People here don't celebrate Halloween that much. Everyone says it is an "American" holiday and just for commercial revenue (all the candy sales). But there are still some people who dress up, etc. But there aren't pumpkins here like there are there, and it isn't autumn...it's spring, so it just isn't the same. Nevertheless, I am determined to celebrate a little bit. My companion and I already have planned to dress like twins (we have the same shirt and earrings, and are going to do our hair the same, etc.) on Wednesday and at night after we get back to the house and do our planning we are going to eat popcorn and Manjar covered apples (our substitute for caramel covered apples).
This week was a great week! We made some plans to improve, and we improved! There is no greater feeling than that of progress and growth. We are learning to teach better together, and as we gain more confidence teaching, God gives us more opportunities to teach. Every week we have the goal to talk to 140 new people, this has always been hard for me because it requires that you are always talking to random people in the street and everywhere, but these past couple weeks I've actually gotten better at talking to people! How great...after 15 months of being a missionary, I'm finally getting better at the most basic thing we do...talk to people:)
Don't think I'm getting trunky*...because I'm not...what I'm getting is freaked out thinking that one day my mission will end...so I am trying to prepare myself: I officially have 100 (more or less) days left here in Chile. So I decided to start making a list, one thing everyday of 100 wonderful things about the mission to help me enjoy every last minute I have here :) I started on Saturday, so here are the two I have so far
1. The feeling you get when someone you teach starts to understand the Restoration of the Gospel and what it means!
(I wrote this because we had a really neat experience this week: two weeks ago, one of the couples we are teaching came to church, by the end of the three hours I was convinced that they hated it! The husband looked visibly uncomfortable, and we were not able to talk to them after. For two weeks we couldn't find them in their house, nor get ahold of them on their cell phone. The horrible thought haunted me that maybe they had had such a bad experience at church that they never wanted to talk to us again! How horrible!
Finally we stopped by their house one more time to see if there was any chance of seeing them or talking to them...they were home! They told us that they had liked church, but that it was a little long. But the husband had read the whole Gospel Principles book and told us the more he reads the more he starts to think this may be true. It had called their attention that during the testimony meeting so many people had said the church was true. We taught about the Restoration of the Gospel and Church of Jesus Christ to try to answer why people say that. The husband understood what we were saying and said that it made sense to him!!! Yay!!!! They communicated to us that they think there might be something to the Church of Jesus Christ :)
2. The sweet experience of sharing the right scripture at the right time to someone who needs it!
(Yesterday we stopped by to visit a member of the church who is having some difficult trials in her life. After listening to her situation I felt a little helpless about how to help her. I don't have any answers of how to solve her problems, but a scripture came to my mind, D&C 6:13-16, we shard that with her, and my companion added verses 19 and 20 substituting the member's name for Oliver's name in the scripture. The sister shed tears after reading the verses. The scriptures had spoke to her and brought her a little comfort and understanding. It was a sweet and edifying experience and strengthened my own testimony that in the scriptures we can find help, answers, and comfort.)
Well, that's all for now. I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween :)
Love, Hermana Bowns
*Trunky means homesick in mission-speak.
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