Hermana Lorraine Flake: ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Wow, where do I even begin? I can't believe it is 2015! How crazy the time goes! This week was pretty great! It was kind of tough down here, but that's okay. We pushed through! New Year's is WAY bigger down here than Christmas. Everyone went to the beach for the whole week.. so, we saw a bunch of less-actives. Which was great! But different than normal, is all.

We had a super great New Year's Eve! We went to the Calderon Family's house for dinner and it was way good! They are so great. They are a family who struggle with some things, but we are helping them! We have a Family Home Evening with them tonight too. After we had dinner we had to go back to our apartment and be there at 10:30. We had to go to bed at 11:30. But we woke up at midnight for like 10 minutes to watch fireworks. We live on the 10th floor and could see all of Santiago! It was so pretty!

On the 1st we went to Rodrigo and Nayibe's house for lunch. They are recent converts from Colombia and cook so darn good! It was Rodrigo's birthday the night before so we had a little party with some other people in the ward. I decided to attempt to make a chocolate cake... Attempt would be the right word. It was a DISASTER! Ughhhh, cooking here stresses me out so much. But it's ok. It turned out pretty darn good. Just not anything I would be proud to show haha. I found a chocolate cake mix to use.. and I ended up having to add like 2 extra cups of flour to it for it to rise sufficiently. But that's ok. Everyone loved it because it was super different from cakes they eat here! Nayibe cooked us some mango chicken and it was one of the best things I have eaten on my mission! Everyone was done with theirs and Hermano Calderon didn't finish his and he asked me if I'd like more. I almost lunged for it! Sometimes it's embarrassing that I eat way more than everyone else.. haha oh well!

Yesterday we had a great day in the church! Hermana Miryam Valdebenito came again! She just makes me so happy. It is her 3rd week since she came back to church. And she is dead set on not letting anything get in her way of staying active in the church now!

We had a great lesson with Annaemma, one of our investigators. We taught her the word of wisdom, she is a hardcore smoker. She has health problems and she thinks it helps her keep her mind under control. She committed to quitting for this week! We are going to try to visit her everyday and be her support. She is such a sweetheart. She has prayed and feels it is all true! She just needs to live the word of wisdom and she'll be ready to be baptized! I love sharing the gospel with these wonderful Chilean People. They have taken over a place in my heart I had no idea was empty before my mission! I am so grateful for this new year! The whole year of 2015 I will be on my mission and I couldn't be more happy about it! Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Flake

1.The cake! It tasted a whole lot better than it looked!

2. Hermana Miryam and I in front of la capilla ayer.

3. The hermanas I live with in our living room! Hermana Ferreira, Hermana Valezquez, Hermana Christensen, y yo!

1. Okay, so I got this blister on my foot. And then it got like crazy infected. So then my foot swelled up and I couldn't walk without limping. So when we went to eat lunch with the Familia Calderon they freaked out. And Hermano Manuel was determined to heal me. We found the stethoscope thingy and thought it'd be funny to take a picture.. Crazy Chileans!

2.Sunflower! I love Summer! Just kidding.. it's kind of the worst. But Oh well, there's a brightside to everything right? Like, I am melting in the heat, but hey! There are pretty sunflowers at least.

3. My foot was killing me, but it's better now. A little :)