I Feel Good. I Feel Great. I Feel Wonderful.

(if the Glazier fam doesn't know what that's from, I will be so disappointed). 

Once again, the majority of our appointments fell this week. But I feel just as good, if not better, than I have for the whole mission so far. I can NOT believe I'm about to complete 3 months in the land of South America. So many of my attitudes and ideas have changed and I have learned an incredible amount about what faith really means. I'm just starting to see how much more I really have to do to become the missionary I want to be. 

I still miss some things about America though. Example: garbage service. The garbage collection is on strike in Tomé. And they don't even have trash bins, they just put it on the curb in bags. So. Yeah. I won't elaborate any further. Just know that I am still alive. And appreciate your trash bins back home!

Yesterday was Ward Conference. It's a big deal here, because a lot more people come than normal Sundays. We were talking about it and preparing the whole week before. I remember growing up I didn't actually understand what Ward Conference was until I was in young women's. It was a great meeting, and I got to play piano with the kid's choir that sang the musical numbers. I play piano every Sunday, but this was extra fun. 

Fun moment of the week was when we went to lunch at a member's house and he started talking about his copies of The Books of Mormons (I will never be able to decide how to say it). He has it in 98 different languages! We spent some of our study time to take the pictures, but hey, it's language study time anyway . . .and there I am, with the two that I can read. 

Love you all, keep sharing the Gospel and being good!

Love, Hermana Glazier

p.s. Happy Halloween!

Pulgas in my Pantys

Don't worry, "pantys" means "tights" here. But obviously you understand why Hermana Harris and I laughed a ton when another Hermana said that exact phrase. (Pulgas means fleas. Speaking of which, I haven't had a huge problem. I got a few bites, but I started actually using bug repellent at night and I'm good now).

That's the subject for this week because this week was just plain weird. 90% of our appointments fell, and we were usually without solid plans. The weather kept changing suddenly from hot to rainy. We had to spend a lot of time in a new population with rows and rows of completely equal houses. They're like white boxes with one color. It feels like being in a movie from the future. Our Sunday was spent walking down eerily deserted rainy streets to pick up investigators for church, none of which ended up coming. And best of all, we had the lesson of all lessons. There's a couple that we had visited one time and were really interested. When we went back, however, there was another person. THE BROTHER. 

I'm close to 97.9% sure that he was drunk. And I'm 10,000% sure that he's not interested in going to church. But he was very eager to participate in the lesson. It only took him about 5 minutes to get to a marriage proposal. He asked Hna Suárez first, then me, and when we said no, asked if we would both marry him. He continued to talk the rest of the time we were there. The couple laughed, but still seemed interested, so we explained the Book of Mormon as quickly as possible and claimed we had another appointment (the fact that all our other plans had fallen through is irrelevant here). I grabbed my scriptures, grabbed my bag, and as soon as we were out of the apartment literally ran down the stairs into a rainstorm. We continued walking, laughing, questioning what in the world just happened. It wasn't the most productive night, but we learned a few valuable lessons. First of all, the Spirit is absolutely essential in lessons. Second, never assume anything about people or lessons prematurely. Third, beware the drunk brother!

I hope all is well back home, and I hope your week was less strange than mine. Love you all, don't forget to pray!

Hermana Glazier

Photos: I was super lazy about photos this week, so here's a foggy view from the future-tupperware-house population.

AND I DON'T EVEN CRY.

So basically the only news for this week . . .

Cousins reunited at last!!!

I was less than excited today because we had to come to Concepción yet again (we've had to come almost every monday) to do my visa. We had a zone activity this morning and we walked to a tunnel. It was cool, but nobody knew that it was actually super far away and we ended up walking for about an hour in the sun. Then we had to leave to come to Conce before lunch, but when we got here the Policia was closed. Then another Hermana called and said that we had to come to a specific internet place, not the one close to the Policia. So, the two of us and our achy feet trudged across Conce, tired, sunburned, starving, and sweaty. We changed into our skirts in a sketchy little bathroom and went to search for the Hermana who said we needed to come here. Learning that she wasn't, in fact, here, wasn't exactly encouraging. But then it only took one thing to change my whole entire attitude - I saw, peeking out of a little blue and orange cubicle, HERMANA OLDROYD. 

No. NO WAY. IT CAN'T BE. Yeah, I cried. What's your point? 

The point is, actually, that this is the theme of the week. Whenever I have a day that seems to be super fome (lame), something good happens if we just keep going. The Lord will always bless us with happy moments if we look for them and persevere. 

I love you all, keep doing good things!

Love, Hermana Glazier

Hint, hint.

GENERAL CONFERENCE! Am I right?

Not much time this week, so I just want to give a quick thought from General Conference. I ended up having to watch it in Spanish, even though I was told otherwise (cough cough, thanks a lot Elder Brown). But it was still the absolute highlight of my week. It was just what I needed. Despite the fact that I missed probably half of what I heard, I got answers to a lot of things I've been trying to figure out. And I got way pumped to just go out and work even harder. That's the power of listening to the prophets, folks. 

Who can guess what my favorite talk was? Hint hint, Saturday. Hint hint, afternoon. Hint hint, ELDER BALLARD. Talk about missionary encouragement, right? I don't ever remember hearing a general authority talk directly to the full-time missionaries, so that was cool. But he gave something important to the rest of the members as well. An invitation to talk to someone about the church before Christmas.

Guys. This is a big deal. Missionary work is so important. And all of the focus right now is moving towards working with members, instead of thinking of it as two separate groups of people. We're all still members of the same church, right? So we need to work together. The Gospel is the most important thing we could ever have, and because we are blessed with the knowledge of it, we must share it. Don't be afraid. That's really the only message I want to send home this week. YES, it includes you Utah peeps.

Anyway, love you all, keep moving forward and go out and share the Gospel!

Hermana Glazier 

Photos:

We were walking past the house of the member who does our laundry, and I got really excited to see my socks hanging there. 

Surreal view of the ocean!

 Love my compañera!

                                                                                  Hold to the rod, folks.