Hola!!

 

Well, to start off: It was a very long flight. I hardly slept because I was uncomfortable, but I did sleep. I just woke up ever hour. It was fun for the most part though. Flying at night doesn´t let you see many things, but the plane had a live map that you could follow. When we got there, it was a big difference. We were sweating like pigs. The humidity plus the new heat was hard, but we all made it ok. President and Hermana Gulbransen are awesome. They met us there with hugs and told us that we would have lunch and a nap. We were their guinea pigs, because they had never given the missionaries naps before. It was wonderful. I also told you that I did not know what the humidity would do to my hair and I did not have access to a mirror. On top of the fact that I was half asleep the entire time too. Oh well, I think you are right about the leaving picture, though. I hope so anyway.

Well, my companion´s name is Hermana Reed. She is from Colorado and is 23. She is an absolutely amazing trainer. She helps me apply things to my investigators at all times and gently encourages me to speak more. She tells me that she is happy I am here and with her. When you´re in a strange area, these things are nice to hear. I´m excited and she says that I am doing really good. The members of our ward are so nice. I don´t understand a lot, but they are so patient and our ward is filled with americans and people wanting to learn english, so it´s easier for me to communicate. We even had a Relief Society lunch on thursday. They are so kind. My area is called Vicinte Lopez I. There are two areas now as of wednesday, because it is sooooo huge. I am not exagerating when I say that is is probably the size of north las vegas. We have four hermanas total for the entire area. Muchas oportunidades, sí? LOL anyway, since we just split the area this week, we are looking for a new place to live so that we are actually in our area. I am not going to give the address because they asked us not to give too much personal information out, but the chapel is Hipolito and Yrigochen 1340 con Maipu. Our first day with our companions was training at the president´s house, buying groceries, and learning about the area. Our main focus in this mission is to contact the menos activos and recent converts. I guess this area also did not have a good relationship with the members for a while so we are working on that too. Our first day out in the field, we had two people come up to us and talk to us. One of them, Carlos, is a Jehovah´s witness and has been for 35 years. He feels as if those sunday meetings are very impersonal and doesn´t feel very much love. He knows that if a church does not have love it is not of God, because God is love. We are very excited for him. Saturday, we went looking for a reference from the CCM here. By the way, the CCM (MTC) here does activities every week and sends out missionaries in training to do street contacting and door to door knocking, then they give the missionaries in the areas the references. We went to go find one of these references at his work. He is a security guard and there work is at every other corner in the city in a small little booth. It´s pretty cool. This contact was sick so someone was substituting for him. We talked with the gentleman and even made a baptismal date on his first contact. I was so excited, I still am, but he lives outside of our area. I´m sad that I won´t get to work with him. Oh, well.

All in all, it´s been an interesting first week.

I´m not going to lie, the news that you gave me about everyone was hard, but I´m glad that you told me. I don´t want to wait for a year and a half to find these things out.

I am going to send two emails, one with the pictures and one without just incase it does not go through. We are actually about to go and play fútbol with the elders of our district. It will be interesting.

I love you all so much and please send my best wishes to the family. I will be praying for them. Also, you did not tell me about Thanksgiving. Talk to you soon. Oh, and we can do skype for mother´s day and christmas. It doesnt always work though.

 

Love you lots!!

Jessica