Thankful

(11/19-11/22) This week was pretty eventful. Monday started off kind of slow though. I woke up and worked on some stuff and cooked which is the usual for Mondays. I made banana chocolate chip cake again because everyone loved it the first time. Small groups started after that and it went well. Donce started after that and we ate this rice casserole stuff with chicken which was really good. A student named Natty Meli gave her testimony which was really cool because she talked about her trip to Africa which was awesome. The game to decide who cleans was to make a construction out of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows and the tallest win. We did not win but we didn’t lose either which is that only thing I care about. After the game all of our supplies ended up in my hair which was pretty funny. Susana, Cynthia, and Natty thought it was hilarious so they just kept adding. When Donce was over a few students went to a restaurant to celebrate Phil’s birthday which was on the Sunday before. I stayed about an hour and then everyone was ready to go so we left. When I got home I Skyped my friend Briana for about 2 hours which was nice because I haven’t seen her in forever. It was a good day. Tuesday not too long after I woke up Clau, Eli, and I went to Bravissimo to have an Almorricas meeting. I was so happy that I got to get ice cream from there again. It was fun hanging out with all the girls. After Bravissimo we went to a park to just hang out and talk. Then Eli and I had to go find colorful paper so two students went with us. We stopped at this awesome museum and walked around a bit. Then the two students had to leave so Eli and I kept on walking. We stopped at the National Library because I had never seen it and this awesome church in Plaza de Armas. Then we found these stores with a bunch of jewelry that we looked around in for a while. We finally found paper after that. Then we had to go to a party supply store to pick something up for an event this weekend.  We got home a little late but my friend Koke was there so we played ping pong and read some of my book. After everyone left, Eli, Greg, and I made homemade French fries and they were delicious. I showered and went to bed after t hat. Wednesday was probably my favorite day. My friend Camila came over and taught me how to make empanadas. It was the best and I was so excited to learn how to make them. We ended up making three different types, pino (which is meat, onions, boiled eggs, and some other stuff that we didn’t add,) napolitana (which is ham, cheese, tomatoes, and oregano,) and a postre empanada (which had strawberries and chocolate.) It was a blast! And we made lemonade from fresh lemons which tasted awesome. We watched a movie while we ate called Made of Honor on my Netflix. After that we went through her pictures and just talked. It was awesome! That night I went to hear a student’s band play at a restaurant. He is the drummer and he sounded awesome. It was definitely fun to just relax and hear music. What a great day that was. Thursday (THANKSGIVING but not for me) was pretty cool. I got to Skype a lot of my family because everyone went to my parent’s house this year to eat. I got to see my grandma, sister, mom, dad, aunt, uncle, brother in law, grandpa, and two cousins. It was pretty awesome. When I got done Skyping all of them I started baking for a special Café a lo Gringo. I mixed the dough and while it chilled Katie and I went to a restaurant to eat. She bought me lunch and because it was Thanksgiving I ordered a turkey sandwich. When we got back we started rolling out the dough and cutting little hand turkeys. They were absolutely adorable. We put an M&M on for the eye. They came out so much better than I thought they would. I made the brownies after that. Café started and we ate the cookies and made hand turkeys and wrote what we were thankful for. We also played a quick game of hangman and Pictionary. It was fun. Tetulia started after that and we ate sloppy joes, delicious. Then the band played and Claudia gave the talk which was good. After that I played ping pong with the boys upstairs until they had to leave. Then I took a shower and went to bed. This was definitely a week to be thankful for. 

my wonderful ice cream!

me making empanadas

our feast

my friends show

my sugar cookie hand turkeys

my hand turkey

Special Edition #2

Ok so in September I created a Special Edition and wrote about things I missed in the United States. The only thing I can even remember missing now is Chick-fil-A. Anyhow, that’s beside the point. I have exactly three weeks left in Chile as of today so I just want to share with you guys the things here that I’m going to miss from here the most.

The students/my friends here, they’ve completely stolen my heart and I pray I stay in contact with most of them

The ability to walk around the corner and grab lunch for $3

The freedom to climb Andes Mountains whenever I want to

The Virgin Mary on top of the hill

Food, especially anticuchos, napolitana empanadas, and my favorite restaurant El Guaton

Living in the ministry house, it’s so convenient

Spanish music, especially the worship songs

The prices of everything

The cheap fresh food market every Wednesday

The metro, even though it’s hot, sometimes smells bad, and takes all my money, it’s convenient

This ministry in general because it’s awesome

All the staff

Chala

Cooking desserts that everyone loves

The chocolate

Street vendors

Street performers

Sharing a room with Katie, although I'm more than happy to go back to having my own room

Watching the sunset over the Andes Mountains from my balcony

Having a game room

I’m sure that there are 3214397823 more things I’m going to miss about this place. I love it here. I’m sad that I only have a little time left here but I plan on making the absolute most of it. God has blessed me more than I could have even imagined. Please continue to pray for these final weeks for me. My biggest goal right now is to make sure the students know that I love them and they have changed my life. See you guys in a few weeks.

Merry Christmas To Myself!

(11/16-11/18) Friday, I felt pretty crappy all day. I did a little shopping in the morning and when I got back I slept for three hours. I don’t know what happened but I got sick out of nowhere. Well, this temperature has been pretty crazy and changing more than I change my clothes, and I change my clothes pretty often. It’s spring, what can you do? Nothing. Take allergy medication and just bare it. Onward march. So the rest of Friday I spent pretty much doing nothing. A student came over to wait for another student so they could go to dinner so I talked with him for about an hour and a half. They were supposed to meet at 8 but here that apparently means 9:30, I still haven’t quite figured that out. Anyhow after that Eli and I hung out for a bit and played ping-pong extreme because girl can’t keep the ball on the table to save her life. It was fun though. After that I pretty much knocked out for the night. In the morning I made chocolate chip pancakes and ate them all, along with an apple. Then Eli and I literally ran to pick up medals for the boys Futbol Tournament. Then we had to go to the grocery store for the boys and pick up meat and charcoal. Boys can’t do anything for themselves, is what I have concluded. After that Eli, Katie, and I went to a fancy shopping center in Los Dominicos (where the rich people live.) Everything was pretty expensive, but it was such a cute place. I couldn’t resist buying a few things, although mostly I bought gifts for myself…I deserve nice things! Anyhow, once we were done there, Eli and I went to find Eli’s mom a birthday present. I’m glad she found it in the first store because I was tired and ready to go. Of course after we found that we went to Santa Lucia to find a birthday present for Phil from Eli. Luckily that didn’t take too long, and I got to buy more gifts. Once we got back, I ate dinner and then Katie and I watched a movie called A Knights Tale. I went to bed right after the credits rolled. Sunday morning Katie and I decided that we would go to the cute little church on top of Cerro San Cristobal. We’ve always admired the church and we only have three more Sundays here so we wanted to go at least once. It’s a Catholic Church, Katie is Catholic and I just think it’s kind of cool to hear the songs and the group chants. So we left the house at 10:30 and got to the top at exactly 12, talk about perfect timing. Oh yeah, Mass starts at 12. That was also the best climb I’ve done, I didn’t stop once on the way up the mountain, I was so proud of myself. Of course I sweated like a beast because it’s hot and I worked my body. For the first 15 minutes of Mass I was just trying to cool off. After that it was pretty cool to see and hear everything and be able to understand. After climbing down the mountain Katie went straight home but I wanted to walk around a little. I walked around and looked at cute little stores and even ate lunch at McDonalds, it was my first time at an international McDonalds and it was the fanciest fast food restaurant I have ever set foot in. No lie.  It was gorgeous. When I got done eating I made the long walk back home. Once home I started laundry and took a shower, I smelled pretty awesome from my morning hike. I didn’t have much down time because at 6 I met a student, Susana, for dinner. Our originally planned location was closed because everything here is closed on Sunday and I somehow always forget. Thanks Santiago. So we walked about 2 miles to this HUGE mall (we’re talking 6 floors, with two grocery stores, movie theater, bowling alley, 2130587413534 stores, and probably more stuff that I don’t even know about) because it had the only food places open. That’s probably a little dramatic, but it was open. She got a salad and I got a hamburger called the Gringa. I thought it was ironic. Gringa or Gringo are what they call Americans here and only Americans. I don’t know why, it actually translates to without underwear. Anyhow we sat down and talked for a while which was pretty awesome. We walked around the mall for a little while after that and then went home because it was getting late and it had been a long day for both of us. Once home I finished laundry, relaxed, and slept. Pretty content with my weekend.

fancy shopping place

me in a pretty garden

pretty church

awesome Christmas decorations

someone bedazzled a reindeer

Ice Cream for Lunch

(11/12-11/15) Well I’ve realized that there’s only three more weeks of everything left, very sad thought. The time has flown so very fast, it’s incredible. Back to my week of events. Monday I didn’t really do anything. I mailed my last letters which was exciting. I also did a little grocery shopping for the first time in about three weeks. When I got back I cooked the dessert really early which was snickerdoodles and then cleaned the mess up. Eventually some students came over a little early so I hung out with them. Two students thought it would be funny to draw earrings on me since my ears aren’t pierced so I let them. I thought it was kind of funny too. After that the small groups started and it was pretty good. Then Donce started and we had this pasta stuff that was awesome. A student named Mauri gave his testimony which was good, but I didn’t really understand a lot of it. Mauri is a cool guy who has a physical handicap. He’s stuck in a wheelchair and doesn’t have complete control over his motor skills. He is precious though. After that I played ping-pong for a while with some students and then everyone left. Tuesday was a pretty neat day. That morning I woke up and pretty much left with Claudia to go to a girls group that are discussion stories of the Bible of strong women. There were about 6 of us there and we ate leftover pasta from Donce and Claudia bought a bunch of ice cream and cookies for dessert. I understood everything even the parts I had to read before hand in Spanish. It was really awesome though just being able to hang out with some girls from the ministry. When I got back home we had our Café a lo Gringo meeting and our Exchange Student Meeting that both went well. After that I played ping-pong with my friend Koke for a while. Then Eli came and got us because she wanted help making the announcement video so we went with her. I had a part in it where I had to say this one word several times and I could not, for the life of me, pronounce or remember the word. It was a blast though hanging out and making it. It took about 2 hours. When we got back Koke and I played more ping-pong and then he listened to me while I read in Spanish. He helps me practice so we’ve been reading this book for a while two chapters at a time. He’s a great guy. He left after that and then I went to bed. Wednesday was awesome. First I went to the fresh fruit and vegetable stand that I have been neglecting for about a month. I bought so much that I was worried it wouldn’t fit in my backpack. But it did, it was just insanely heavy. After that I went to meet a student named Caroline for lunch. Caroline is the student who got baptized on the Retreat a couple of weeks ago. We met at two and then I let her pick the place to eat lunch. She picked ice cream and I was very happy about it. We went to this huge ice cream place called Bravissimo. We both ordered this huge sundae with a brownie, bon-bons, little white chocolate bars, and three scoops of ice cream. It was delicious and I didn’t feel guilty at all. After that we walked around to several parks, stopping and having conversations along the way. Eventually we wound up at the Santa Lucia market and just walked around window shopping. We also hit two other markets along the way just hanging out and talking. On the way back I went and bought a new toothbrush and toothpaste and Caroline showed me the cheapest place to do that. It was about 9 o’clock and we were both tired from walking so much so we decided to go home. Once I got home I made dinner, watched some Netflix, chatted with some friends online, and then I went to bed. Thursday I went to staff meeting in the morning like usual. Then I made a huge fruit salad with all of my stuff from the market that I shared with all the staff. I hung out with Eli while she worked on the video and I worked on my Café a lo Gringo stuff. Then I did my chore, made my brownies, and got ready for Café to start. There weren’t a lot of people at Café but it was still good. Phil started with grammar time and then we played my game which was Mad Libs. I created stories where they had to fill in nouns and adjectives and adverbs and verbs. It was pretty funny hearing them read it. Once that was over Brent’s game was having the students read a song being very dramatic…which was hilarious! The best group had the song Baby by Justin Beiber. Tertulia started after that and we had hotdogs for dinner which was good. I did the cover band with Katie and a student named Camila and we did karaoke to Call Me Maybe. It was so ridiculous it was funny. Frizz gave the talk about what happened after Adam and Eve ate the apple and how it affects us today. It was pretty good. The band was pretty awesome too. Then we watched the announcement video that was hilarious because I couldn’t pronounce that one word. Once that was over I hung out with the students. After a while I went and played around the world ping-pong with some of the guys which was fun. Then Koke wanted me to be his partner again Abraham and Katie. It was intense. Koke is so competitive. They won the first game but we won the two after that making us the winners. Which I love winning so I was ok with that. After that everyone left and then I Skyped my friend Aubri after that was pretty exciting because I hadn’t seen or heard her voice since September. So we talked for about three hours and then I passed out. Good week! 

me and Susana

my earrings

me being super cute

me with Pulpa and Ruth, my favorite sisters!

haha me and Camila