Hermanamarie Olsorno: September 15, 2015 Living a Dream

OH WOW!

Well I just sat down and thought okay so what should I say to my family today? And I thought about the things that happened in the week and OH WOW! There is no way I could tell you about all of it! But....well it's me so I'm going to still try to get in maybe a 10th percent of everything. muhahaha Here I go.

Tuesday was pretty normal GREAT day in the mission. We met some cool people in the street including this guy named Ronald that...okay well he seemed a little like a snakish flirt dude, but he was apparently interested in our message so we gave him our number because he ''didn't have his memorized.'' and we also found a less active named Isabel that had moved and hadn't gone to church for the past 2 years because she was a recent convert and didn't understand that there was somewhere else she could go. She invited us in her little cabaña and we taught her and sang her a hymn and with tears in her eyes she said, ''I feel rescued. Thank you for finding me.'' That was special. She's came to church with her little 3 year old boy. Yes! New person that I love!

Wednesday we had a zone meeting in Austral, the tippy top of Punta Arenas AND later Hermana Maready and I went to Parcelas (the country part of our sector that is like an undiscovered, ungospelspread GINORMOUS spread out area after going up a giant hill) ...and we only ate lunch with an hermana from the ward. BUT we have some pretty awesome plans to return this week and trek those hills and meet some great people just waiting for the gospel. :) OH AND Javiera was baptized!!!! It was just a great night. We went over to her house a little before to help her get ready and go over to the church all together. Her sister came down from the tippy north of Chile too and it all felt a little like getting ready for a wedding (Shout out to Sara! My future sister!) Ooh! It was so fun, but it was all crazy rushed as always because we got there at 6:15 and left at 6:25 to get to the church at 6:30. And okay none of that really matters. Too many details. My favorite part of it all was simply watching Javiera glow and just feel happy. Right before going into the font she just burst into tears and nearly couldn't control herself. She was taking a few minutes because she didn't want to go in with tears all over her face, so a few of her friends from young women’s came in and saw she was crying and said, ''It's okay you can do it!'' then she looked at them and said, ''I’m not scared! I am too happy. I don't know how to handle it! Let’s just say a prayer.'' So we said a prayer and then she got baptized. Right as she was coming back into the bathroom she looked at us just glowing with the biggest smile ever and said, ''When I was baptized I felt a happiness that I had never felt before. It's as if something arrived at me!'' That probably sounds better in Spanish.. whatever. And I loved it. She was so happy! And still is! It was just a great experience full of joy. And she also invited her uncle who isn't a member and her best friend and her mom. And guess what! We are teaching them now! Javiera is SO AWESOME!

Thursday we went to a wedding in Austral, the tippy top of Punta Arenas, because Hermana Maready was asked to play the piano. It was interesting and fun. They had to recite their RUT which is basically like a social security number or something. And the ''I do'' is ''Sì, quiero.'' which is funny in the direct translation because it's like, Yes, I want. Teehee. Anyway it was cool to be there. They are getting sealed in a year. :) There was a REALLY tall blonde compadre there that was definitely gringo. So we talked to him. His name is Benjamin and he is an English teacher in the high school nearby. So we talked to him for a while about what we are doing here and then when we asked if we could pass by and visit him one day he said, “What?” and asked us in English. And we said it again and then he said, .. “Wait can you just talk in English, I honestly don't know very much Spanish.” And so we asked him in English and he was like, ''OH. NAAAAAAAH....I'm not into THAT.'' hahahaha it was actually a great reject and made me laugh a lot. It's been time since I've heard naaaah. hahaha But anyway that was fun. We ate lots of food and then went to a devotional from Presidente Obeso!! It was about the Book of Mormon and it was amazing.

So just to mention. Presidente came!

Friday he came to our house! We made him banana bread. So he, super content, sat down and said, ''Alright, Hermana Obeso is going to inspect the house, the zone leaders will inspect your carpeta, and I will inspect this bread.'' And he did. He says he loves gringo girls because they always know how to make yummy things. It was really neat having him in our house. He is just a great president. We also had interviews on our beds hahaha just like the interviews with Dad. It was great. Oh! Also we got a surprise inspection of our feet! I was so glad they didn't do that in the winter when they were purple! And actually Hermana Obeso was quite impressed. She commented on my toenails and said, you don't get ingrown toenails, do you? And then I realized I haven't gotten an ingrown toenail in my entire mission!!!!! WHAT?! And she told me why, take out your notebooks! It's because I clip my toenails in a square form not round. And it works!! Alrighty onto other and more important things.

Saturday we participated in the world wide helping hands service project and our stake went to Andino!!! But this time there wasn't snow. The wind was CRAZY THOUGH! so that made for some fun picking up trash time. Pretty intense. The two rules were:

1. Don't pick up the roof tiles so no one's head gets chopped off.

2. Don't pick up the dead dogs.

Sweet!

Yeah so it was the greatest and ultimate trash picking up ever! You know that myth that if you dig long enough and deep enough you get to china? Well, yeah that has nothing to do with anything but I'm pretty sure that there all the trash that everyone throws in any part of the world all gets warped up into the black hole of daisies and junk and all flies into the vortex of Magallanical wind and ends up here in Punta Arenas. It's crazy the amount of trash there is. And on Saturday I finally got to pick it up!

We also got a call from this Ronald guy we mentioned earlier... He was asking us if we were still coming at 5 like we said we would. And we said yeah, we would be there in 20 minutes. He said, ''Okay I just got back so I'll take a shower really quick and be ready for when you guys come. Besitos. Chau.'' ...and we didn't want to go, but we said we would so we called up a grandma from our ward and she came with us! Booyah! hahahah when he opened the door he had his hair all swooped fancy and had the boombox going with some suave party music... hahahaha Well, we entered, sat down, and got to the nitty gritty of it. I asked him if we could turn off the music, we explained who we are, our purpose, and asked if we could say a prayer. We said a prayer, taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, had a very spiritual lesson, and invited him to be baptized. And he's really excited! He said he was waiting for this without even knowing it and he had no idea there was something so eliviating. So he is preparing for the 17th of October :). We have a cita with him today. I'm so excited. I love finding people that are ready now! And that wasn't even expected. I love being a missionary SO! MUCH!

Sunday was another beautiful Sunday and there was snow! There ALWAYS is snow on Sunday! It's awesome. But we had a very strange 4 seasons in one day thing. That's pretty common here. Also! We FINALLY beat our goal of 105 people assisting to church by 2 people! YESSS!!!! Talk about an awesome ward that knows how to work on retention! The average is 85 people and little by little we have been increasing the assistance every week since I've been here. And it was so cool to see so many people in the church! I love being a missionary!!!!

Alrighty then. Yesterday I completed 8 MONTHS in the mission and WE WENT TO THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD. (talk about best celebration in the universe) I don't even know how to describe this. The experience definition of unbelievable or unforgettable or UNREAL BUT IT'S REAL is Torres del Paine. I'm not kidding. I feel like the rest of this world is so frumpy. hahaha just kidding it's beautiful, but it was like I was Blue's Clues and had a magical mono power to hop into paintings and walk around. BUT I HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN A PAINTING THIS BREATHTAKING! I don't know how this exists and I don't know how I hadn't ever even heard about an 8th wonder of the world that is in the bottom of the world. I woke up this morning and was in shock that I went there. I don't even know how to describe it.

It's so unique. And so ...secretive. I don't know! I felt like we were the only people there! And it was HUGE and somehow we did nearly everything! We started at 5 in the morning and ended at 11 pm. Talk about weird with not working for a day. Seriously weird. There were some hour long hikes some 30 minute sitting and just marveling at the stuff. Some encounters with Magallanical ostriches and llamas. Sheep hearding. Cave spelunking. Walking on the shore of glacier water. OOOOH JUST SO MUCH! And the greatest part of it all is I went with a very low charged camera and it died half way through ahahahaha!! But it's alright. I was very content with the day. It was like timed stopped and I was in a dream I never even dreamed of.