Lights Out

Another week of mission craziness gone!  I really can't ever remember what happened during the week when I sit down to write on Monday.  So sometimes I look through my agenda to see if it will help jog my memory.  It didn't really.

But this week we had two month-a-versaries, Hermana Lyons completed six months in the mission on the 10th, and Hermana Frandsen and I completed 13 months on Saturday.  13 MONTHS!!!!!  Hermana Lyons wanted to eat lemon pie for her 33% mark, so we took a temporary break from our diet and had pie.  It was good.  We didn't do anything special for our 13 months, Hermana Frandsen and I.  After you complete a year, it's like what's one more month?  Just one less, actually.  Lame!

The other day for some reason I started talking in Spanish in this really weird, high-pitched, nasaly voice and going on about how good my Chilean accent is and how everyone tells me that I speak perfect Spanish.  One of the recent converts in our ward, Aracely, was there and she thought it was about the funniest thing ever.  (I don't remember how much I have said about Aracely, but suffice it to say that SHE IS THE BEST!  We are always figthing over who gets to take her home with us.)  So now whenever Aracely is around, she's like, "Hermana Burgess, talk like a Chilean!" and I do the voice and she dies laughing and everyone else just looks at me funny.  It's great.

Hermana Lyons and I this week perfected some raps that we have been working on in those brief empty moments.  We each have one to introduce ourselves and they turned out great, if I do say so myself.  I might try to send some video, but it's all in Spanish mission-lingo with a bunch of inside jokes, so I am not sure how much y'all will appreciate it.  But it was a hit at last night's noche de hogar.

Yesterday morning while we were getting ready to go to church, suddenly all the lights went out.  This is pretty normal, seeing as throughout the course of the morning we usually use two space heaters, one or two straighteners, some kind of music player, occasionally the toaster, and the hot water in the shower which is also supplied by electricity, if we somehow forget to turn one thing off before we turn on another we get cut and we have to just turn everything off and run downstairs and flip the switch.  Well, we tried that but it didn't work.  So we went outside and flipped the big breaker switch a couple times.  Didn't work either.  But Hermana Lyons checked out the window and she said that the street lights, which are usually on all the time, were also out, so it must have been the whole street.  Well when we got to church we found out that it wasn't just us, or even just our street, but all of Hualqui that was without electricity, and that it would be like that until about 4:00 in the afternoon.  So in church we had only the emergency generator lights, no piano (because all the churches here use Clavinova-like electric keyboards), and no microphone.  It was fast and testimony meeting and it was so interesting without any amplification or lights.  But we went on nonetheless.  Nothing stops real Latter-Day Saints from going to church!

This week, in addition to my Book of Mormon reading, I studied a bit from the section "Talk With Everyone" in Preach My Gospel.  There was one scripture that I especially liked, in D&C 24:12, which says:  "And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men."  Isn't that awesome?  Strength such as is not known among men!  I am going to try to get that!

Many of you have told me how you are doing with the Book of Mormon.  I am so excited to hear about what you are reading!  Keep it up this week!  Let's read EVERY DAY!!!!!

Well, that's all for now.  Hope you are all happy and well!  Keep reading and praying and looking for those missionary opportunities.  Thanks for your love and prayers and emails and support and for everything!

Lovelovelove,

Herman

#ldsconf

Hellooooooo!

Does anyone else find it hilarious but also awesome that the Church has a # for everything?  At the end of the re-broadcasted Relief Society session on Saturday morning when we saw the #ReliefSociety on the screen we about died.  Technology is cool and one really awesome thing about the Church is that the Lord knows how to use technology to His advantage.

My grandparents wrote to me and told me about how the missionaries in Logan have iPads that have all the things they could ever need in them.  I know that Hermana Lish ended up with an iPad when she got sent to Provo to finish her mission as well.  Don't anybody get too excited, though, because here in Chile we do it old-school.  Paper products and physical DVDs.  But even though sometimes the rain streaks important information in our agendas and I don't know a missionary whose scriptures haven't gotten water damged in their backpack, we rock it.  And our agendas (little spiral bound notebooks with daily planning pages for the six weeks of the cambio) are truly beloved.  Losing your agenda is like losing your right arm.  One day Hermana Frandsen got off the bus and realized that she had left her agenda on it.  At first she was really upset, but then as they turned the corner they saw that very same bus passing by again and flagged it down.  She got on and the driver was like, "Yeah, we have your book."  She was very relieved to have gotten it back.

Anyway, let's talk about Conference!  Wahoo!!!!!

What were your favorite talks?  I liked Elder Holland, Elder Oaks, Elder Ballard, and a bunch of others!  I mean, there wasn't really one that I didn't like!  But I loved those three especially.

Hermana Frandsen said she thought the theme was "Things are Bad and They're Gonna Get a WHOLE LOT WORSE."  I think she is probably right.  They were definintely preparing us for something.

Who loved the family choir?  We were cracking up at all the sleepy kids.  It was awesome.  We also loved the all-sisters MTC choir in the Relief Society session.  Who can believe that now there are enough sisters in the MTC to fill those choir seats?

I am so excited to review the Conference talks.  I am going to be dowloading some of them onto my iPod today while I am in the ciber so that we don't have to wait for the transcripts or the Liahona!

How is the Book of Mormon reading going?  I know we are all struggling through those Isaiah chapters, but I encourage you all to keep it up!  Your commitment this week is to KEEP READING ALL THE DAYS!  And try to love Isaiah a little bit more than last time!

Well, gotta go now.

Ciao!

Lovelovelove,

Herman

Nothing to Write About

Okay, maybe I have one or two things to write about.

This week Hermana Lyons and I went on a diet.  Don't worry, I haven't gotten too fat (most of my clothes are even a little big), but I was eating a few too many cookies and hallullas con queso maybe for the good of my waistline....  So we decided that on P-Days we can eat whatever we want (obviously) and we still have to eat whatever we are given in any Chilean household (ditto on the obviously thing) and we also have free reign on the banana cake with lemon icing (or any other delicious treat created by the mission home cook/cleaning lady, Hermana Lily) in President's house (we don's spend that much time there, but it's still a good just-in-case rule!).  The rest of the week there is no rule about how MUCH we can eat, but we are only allowed to eat things that are good for us.  So if I want to eat 20 apples in one day, I can.  But no chocolate or cookies or Chilean bread made with lard, no matter how delicious it might be!  It wasn't too hard, though.

Something crazy happened in our house this week.  On Tuesday Hermana Lyons and I had stopped by the house to pick up the dirty laundry so we could drop it off at the home of the sister in our ward who does it for us, when Hermana Frandsen called and said not to take Hermana Álvarez's laundry bag.  I asked why, and she said, "my companion got cambioed.  She's leavingtomorrow."  I asked who her new companion (Hermana Frandsen's) would be.  She said, "They said maybe Hermana Call, but I'm not sure," and they didn't know either where Hermana Álvarez would be headed.  It was crazy (as previously stated).  So they next day after district class Hermana's Álvarez and Hermana Frandsen went to the office to do the companion switch.  When we came home after lunch, turned out our new housemate IS Hermana Call (don't be fooled by her name or her gringa face, she's from Mexico) and that she and Hermana Álvarez had just switched companions and areas.  Mid-week and just four days after a regular cambio.  Kind of strange, but sometimes the mission is just like that.  So now we are four English speakers, though Hermana Call says she isn't sure which is her "native" language.

Two other things happened that same day.  One:  Hermana Frandsen got a package from her family that they had been talking about in their emails for WEEKS.  What was in it?  Only a ten-pound tub of Nutella.  It's huge.  I've really never seen anything like it.  Hermana Frandsen was a little frustrated that it came the week we decided to go on a diet, but I did eat some of it today.  And we made Nutella cookies this morning at President's house. They were great.  The other weird thing that happened that day is that on their way home from the office after the comp switch, the assistants were driving them out to Hualqui and they got in a car accident.  Hermana Frandsen smacked into the seat in front of her and has had a pretty bruise on the bridge of her nose for the past week, but other than that everyone is okay.  And so is the assistant's truck.

The last highlight of this week that I want to mention is that this morning Hermana Arrington invited the four of us and Hermana Álvarez and her companion, Hermana Mena (I know her from my very first days in the mission.  She was in Lib while I was in Cordillera, so we saw each other ocassionally on P-days and then she was Hermana Fajardo's companion the transfer before we both got sent to San Javier.  But she goes home this transfer.  Boo.), over to their house to cook in their awesome kitchen with granite countertops and a Bosch and a convection oven and stuff.  We made Nutella cookies and Hermana Pulsipher's featherweight rolls and Hermana Lily (mission home "maid") made us Cafe Rio salads for lunch.  With black beans and barbecue pork.  It was the best!   There should be pics coming soon!  It's always so nice to cook in a real kitchen.  Our oven in Hualqui burns everything to a crisp on the bottom, no matter how high up we put the rack, so this convection oven was a refreshing change!

Well, that is all I have for today.  Except for your commitment, of course!  In conjunction with reading the Book of Mormon every day (how are we doing???), I want to invite you all to be SO EXCITED about GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!!!  And then watch it.  :)  Best commitment ever, I think.  Book of Mormon and Conference.  We're stoked.  Hermana Frandsen says it's like missionary Christmas.  It is pretty exciting for us.

Thanks so much for all your love and support and prayers and packages (don't worry, it'll all get eaten even if we only do it on P-days!).  You're all the best!

Lovelovelove,

Herman