Happy Birthday Kate!

Here is the most recent letter from Katie. She is doing extremely well! I can't believe how time can fly and seem to stand still simultaneously. She celebrated her 22nd birthday on the 18th. We are so proud of her and her enthusiasm to preach the gospel. She is a great example to our family :)

Buenos Días,
> I am so glad to hear that all is going well with you all. I love Monday´s when I get to read your emails and write all the things that have happened here. It is amazing how much can happen in a weeks time. Well, my birthday was really relaxed, bueno, as relaxed as missionary life gets. Actually Wednesday morning I got a phone call from President May and his wife and they sang happy birthday to me and wanted to check in and see what I had planned for the day. It made my day, because it was just like the phone call from Grandma and Grandpa. I loved it, well it would have been better if it really was Grandma and Grandpa, but I´ll take it. Other than that, not much happened. At lunch they sang to me and gave me a huge plate of fruit, just up my alley.
> This past week Hermana Hogan went home and then Sunday is the last day of Hermana Ricks. I cant believe it, I am starting to be one of the older missionaries here. I still feel like I just got here and have a lot to learn, especially the language. Spanish has like 5 different words to describe the same thing and so I get really confused when people start throughing out random words that I have never heard before to describe something so simple. Anyway, this next Monday we are getting 5 new sister missionaries and I am really almost sure that I might have to be training one of them because all of the older sister missionaries here have already trained and usually only train once. So I am starting to get really nervous because this is the last week of changes and then we have cambios next week. But it will be fun to mix things up a bit.
> Thanks for the prayers for Maria and Axel. They are progressing so well. They have come to church twice now and when we go to their house every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night Maria is waiting for us with all her books and pamphlets in hand. She loves the gospel and is really progressing fast, but the only problem is her husband. He is really not all that interested in listening when we come and I know that that is not going to make things easy. That is the hardest thing for a marriage, when one of them wants to listen and the other just wont make the time. But we are planning to have a family home evening with them this week and get another family to try to encourage him to participate with us. They have a baptismal date for this Saturday, but we might wait and see if we can get the husband to jump on board so they can all be baptized together, I am not sure, we need to talk to Maria about it.
> Oh, yesterday I gave my first talk in church. It was not all that bad. I really don't have any fear of talking in front of people anymore. The only problem is is I don't know exactly what I said and I hope I didn't preach false doctrine by mixing up words or something.
> Also I received the shoes mom sent and the package from Amie this past Tuesday just in time for my birthday. Thank you so much. The shoes are working out really good and I love the clothes. They are perfect because things are really starting to cool down at night here. Also thank you Amie, Erik, and the boys for the shirt and cards. I loved them. They really made my Week.
> Thank you all for you letters and love, they help me get through the hard weeks and keep me going. Thanks for your prayers also. The Lord is so mindful of all his children here and I am so blessed to see the changes in the lives of the people here. I love you all so much and pray for you daily.
> Love,
> Kate

photo update

> 1-after they shoved my face in the cake, mean trick
> 2-Hna Padilla, Hna Evans, Hna Michelsen, Hna Hogan, Hna Ricks, Me, Hna Darca
> 3-Gabriela is the youngest daughter of Rodrigo y Angelica. She is the cutest little girl!

1-the farwell of Elder Guevara
> 2-Thiare and Oscar when I told them I was leaving(that´s why my eyes are all red)
> 3-Zone of Quilicura at our last Zone class together. Six of the elders finished their missions.
> 4-Family home evening with Rodrigo and Angelica and their 3 girls with the Familia Moya Lara. We ate sushi, of course.

1- Hermana Johnson and I in the nightly routine. Actually this was when I had hives and we were in a trio for the night.
> 2- Good ol´ hives!
> 3- Hermana Ricks and I with Lucy and Lily. They are converts of Hermana Ricks and they made us an amazing breakfast this morning. They are darling!
> 4- Me and Fernanda. She is the daughter of our momita. Every week in sacrament meeting she comes up to the piano with me and plays the songs with me. It is a little difficult sometimes trying to play around her little hands, but no one can hear the difference.
>

12/15/2008

Well this week we had three beautiful baptisms. Everything went as planned. The familia Moya Lara never looked so beautiful. The father Oscar made us a little nervous at first because he had to have an additional interview with President Luna before due to a chastity problem several years ago,but all went well and I have never seen a man so happy as he watched his wife and daughter be washed clean. This baptism was so much different than the others I have had because it was a family that my companion and I found together and taught from the beginning. All of my other baptisms were from other missionaries and they are amazing but not the same. But everything went as planned. We had a great atendance from the ward and the young women/primary sang ¨Cuando Me Bautice¨ while I played the paino. Paola, the mom, was so excited to see the support of the young women for her daughter. Oh, it was just incredible. The Lord really heard our prayers and blessed us with the chance to see such a great family start a new life. Next July Oscar will be baptizing his son Oscar who will finally be 8 years old. I am so excited for them.
> Today I got my first chance to ride a bicycle in a dress. My companion and I came to Los Andes to visit her converts and we got to use the Hermana´s that are working in this area bikes. I love riding bikes, but in a dress, it is really difficult. My skirt keeps getting caught in the back tire breaks and I have to stop and yank it out. I have a feeling it is going to ripe one of these times and I will be riding free. But I have a feeling that sometime in the mission I will be serving here in Los Andes which is a huge sector and is more rural, I will have to really learn how to ride a bike then.
> I love you all and wont be able to write next Monday because our Pday has been changed to Christmas Eve on Wednesday. I still think we will get time to write then and then I will be able to talk to you all on Christmas too. On Christmas Eve we are having a big mission activity and then we get to spend the rest of the day with which ever family we want until midnight. The familia Moya Lara, Willy and Valeska, Darca, and another family, the familia Spolmann, have all invited us over for Christmas Eve. We are trying to work out what our plan of attack is for that, but it will be fun how ever it turns out. We also get to go to the temple on the 26th of December too. It is going to be a great Christmas, well as good as it can get being away from you all. I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers, they have really been answered every one of them!




First picture is our trip to Cerro Ranca today. We went with our zone leaders Elder Lerner and Elder Guevara and also two members from our ward, but they were taking the pictures.
> The second picture is a picture of the wildlife here in Chile.