General Conference

This week was pretty darn good! Pretty sure it was because of the past weekend! GENERAL CONFERENCE! Oh my goodness! Those talks were just the best, right?? Elder Klebingat's and Elder Bednar's were by far my favorites! But they were all awesome! It was so nice to be able to listen to it all in English and understand everything! I have to give a talk in church on Sunday and I am going to use some of the talks for my talk. Tonight we have a lesson with Andrea, an investigator, and we are going to show her Elder Bednar's talk. Unfortunately, none of our investigators were able to come to the Conference. Our stake center is super far away.. But it's ok. We are going to watch talks with them in our lessons!

All in all this week was great! We made "Galletas de Los Estados" AKA Chocolate chip cookies... for our investigators. They were all in shock at how good they were. (Let's be honest, they weren't even that good. Cooking is kind of hard when you have an oven that is used by lighting a match.. You never know how hot it is in the oven!) But it was great that everyone liked them! We are hoping that we can give cookies to people and they will let us teach them haha! We have some great plans :) 

Today is the last day of my first transfer! Hermana Altamirano and I are still together! But Hermana Chavez, an hermana who lives with us, went home! I can't believe she finished her mission! And tomorrow Hermana Leishman is going to train a new missionary. So there will be someone newer than me here! Pretty sure she'll be Latina though, so I will still be the one who can't speak! 

Everything down here in Chile is great. Just working hard. The weather is warming up and I can already tell I am going to die in the summer.. We'll see how my super white skin does with this sun.. Haha! 

I love you all! If you didn't get a chance to watch conference.. go watch it! It was the best. Especially the second session on Saturday!

Love,

Hermana Flake

Divisions Alone in My Sector ~ Sept. 29

Okay, this week... was, a little different. My companion is a sister leader. This means that she is a leader over 2 other companionships of sisters. And because of this she goes on divisions with the other hermanas. So either I go to a different sector with a different hermana or she leaves. Well, so far I have always left... because well, I can't speak Spanish and I don't want to be alone in my sector with another hermana who doesn't know the area. But this week my companion decided that I would stay in our sector... I just about died! It was so scary! I was in charge. I had decide who we would visit. The people knew me, so I had to talk the whole time. And I had to remember where everyone's houses were. And my companion was Hermana Alcantara, she only has a month in the mission field too. And she speaks no English. But guess what. I did it! It was great! We had a bunch of lessons, went contacting, and found new investigators! It was fantastic! It was super hard to be the one who was making the plans and deciding what we would do next and planning everything. But I had so much help from my Heavenly Father. It went super well... I was so exhausted afterward!

Sunday was pretty great! We had 7 investigators at church. It was awesome! We feel like the Lord is truly preparing the people in our sector to receive the gospel. There is a lot of work to do. We are waiting for the weather to warm up. We are both sick.. pretty sure I am destined to be sick my whole mission. 

On Saturday I got pretty homesick. We watched the Women's Conference and I just wanted to be there! And when the choir sang "Ï know that my Savior loves me" I just thought of mom playing it for me. 

My investigators are doing super well! There is a 16 year old boy, the son of Andrea, who wants to learn everything. He wants to go to mutual on Wednesday and go to conference. His mom said that after we taught him the first lesson he talked to her and said "I have to learn more about this. I want to know if it is true for myself" His name is Fabian and he is great! We are hoping to see him right after we get done writing.

Conference is this weekend!!! I am so so so excited! I have been reading the Liahona from May with all of the talks from the April conference. It is my goal to read all of it before Saturday. It is an incredible experience to tell the people we are teaching about conference. We tell them there is a prophet on the earth today and that he receives revelation for us, personally. They all want to come and here what he has to say. It is making me feel so much more grateful for this special opportunity we have. I hope all of you will take advantage of this weekend and listen to the word's our Heavenly Father wants us to hear. I love you all! Hope you have a great weekend!

Love,

Hermana Flake

P.S. So sorry that I forgot my camera cord and can't send home any pictures. I will send a bunch next week!

September 22, 2014

This week was pretty great! Oh yeah, and it was the 18th! Chile's Independence Day! So let's just say there were a lot of drunk people the whole week and weekend. It was pretty...interesting. 

On the 18th we had a meeting for the new missionaries. It was so awesome! We listened to the testimony of a woman named Victoria. She is getting baptized in December and has this incredible testimony in the Book of Mormon. It was so awesome! We then got to ask her questions to try and help our investigators. Hermana Leishman, who lives with me, found her in March. When I got back to our sector I told her and she was so happy! 

After the meeting we went to the church for the party. Unfortunately a bunch of our investigators didn't come.. But we had a few there! It is so different from a normal ward party in the U.S. There was a table of "salads" haha they call potatoes with mayo on top a salad.. Eh, its alright. So many empanadas, churipan, and meat. It was good!! I have also decided that they don't believe in dessert here. Weird, right? Then they started dancing and singing karaoke. It was hilarious! They dance the Cueca and it is super cool! Everyone here dances. I am so glad we weren't allowed to dance. I'm so awkward... haha

The next day we had divisions with the hermanas in La Reina. I went with Hermana Huber and went to their sector. Oh my goodness, it was so much nicer than our sector! I was shocked. I have gotten so accustomed to our little sector. But I love my sector so much :) Hermana Huber and I had some... adventures together. We went to a crazy party.. and didn't know how to escape. There were a lot of drunk men and a couple of members who kept us safe. Let's just say my blonde hair makes me stick out like a sore thumb in this country. But, there was a plus to this sketchy party, we got chocolate cake! The next day we got yelled at by a drunk man who almost started chasing us when we ran away from him. Yay for drunk people..... 

All in all, this week was great. We couldn't find a whole bunch of people because everyone was out of town. But we are excited to meet up with our investigators this week! 

Love,

Hermana Flake

P.S. Sometimes you spill something on your skirt and then a Chilean family insists they pour salt all over you. And sometimes you eat food and think you're doing well. And then they bring out more and you think you might die. That's my life now! And it is fantastic! 

Lorraine on the balcony of her 10th floor apartment