Felix uno ano la mision!

Hola a todos!

Wow, i can´t believe you´re all home soaking up the sun and swimming in the pool everyday.  Its great to see pictures of you all.  I´m glad you´re enjoying your summer.

as for me, i´m down here in pure winter.  It literally rained every single day this week.  So i found 3 jackets in our house so every day i just had to change jackets because i´d return home soaking wet every night and there´s no way to dry our clothes.  Then yesterday i realized that i had gone through all 5 of my jackets and every single one was soaking wet.  So now i´m left wearing wet jackets.   We had been super lazy and preferred suffering through the cold than make a fire for the last 4 weeks. but when we realized making a fire was the only way to dry our clothes we set out to start our fire.  And our fireplace had a bit of a malfunction...if that´s possible...the smoke decided to come out of any place possible besides the chimney.  So i´m throwing windows and doors open in the house becuase i couldn´t even breathe cuz the house was so full of smoke, (i don´t know what my companion put in the fire but it was nothing but smoke)  so as i´m worrying about this fire, my companion´s calmly getting ready for bed and as i tell her that we needed to put out the fire or we´d die from smoke in the middle of the night she´s all ¨die from smoke?¨and laughs in my face as if i´m completely ridiculous and know nothing. and i´m all, ¨uhhh yeah, hermana its the smoke that kills people first, not the flame...¨     bueno, i´ll let her believe what she wants. haha.   so anyway, finally we put the fire out but know i believe our house will ever smell of smoke.

Random fact, so when i went to osorno the other week we had a mini devotional and on presidents orders we had it in english (he´s super focused on helping the latinos learn english)  so as i´m sitting there listening i was just thinking of how terrible english sounds, for the elder who was talking said like literally every 2 words.  so i´m thinking i never want to switch back to this language that sounds terrible because everyone says the word ¨like¨ way too much.  then i realized as i was talking how many times i say the word ¨como¨ when i talk in spanish (the equivalent of like)  and now i´m just convinced that its just us gringos that have the strange need to add pointless words every 2 seconds as we talk, 

We went to Chiloe this week!!!  4 hours in a bus and 30 minutes on a ship! cuz Chiloe is an island!  its so pretty there! we stayed there for 3 days and did our exchanges with the sisters.  so the first day in the morning when we wake up, we turn on the lights and suddenly the light explodes! shattering glass everywhere and leaves us in pitch blackness.  hahah.  so the next 3 days we studied like Joseph Smith, by candlelight.  but i discovered there´s a good reason i don´t use candles too often, i have way too much fun burning stuff and playing with the wax.  at one point when i was talking with the hermanas i was holding the candle and got way too excited as i told this one story and the next thing i know i dumped the wax down my black skirt.... no matter i only need it for 6 months more

well, this week wasn´t exactly the best week of my life....  We went on divisions on saturday with 2 members, so i went with Camila to visit Daniela.  My companion told me not to leave her house until we had a date for her baptismal interview.  but as we start teaching her and reviewing all the baptismal questions she literally had doubts about every single one.  her brother who was a member but now attends the evangelic church  told her the book of mormon is a lie and all that good stuff so now we´re back to square one and she´s questioning everything.  i seriously did everything possible to help her feel her desire again to be baptized and to resolve her doubts.  But as we kneeled down together to pray so she could ask if Its all true and she should be baptized, after the prayer we sat in silence for 5 min.  i asked how she felt and she just responded ¨confused¨  so we testified and left the commitment to pray.  But i couldn´t set a date for her interview if she´s obviously not ready.  

So leaving that lesson, feeling as if i failed and just wanting to cry,i decided crying wasn´t going to help at all. so instead of crying camila and I ran through the rain, splashing in all the puddles.  By the time we got to the church to find my companion and end the companion split we were thoroughly soaked but happy.

and there´s my week for ya.  I still have faith that Daniela´s gonna be baptized, just not Aug 1st.  but in the next few weeks sí.

i love you all! have an amazing week!

Best week ever!

Hola mi familia!

Wow, this week was just too good to be true. en serio.  but first off, thanks for all the emails and updates and photos.  I´m not gonna recognize anyone when i get back.  Lydia and Brynlee are so big now i can´t believe it.  

So basically i feel like a terrible person.  Cuz this week was so amazing....and it was the week that my companion was sick.... So i got to leave everyday with members and work while she stayed at a member´s house. But here´s why i´m just exploding with happiness....

so Tuesday we went to the leader´s counsel for the other zone, aka, my zone from portal del mar.  so i got to talk to the elders who are now in my sector and get an update on everyone.  then the elders told me that i should call Camila and Vivianna and have them accompany us for appointments.  i was so surprised cuz i thought it was against the rules, but talking to my ZLs they told me it was ok.  So i got to call Camila and VIvianna!  and even better, when my companion got sick and i needed a new companion for 4 days i got to go with Camila one day and viviana the next.  And to have the whole day to talk to them while proselyting just made my life!   

I know i´ve been sent back to puerto montt for a reason and its to help them.  To help Viviana get out on her mission and to help Camila who´s been struggling a lot.  Camila has problems with depression and the past 4 months have been terrible for her. and the fact that now there aren´t hermanas in her sector she felt so alone and starting losing her testimony and stopped going to church and a bunch of other stuff.  But she always said that when she left to work with the missionaries she could always feel the spirit and couldn´t deny the truthfulness of the gospel. but 4 months without that extra spiritual help she fell.   so now i´m back and she´s gonna accompany us at least once a week. :)

So everyday i got to have the whole morning to myself just to study, from 7 in the morning to 3pm while my companion stayed in bed.  I thoroughly enjoyed my personal study time.  There´s so much to this gospel and so little time to learn and understand it all.   Then to be able to work with someone different everyday was a great experience too.  It was super difficult to be in charge of the sector considering i´ve only been here 3 week and i still don´t know people/directions.  but that´s one way to learn the sector is to be on your own for a week.

Ok, i honestly feel bad that i enjoyed this week so much.  But as you´ve probably figured out my companion is .....different from all my other ones.  I love her to death and i´m learning a lot from her. (i´m learning a lot of patience that´s for sure)  but yeah, after what happened last week with her i feel that this was mercy from God that i could work peacefully this week while she recuperated from her flu.   it was a bit painful to return back to normal yesterday...

I feel like its all a dream. I´ve been disappointed too many times i´ve prohibited myself from getting too excited.  But our investigator Daniela´s come to church 2 times in a row and her baptismal date still is for Aug 1st.... i can´t believe it.  if everything goes well her interview will be the end of this week or beginning of next week!!!  :D   she still feels unprepared but says she´ll be baptized that day if she feels more prepared by then. 

So that´s my life.  Living & loving it :)   and this week we´re off to Chiloe for 3 days to go on exchanges with the sisters there!!!!  (4 hrs of traveling, i´m way too excited)

well i love you all!!!

-Hna Hebdon la segunda

Soy Feliz

Hola! 

So, last week i sent a novel so i´ll keep it nice and short this week,

yesterday was absolutely amazing!  we have 1 investigator with a baptismal date for Aug 1st.  and so yesterday we passed by her house before church and to my great surprise (after months and months of investigators giving excuses or not anwering the door sunday mornings)  she answered the door and quickly got ready to come with us!  so she (daniela) and her daughter Tiara (who´s 5) came to church with us! and loved it! she said she was only going to stay for 1 hour but ended up staying for all 3.  I was overflowing with joy!  this is one investigator that´s actually serious in her desire to be baptized and willing to keep her commitments and go to church! :D

And then Gina our other investigator randomly shows up during sunday school, apparently she´s practically a member, she´s gone to church every sunday for the past 3 months or so. So basically she´s ready to be baptized if we can just help her overcome her fear that she´ll not be able to continue strong in the gospel.

I absolutely LOVED going on exchanges with the other hermanas this week.  it was actually super fun.  i think i failed as a leader but at least i´m the sisters´ friend.  haha.  my very 1st exchange was crazy.  that day the weather was insane!!!! I was walking backward as i made the effort to walk forward. i´ve never been in wind so strong before. it was 80mi/hr+. with rain (of course)  i seriously was struggling just not to fall over as i walked. my heavy bag that i lug around almost flew away several times.    so on this exchange we´re trudging through this weather as i´m trying to talk to Hna Vargas, it was super entertaining.  

so the miracle for that day:  we walked 40 min in this crazy weather just to try to contact a new investigator and when we got there no one was home.  so as we turn around to head back i decided to knock on some random door.  so out of the hundreds of door i walk up to this random one and knock. i look back and see hna vargas not quite sure about what i was doing and she says that this was the house of some ancient investigators that had stopped investigating the church.  So now, i, unsure of my decision was contemplating if we should try another door but then the mom answers the door.  and to my surprise she immediately let us in.  her whole family was there and as we talked to them they really opened up.  her son wants to be baptized but can´t because he´s only 14 and doesn´t have a way to get to church on sundays.  so we focused on his parents and their desires.  the dad participated a ton in the lesson and was very receptive (to which afterward hna Vargas told me he was always closed and never listened before)  and the mom i started losing faith in her as i saw she´s super catholic but then at the very end of this super spiritual/powerful lesson suddenly says that maybe its just cuz she doesn´t understand everything that she hasn´t accepted the gospel but maybe if she could understand she´d accept it.  so i told her we were there to help her understand the doctrine but then i testified of the power of prayer and the need to pray for an answer to see if the doctrine is true. the spirit was so strong during that lesson.  i know it wasn´t chance that i chose that door to knock on, not having a clue that they were ancient investigators.  I know that God is conscience of them and that now they have been prepared to accept the gospel and for that i was let to their door.

So at the end of the day the elders called hna Vargas and asked her how the exchange went.  she answered, very different.  so i´m there wondering what i did wrong and why this companion exchange was different.  the next day as we´re finishing the exchange she told me it was different cuz i didn´t act like i was a sister training leader, she felt that i was her friend and she could be herself around me and talk to me. 

the next day on my companion exchange Hna Marinho said something similar.  I was joking with her cuz we had a new paper we had to fill out on exchanges and i had no idea what i was doing, so jokingly i said ´lets just pretend like i know what we´re doing and write something on this paper.  haha, president will find out soon enough that it was a mistake to call me as Sister leader´   and then Hna Marinho told me that she knows why i was called as STL  and its to break down this wall that all the Hermanas have, this vision of who the STLs are.  cuz most of them work their whole mission for this calling and then take it way too seriously and the sisters feel like they´re only there to correct them in every little detail and such and that they can´t actually trust them and such (and such was my feelings towards my STLs cuz they actually bugged me to death haha, for that reason i didn´t want to be one of them)   so Hna Marinho told me that she loved this exchange cuz she felt normal and that i was actually her friend.    so basically i don´t know if its good or not but i´m here to break down the barrier that the word ¨sister leader¨ has created.  i might be failing in my calling but at least i´m friends with all the sisters and for that they can trust me so i can help them better.

So i said this would be short and somehow i failed...haha. and i don´t know if any of that made any sense but bueno.  well it was a great week!   i love you all!!!

-Hna Hebdon la segunda

Hello Puerto Montt goodbye Valdivia.

WHola a todos!

first off, mom, you are a miracle worker, thanks for helping with this i know it will mean the world to Hna Sarceño.  I´ll try to get her email but i don´t exactly know how cuz she only has 4 names as part of her email and i only know her nickname and last name....so its a bit of a problem.... so maybe letters will be a bit more effective for now...?

second off, Chile won the American cup!!!!! whohoooooooo!!!!! (sorry lindz ;)   haha, but presidente gave us permission to watch it, how sweet is that, so we got to watch the final soccer game between argentina and chile. i have to admit, watching a soccer game isn´t nearly as intense/fun as watching a football game, but hey, it was still cool.  funny fact, that morning i woke up and excited for the soccer game i decided to wear chilean colors.  so i´m walking around in red white and blue and we go to leader council and all the gringos are talking about how its the 4th of july.  haha. so at least i was being patriotic without realizing it :)

well i´m repenting that i was so pesado last week.  i wasn´t expecting transfers at all and i didn´t want to leave my beloved Collico. but now i´m back in puerto montt and i´ve never been happier!

transfers were crazy as always.  Monday and tuesday were filled with running around saying goodbye to everyone.  my heart broke. i hate goodbyes.  the people in valdivia are special. i love them all so much :/   the hardest was saying goodbye to Pancho, he became a brother to me the past 5 months. 

i didn´t sleep very much my last 2 days there we were frantically packing, writing notes to the people i didn´t have time to visit and cleaning the house. i slpet 3 hrs my last night there... and so transfer day arrived adn i was expecting it to be the worst day of my life.  well turns out it was opposite of what i was expecting cuz i got to see so many old friends.

so in the bus terminal in valdivia i got to see elder medina (the elder who decided to stay on his mission because fo what i said to him) and he told me that he had 2 baptisms this last transfer adn 1 more person is going to be baptized in 1 week. it was a sweet moment when he told me that none of that would´ve happened if it weren´t for me and what i said to him that one day.  i can´t even express the joy of seeing the fruits from 1 small act of talking to that and helping excite him for his mission.

so then i talked the whole bus ride to puerto montt to 2 elders who were with me in the MTC. then in puerto montt we had to wait all day in the terminal for the other hermanas to arrive. so as i´m just sitting there concentrated on writing a letter suddenly a voice next to me filled with a ton of energy (like always) in english with his spanish accent says ¨well isn´t it just a great day!¨  i was so startled i jumped 2 feet, and looking up i see elder gomez chiquitito, elder dominguez, elder hard and... Hna Parkinson!!!!! (all from my old districts)  i´ve never been so happy!  turns out that Hna Parkinson is in my zone so i´ll be able to go on exchanges with her.    so then immediately after that i hear a confused voice behind me say ¨hna hebdon???¨ and i turn around to find Marcela, my mom/best friend from puerto montt.  seriously this day was just too good to be true. i´m so happy to be back in puerto montt! (i´m in the sector next to my old sector so i have a feeling i´m going to see all my friends :)

so yeah, now my new area....first off, i don´t remember why i remembered hna davila super serious and such, perhaps its jsut cuz the last time i saw her in puerto montt was when we had some problems in the zone and she´s the one that told president and got everyone in trouble.......but she´s amazing. we´re going to make a great companionship, she is a really hard worker adn knows hwo to work effectively.  she´s from argentina and a great singer! i´m so excited to have someone to sing with again.   so then my ward is huge compared to valdivia. there´s 150 something  compared to the 30 in valdivia

dad, i´m to be more than prepared to climb mt olympus when i get home. my sector is nothing but giant hills!  and climbing them 10x a day, i´m soooo sore (the incline is worst than the mt olympus trail)  but i feel great cuz now its actually exercise to walk around the whole day.  mom those new boots you sent me have officially saved my life! my other shoes wouldn´t be able to handle walking up and down these rocky hills.

on friday we went to a leaders counsel. it was all the ZLs and sister training leaders (there´s only 12 in the whole mission)  i´m actually really excited for this assignment  i wasn´t expecting it or wanting it for that matter but now to work so closely with all the other missionaries is gonna be great.

well i love you all so much!

sorry if i don´t have time to respond to all the personal emails cuz this is a novel and i´ve left myself no time. but know that i appreciate every email, letter and package. i love you all!!!!!

-Hna Hebdon la segunda

yup, sorry, lindz, we won peru! ;P

this is sandra, jacob and fransisco, i´ve never laughed so hard than i have with them

this is my family in Collico, mamita, esteban and 

I can´t even express how much i love hermana sarceño!

this is my brother Pancho, seriously, my best friend here
​

this is lucy, the puppy we adopted for a few days :)

my beloved Collico!

and of course butch was following 

ok , this photo is terrible thanks to the rain but basically, i have a sweet view of the city and at night its gorgeous!

the view from my house! seriously our house is the point of the tallest hill, i can´t study cuz i just love staring out the window all day haha :)