beso.

January 31, 2011

HOLA!!! man it has been one heck of a crazy week! it is weird adjusting to everything here but i sure do love it. you really come to realize how amazing the mtc is and safe becuase you see a lot of weird things in the outside world. i just saw a woman breast feeding her kid right outside of this ceber--poor elders...

anyways! it is SOOO hot here! hotter than anything i have ever expierence! and most of you already know i sweat a lot a lot a lot. empaisis on the "a lot". but like we will be walking and contacting and i am just dripping and soaked with sweat. i secretly love it because when else in my life am i going to be walking around looking ridiculous preaching the gospel? i think the sweat reminds me that im working hard and i really love it. but it is just so funny. i have some sweet tan lines already--the farmers tan, the shoe tan, the book bag strap tan, and of course, the watch tan. makes me so happy. but i have to admit it is very hard to sleep at night because our pench isnt very insulated and i am sweating all night and usually i cant sleep. even right when i take a shower i start sweating again. but im sure the cold will be worse so for now, i love this sun! Funny story (woah, i just learned how to capitalize on this!!!)-- last Tuesday Hermana Kusilek and I were walking to the church for our district meeting. then, out of nowhere, it POURED! LIke down pour, super heavy, more rain than ive seen in an oregon rain storm. yes, that crazy. we were absolutely soaked! the streets turned into rivers and water was up to our knees. i couldnt stop laughing because it was so crazy! then as we were walking, a car drove by, and almost like in the movies, drenched us from head to toe. I think it swerved to do that haha but i just thought it was so funny. So picture us, walking into our district meeting, as wet as if we had just been pushed into a pool. it was so funny. I wish we wouldve went contacting so people would have pity and invite us in haha.

Hey! crazy story!!! I eat lunch with this family in our ward every Thursday, and this girl always talks about her mission. Last week i didnt understand a word she said, but this week I finally could get the gist of it. Then I heard her say how it was in CHile, so I asked her which mission. She said Santiago North. I asked her when, she said in 2008. I said "oh cuz my cousin was in that mission, this name is Elder Walter". instantly, her eyes got so big and her smile was huge and she said (in spanish of course) "YOU ARE COUSINS WITH ELDER WALTER?!?! I LOVE HIM!!!" Matt, her name was Hermana Sosa, she said you would remember her. She said he was an extremely hard working missionary with a lot of success. then she said you sang a very good song for a conference or something. anyways, she says hi! who woulda thought id find someone here with a connection to me, how crazy.

So i want to tell more stories about miracles and stuff, because ive seen so many little ones. the work is HARD. anyone who has gone on a mission knows. it is hard to walk so much and have people be very rude to you when you say "we have a message of joy and happiness". getting people to church is the hardest thing. we lost a lot of investigators because of that. there was a menos activo we walked 2 miles to get, and we got to her door and she siad she hasnt gone becuase her ankle hurts sometimes so we said ¨"hey we are going to call a taxi to come here and pick you up, take you to church, then take you home" but she said "its raining outside. there is absolutely no way i will go it if is raining". ummm....it was sprinkling. like a mister was on or something. i was baffled. then my comp told me how the people here are different. if it is hot outside, they do nothing. if it is cold, they do nothing. if it is raining, they do nothing. and along with those circumstances, for 4 hours a day they do nothing. im grateful that i have been raised to be hard working and not so comfortable with being lazy. but i will get over that frustration.

I want to talk now about my favorite people here. I think from every area there are going to be people who are just so dear to my heart, and here are a few. First is the Familia Escalada. They are SOO nice. We ate sunday lunch with them and they just laugh and help me out a ton. I wish you could meet thier 8 year old son, Damion. Maybe if they learn spanish they can. He is so hilarious. kinda a flirt but it is so funny. he has more personality than any person i have ever met. i just was laughing so hard hanging out with them. plus the mom is a very good cook. The next is Fausto. He is an investigator who is just golden--he is 11 years old and came to 2 activities with us and to church. im excited about him and he just is very happy and i like him a ton. Carson and Dane should learn spanish cuz they would be good friends with him. The last is the familia M. I LOVE them. They have a son who is 20 named Mauro who has his mission papers in but doesnt have his call. He is the ward mission leader and is just amazing. Then they have 4 younger girls, who i just adore. Last friday Hermana Kusilek and I did a service project at their house and pulled weeds in their backyard. I cut my finger pretty badly and I was grateful i learned medical vocabulary in the MTC haha "necesito alcol por favor!" haha but one girl and i get along super well. she is 17 and her name is miline. she reminds me a ton of Mary Bullock. but i just clicked well with her, i showed them the calender you gave me mom and she is in love with Kruse. So kruse needs to learn spanish as well because i really want her to be my sister in law. and she is GORGEOUS. she made me a bracelet, like the kind i make a lot, and i love it to death. then we ate lunch and Mauro played the guitar for us, and he knew a bunch of american songs like hey soul sister, hey there dilia, island in the sun, more coldplay songs and yellowcard songs and pretty much any popular song. I was loving it and they all sang really well in english (even though they had no idea what they were saying). anyways we were on our way home and i was telling Hermana Kusilek how much i loved that service project, even though it didnt feel like service. then she told me how she was in the back talking to the mom, and the mom was crying a ton talking to her. i didnt know this but only Mauro is active in the church, and its been that way for a while. she said that her husband abuses and cheats on her and the only reason she stays together with him is for her kids because she loves them so much. it shattered my heart to hear that. then the mom said to Hermana Kusilek "you know, when you two walk into our home, it is like angels have just arrived. i would do anything to keep you two here in our home for as long as possible because you help me remember that God does love me". wow. i couldnt believe that. that sunday half of their family came to church. it was truely a miracle.

On the subject of miracles. Not like a huge one happened, but i love to take notice of the the spirit and how incredible it is. one day we were contacting, and i am still pretty bad at contacting. all i say is ¨"nosotros somos misioneras...." then Kusilek takes over. but this interesting man came up to us and started talking a ton about how he was atheist and believed in a higher power but that it wasnt God (king lamoni, anyone?). but he just went on about how he firmly believed that. i could understand Hermana Kusilek testifying about God and stuff but I was a little lost on what he was saying. Then I had a thought, and I just blurted out in my poor spanish "¿Cree en milagros?" which means--do you believe in miracles? he said no. and Hermana Kusilek said "that is really sad, you dont believe your children are a miracle?" and then he went on to say how he was so grateful for them and yes they were a miracle. then he admitted that he really liked mormons and he had a friend who was mormon who was so wonderful and he wanted to know why we were such wonderful people. we are going to teach him this week. Im glad the spirit told me to say that because if not, we wouldve just walked away and not touched that mans life. Its a little tricky to always go with it because i am new here and sometimes I am scared to just blurt out "we should do this" when i know so little about here. but I told her i wanted to go back to this man we walked past sitting in a chair. we did, and turned out he was a member who was baptized 11 years ago but got divorced and stopped going, and his child just died so he really wants to come back. That was definently the spirit telling me to tell my comp to go back.

I have to say, it can be discouraging here when we lose investigators because they KNOW it is true, but they just wont have the faith to come to church. I want to make a shout out thank you to a letter I recieved in the MTC from Kristine. Her letter was inspired becuase i read it again yesterday, and it was EXACTLY what i needed to hear right then. Let me share a line (that i now wrote in my scriptures because i loved it so much) "Don´t attempt to convert peoples minds, rather demonstate charity, and God will surely convert their hearts over time." Thank you, everyone, for your support and wonderful words of encouragement. They mean more than you will ever know.

I know this is so true, with all of my heart. I would not be sitting on a dirt floor, flies swarming everywhere, sweating to death, looking at cochroaches crawling on the wall, talking to someone with no teeth and diseased skin, if i didnt know what i was teaching was truely the best thing in the world. I am grateful for the Atonement, and I am so grateful for the plan of salvation. I really love how important families are to everyone here, and the plan of salvation just makes so much sense because i do know that families can live forever. Les amo mucho!

Beso Beso Beso
Hermana Collins
ps a man i shook hands with tried to beso me, it was pretty scary. he was like pulling on my arm so hard!