Bueno

Well it was great to see and talk to you guys on Christmas, sorry for the technical difficulties, but it all worked out ok in the end.   and sorry that i can´t really communicate in english anymore.......Mom really i beg you to change the date of my homecoming talk. there is NO way that i´ll be able to talk in english in church 2 days after i get back. it will be the most embarrasing thing of my life.......if you want me to give my whole talk in spanish. great, i´ll do it without hesitation.

I really said all there is to say on Christmas....so, 

Feliz Navidad to those who i didn´t see on christmas, i hope you enjoyed celebrating that special day.  Thanks for all the gifts/cards, i love you all so much!

Andando en un trio.

well, life still is just as crazy as before.  haha, i thought it´d be a bit calmer this week but...no.  Chile and its strikes.  So Hermana Sambrano left on Tuesday, so we were gonna be in a trio for 2 days while we waited for the new companion of Hermana Talimatasi who was gonna arrive on thursday.  we had everything worked out, that we were gonna work in Coyhaique in my sector one day and the next in Puerto Aysen and then go pick up the new greenie who´s coming.   Well, It just so happened that the day she was gonna arrive, Chile´s airlines entered in a strike. So, pobrecita new companion got stuck in Puerto Montt.  So we´ve been in a trio all week long.  Its actually a lot of fun being in a trio, all the lessons are 3X more powerful haha.   but its been super hard to work in our sectors. we were in Coyhaique 2 days and Aysen 2 days.  then for Saturday and Sunday we were gonna run into a bunch of problems cuz we both had important appointments and had to bring people to church the next day.  So, i got permission from the APs to stay with a member.  So Rocio became my companion for 2 days, she´s already working on her mission papers so it was a great experience for her to be a missionary for 2 days :)    

We still don´t know when Hna Talimatasi´s new companion´s gonna arrive, apparently the strike ended but now they´re so backed up, we´re just hoping that its before Christmas. 

yeah, so Christmas...we actually don´t have much planned.....i actually have no idea what we´re gonna do. hehe (way to plan ahead eh?)    

Ok, so, On christmas day i´m gonna call you guys on Skype (i believe mom´s skype) at 6:00pm CHILE TIME (i´m not gonna do the math, you can figure out what time that is in Utah.)  So be ready!  (lindz, i hope you´re ready to be my traductor ;) hehe   btw, i´ve been practicing my english this week, there´s a million tourists here!

i hope you enjoy your Christmas! I love you all tons, Talk to you soon!

-Hna Hebdon

Quick trip to Puerto Montt

Well, this week flew by, we didn´t have a moment to stop and think.  i´ll admit i´ve been a bit stressed just by the fact that my companion leaves tomorrow and my new and last companion arrives.  I know all will be fine, but honestly i´ve come to love Hna Sambrano with all my heart.  She was a bit different from my other companions and i for that we´re best of friends instead of just companions. It may sound strange, but we fought like Emma and I do, and for that, those rough moments that we had to work out, we ended up being stronger than before.  I´m gonna miss her a ton. :/

So we traveled to Puerto Montt, which completely exhausted me, traveling there and back, i just want to sleep today haha.  but it was great to be back in puerto montt.  But it was interesting too, being back there made me realize how blessed i am to be in Coyhaique. haha, i love puerto montt, but i had almost forgotten how many people bug us on the street.  Coyhaique is a lot more tranquilo.

the Conference was amazing, exactly what i needed to gain the animo to finish my mission strong.  (it was amazing but filled with way too many embarrasing moments, i was not in the right mind, only things like that would happen to me when i´m in front of a general authority, i´ll tell what happened when i get home, its too embarrasing to tell in an email...) 

I got to see Gina!!!!!!   Her son Franco is gonna be baptized on Christmas day!  It was so great to see her, and to see she´s still strong in the church.

I think the other reason i´ve been so stressed this week is for all the information the members told be of what´s happened in my ward there. Some very strong families are passing for very hard trials, it was just too much to hear. :/

But on the bright side, i saw my friends in Puerto Montt and enjoyed spending time with them :)  oh, and I saw Hna Sarceño in the conference!!!!! she´s doing great, she sends her love and Thanks for the packages and everything you´ve done for her :)

So we returned from Puerto Montt on Thursday and had to quickly plan the baptism.  Alejandro and Izidora were baptized on saturday by their grandpa who is Patriarch.  It was so special, izidora looked like an angel in her white dress :)

Well, i hope all is well! Wish me luck this week with my new companion (hna Caldera from Guatamala!)

i love you all!

-Hna Hebdon

Why is it never easy.

Wow, with every baptism, there´s always something that happens!  So, we had the baptismal interview for Alejandro and Izidora yesterday.  So, our District leader (who, i´m sorry, but always gets under my skin)  gave the interview, finished, signed all the papers saying that Alejandro is ready to be baptized.  well, that night he calls us telling us he thought a bit more about it and that Alejandro (only 10yrs old!) isn´t ready to be baptized cuz he hasn´t read very much in the Book of Mormon.  So he´s telling us to put his baptismal date for next week.  well, normally i´d be ok with that, BUT, alejandro´s grandpa who is patriarch already bought his plane ticket and is coming out in 2 days only to baptize Alejandro and my companion finishes her mission this week.  So i explained the situation to the elder, telling him that its a bit complicated to change the date and that the last thing we want is for his family to be annoyed by this inconvenience and change the heart of his dad who also is investigating the church.  The only reason this elder had was that Alejandro hadn´t read much in the book of mormon, but yes has the desires, yes knows the lessons and everything.    Good grief, i didn´t read the book of mormon until i was 14!   So we talked on the phone for 1 hr, me giving all the reasons why he should be baptized this week and not next week.  (it honestly is the fear that his family would be offended and we´d lose a whole family in the church cuz his dad and 2 siblings are also investigating the church).     so anyway, we finish this long and unsuccessful conversation and milagrously right after we hung up the AP called us for something.  so we asked him and he told us that Alejandro is gonna be baptized this Saturday, that we can´t deny him the opportunity to be baptized only cuz he didn´t read more than 1 chapter.  THANK YOU APS!!!!    yeah, so that´s my rant for today. thanks for listening.  haha,  its just been a really stressful week if you didn´t notice during my rant.    

but all is good in zion!   Tomorrow we´re off to Puerto Montt! It should be good for me to take 2 days to recharge.

well, i love you all! Enjoy the holidays!

-Hna Hebdon

A wedding, baptism, and unexpected phone call.

Feliz Thanksgiving!!!  It was quite a different thanksgiving for me.  haha, my thanksgiving dinner consisted in baby carrots and a crossaint. i think i actually lost weight this thanksgiving ;)

So, i´ll start with the unexpected phone-call and end with the happy news.  So, we were about to leave the house when suddenly our phone rings, it was a number that was unrecognized, the hna sambrano answered and it was a guy asking for me, when i took the phone, he told me that it was Elder Medina (aka, the elder from my 1st district that decided to stay in his mission)  I couldn´t have been more surprised to receive a call from him. So anyway, he tells me that he fractured his foot and has to return home for it to heal. :/   as he tried explaining more of course the phone randomly dies.  So i´m left without anwers, just super sad knowing that my good friend has to return home 1 year early from his mission. :(

But, i didn´t have time to linger in my disappointment, because....We were leaving the house to go to Jorge and Veronica´s wedding!!!!! :D

This week was crazy, opposition in all things exists, the government here is ridiculous, we didn´t know if they were going to be able to be married this week or not until the day before. and the funny (or not-so-funny in the moment) thing was that we were waiting all week to hear, and so Veronica calls us on wednesday telling us that they were going to be married on friday, we were so excited, and then the next morning they call to tell us that They started another strike and that the government buildings were closed again.    I´ve never prayed so hard in my life.  Finally after all our prayers and fasts, On Friday somehow everything worked out, and we went to their wedding!!!!   and Saturday Jorge was baptized!!! :D   It truly was a miracle.

I´ve never been happier than i was yesterday, sitting in church, next to Familia Melehauchun (they actually came to church with us!!!!!! :D   and watching Jorge recieve the gift of the holy ghost,  pure happiness :)

So basically, my life is perfect right now.  and its only getting better.  next week we have a conference with a member of the 70, so we get to travel to Puerto Montt!!! i´m gonna be in my sector for 3 days :D

i´m glad all is going well at home. Cuidense esta semana!  i love you all!

-Hna Hebdon

p.s.  mom - just a few notes, when i get home can it just be intermediate family in the airport? (and emma obviously)   

and for my homecoming please don´t worry about putting on something grand with a bunch of food, i´m good with something small and simple...

i really do want to move to Chile one day...

This is the Familia Melehauchun!!!, pricilia, Cony and Barbara (we didn´t plan the colors, we just arrived and all happened to be in the same color :)

Yeah, its summer here ;)

I'm still here!

Haha, only lindsey would miss her flight ;)   that ruined my day, i literally was counting down time on tuesday, 1 hour left, 30 minutes, ¨She´s home!¨ ¨what´s my family doing right now?¨ (i´m not trunky at all ;P )my companion was probably super annoyed. and after all that it was for nothing! because she didn´t arrive until Thursday. hahah bien.

so, Lindsey, one rule, you can´t get married until i´m home!!! so take it a bit slower would ya? ;)

ok, so this week we helped a sister paint her house, we arrived in a skirts cuz we didn´t have time to return home to change, so the sister lended me an old shirt but i had nothing to cover my skirt, but figuring we were painting the walls white and my skirt is the black and white one, no one would notice a few drops of white paint.  so we started painting.   i was doing so well until i climbed up on the table to reach a part of the wall.  when i tried to step down, my foot got caught in my skirt, pulling me down suddenly and i went tumbling to the ground, smacking into the freshly painted wall that i just painted, leaving half my skirt coated in white paint. hahah, so much for my great idea.    that might just be the one thing that i´m most excited for when i finish my mission, NO MORE SKIRTS!!! :)

This was a fairly stressful week, but all worth the pain.  Its the weirdest thing i´ve ever done in the mission:  Plan a marraige proposal.   yup, so if all goes well, Veronica and Jorge will be married and baptized this week (we´re still waiting to hear from the government)   so Jorge is a bit shy and just not the one to take iniciative, but in this case, Veronica told us that if Jorge couldn´t ask her to marry him she wouldn´t marry him. so thats when my companion and i decided to interfere.  so we planned a romantic dinner surprise for Veronica, Jorge liked the idea so we planned and did everything, he just had to show up in his suit and tie and ask her to marry him.  My companion did all the decoration and i made the dinner (chicken alfredo, it turned out amazing, and its something they´ve never eaten here before :)  the night turned out perfect and Veronica was more than happy.   i´m just glad that everything turned out after running around asking for help from members and last minute they always cancel and everything, but the important thing is that they´re gonna get married!!!!!!!!

Also, Valeska is determined to return to church and her 2 youngest kids are gonna be baptized Dec 12th!!!   

The Lord is working miracles in this sector! i´m so blessed to be here for the last 2 months of my mission, there is a LOT of work to do here!

I love you all!!!

-Hna Hebdon

Hola from Hermana Hebdon La Primera.

Yeah, I´m Hermana Hebdon la primera now :)  

So i´ve recieved bits and pieces of all the news that´s going on in the world right now and i decided i´m content living in my bubble here in my mission.  

Well, we´ve had good days and tough days this week.  So 2 months ago as we were walking to an appointment both my companion and i felt to knock on this one door, so we stopped and this lady opens the door, she was in a hurry but told us that she knows a lot about the church and to pass by another day.  Normally a contact like that we´d try passing by 2-3 times more and if they never answer or never let us enter we drop them.  But we passed by 6+ times, but felt super strongly to keep trying.  So this week we passed by again and her whole family was home and they let us in.  Turns out that Valeska, the mom has been a member her whole life but 12 yrs ago went inactive after her mom died. Her husband and 3 kids aren´t members but they all want to be baptized!!!  Its amazing how many families that we´re finding now that have desires to follow Christ and be baptized :)

If all goes well Veronica and Jorge will be married Nov 27th and Jorge will be baptized the 28th :)

Basically, the work is amazing in this sector!

Random story:  So we´re sitting in a lesson and as i´m talking i´m petting this cat that decided to sit in my lap.  The cat starts licking my hand and it felt cool so i let him keep licking me and suddenly, CHOMP, he bites my poor finger.  My companion just saw me flinch, and i kept talking calmly as i covered my hand trying not to let the blood drip on anything, so i finish testifying, ¨in the name of Jesus Chist amen..... can i use your bathroom?¨  and without them seeing the blood i get into the bathroom and clean up my wound.  haha, i didn´t want to tell this kind old couple that their cat bit my finger, so as we´re leaving i smoothly ask if their cat had to be vaccinated, they said yes.  whew, well at least i don´t have to worry about recieving 5 shots for this animal bite.   my luck is amazing.

Well, i´m loving it here!  its kinda sad, i don´t feel like its Christmas at all. i´m trying to get into the Christmas spirit but its kinda hard when its 90 degrees outside. haha.

Enjoy having lindsey home!!!

love, Hna Hebdon la primera ;)

p.s note to Lindz:  No puede olvidar su español! tiene que practicar cada día y seguir estudiandolo, tenemos que seguir hablando así por toda nuestra vida.  Si va a escribirme, solo puede hacerlo en puro español ;P  Gracias por todo lo que hizo en Peru! Te amo :)