out of all the religious books we have that is just not one that someone would find... but he had never read the Book of Mormon so we gave him one of those and we will meet with him on Wednesday!

As far as our families go... one of them is just not interested. The other we can´t visit until this week so we´ll see how it goes. He works like 20/30 or something like that. Lots of the men work like that here. So many days here and then so many away. The other we need to find but they don´t feel the desire to learn fast so it´s just kind of like whatever-sure you can come talk to us. To say the least not much has happened with the families. We were promised we would find families but not prepared ones. lol. We´re going to have to work a lot to get them on the right path. 

How fun that you´re going to write the missionaries. I never really knew what to write when we did that but I liked it. I say all of the above. Testimonies, funny things that happened, we love to laugh, words of encouragement. Cheap ideas for ym and ym or ideas for how they would be inspired to do missionary work. 

Emily and I write back and forth a few sentences ever week. And I have heard from Rickie. 

There is a big celebration the 18th and everyone is talking about it like more than Christmas and saying how fun it is and all the food we´ll eat and how I´m going to gain 4lbs. that will be great fun also that is like right before I come home next year so then I just be extra fat. I´ve made a goal to try to eat healthier and not eat all the extra stuff they give if possible like the mayo or the bread... but the bread is really good and I really do like mayo on everything... EVERYTHING. yum! <OH also p day is on the 18th so I think I´ll be writing Wednesday. They celebrate the whole week though and everyone says it´s horrible for missionary work so... that will be so fun.

Love you all!

August 26

It´s off to work we go.

Hello my beautiful family! Once again I don´t have time to read your emails before but I will after. Another Pday is here. This week went by super fast. This transfer has been really. We only have 2 more weeks of this transfer. Crazy. 

So yesterday was the primary program. It was a lot different than ours. They only sang one song and then the teachers and presidency all gave a little spill... weird. The primary is so out of hand. I didn´t know until last week. wow. We need like 10 more teachers in there. 

This week we´re going to start a choir. We´ll see how long that lasts. And then next week we´ll start English class. I don´t really want to start English classes but they´ve been asking for it for 3 months now so I guess we´ll give it to them. 

So we were with the zone leaders (in our sector working with us yet again) but it was good this time because they got a phone call asking for someone in our sector and they just happened to be with us and what to our wondering ears would hear? A brother saying that his brother had a dream that he needs to be baptized! So we called his brother and then met him in the park right then! He told us that he is looking for the truth and wanted to come to our church on Sunday. He´s not married but he´s willing to do whatever he needs to in order to feel that it´s right. ... um okay! So guess who was at church on Sunday! He was! Wahoo! I´m excited to see where it goes! What else is cool is that there was like no break in the communication. He had a dream, told his brother, called the missionaries, called him, lesson. All within a short amount of time so he couldn´t forget this!  

I´m learning more every day. I´m hopefully becoming a better teacher. There is still so much to learn with that and I feel like it will take a lot of practice before I´m perfect... lol the pursuit of life. And when I have it down it will be time to go. A very good thing too because I know I couldn´t do anything without the help of the Lord.

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Okay, now it´s time to go but I love you!

To where the grass grows yellow,

Hermana VandeMerwe