January 9, 2009

Hi family,
It has been a few weeks since I have written anything. Here is part of my journal. Hope you enjoy. Sorry we don't send pictures. Our internet at home is too slow, and don't seem to find time at work to do it. We will keep trying..
Wow does time go by... We had been so busy the past couple of weeks, Sorry I haven't written to you. Thanks goodness for Instant Messenger, we have loved visiting with the everyone over the holidays.

Saturday, Jan 10, 2009
Let see, it was on Saturday after Christmas dad, (Ron) and I used the mission van and took two other couples, the Westovers, McCowns, and Sister Graham and Sister Mehew out to the coast for the day. We had such a great time. We took them down and showed them the beach house, and walked on the shores. We rest awhile and then drove down to San Antonio and went to some shops on the harbor front. There everyone decided to take a harbor boat ride. After we got in, I had a funny feeling come over me and I told everyone, that as Missionaries, we were not to be on this boat and we needed to turn around and go back. I can’t explain the feeling, but everyone knew I was serious about it and felt also that we needed to go back and so we did. We shopped, and found a fun place to eat lunch. Then we headed up the coast to Cartagena and walked around and then back to Santiago. On the way back, everyone wanted to stop at a town called Pomaire. And we shopped until our feet dropped. It was a street with tons of little shops with all kinds of little artesian things. I bought a blouse and some hair things for the little granddaughters. I am always shopping for the grandkids, but can’t buy all I want. It is hard to find things for the boys, but we keep looking.. Then we drove over to a neighboring town called Melipilla and had dinner. That was a nice place and fairly good food, for Chile. We were had a great day.
New Years was fun. We met as a group and played some fun games, visited, eat and just enjoyed everyone’s couple. Then the next week hit and we had go homers, new missionaries come in and the work load piled up with all the things we both have to do when missionaries come in and leave.
The day the missionaries arrived we went out to the president’s house where they all were, and picked up their passports, and their important papers, gave them their credit cards, and visited with them for a few minutes, and oh and took their pictures, then headed back to the office to start the paper work to obtain their visa’s. I had to be to the office early two days at 7am for visa runs and we put in 10-12 hours days. Last night, Friday, we went out to dinner with some of the seniors. I was really too tired to enjoy it much. Even though we were tired we stayed out late and glad we did because we were able to catch a couple of kids on line. It was great to visit with them. Today being Saturday, we are really tired. Especially me. I haven’t done much today, except sleep, and do laundry. Now at 4 pm, I am writing this. We did a little reading while I ironed and watched a movie. This has been a rough week for me. For the first time since being here, I have been a little Trunky. Realizing I am missing important events at home. Rachel and Mike’s new baby being born, Spencer’s baptism, and Zach going to the temple and leaving for his mission.. My trunkiness probably adds to my being so tired. But all in all we are good, happy, loving our mission, except for having to see one of our young missionaries go home because he just couldn’t handle being here. We worked so hard to try and boast his spirits and keep him here. But it didn’t work, and he went home on Tues. We got really close to him with him being in the office for 2 or 3 changes (each change 6 weeks). He eat lunch with us a lot and went with Ron a lot to pay bills. He enjoyed being with us. Anyways, that has been hard also.
This up coming week will be zone conferences and we will have an Area Authority and general authority from Salt Lake here to speak. That will be a wonderful experience. But all is Spanish, so it will be difficult to understand it all. I only get words here and there. But the spirit is always good. Dad is doing really well with the language. I listen to him and he doing great. Learning more and more all the time. The missionaries keep saying that I have improved tons. So that helps to boast me up. I feel like I am learning more words all the time. I have to do so much in Spanish, that I need to learn it faster than I am, but it will come. Just keep praying family for us. We feel your prayers, and right now, we can use a lot.
Know that we love ya all and miss ya tons. The gospel is true and I testify of this to you all. The Lord does bless his people. Not always in our time line, but he does bless us. He knows his children and their needs...
Love,
Mom and dad