The Coldest Birthday

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. My day was great! It was cold (probably the only time in my life that will happen). At the end of the day we had our weekly meeting with the branch mission leader so we had a mini-birthday party. It was perfect.

This keyboard is super terrible so this will be short. 

This week I decided to start being more healthy and instead of eating cookies all the time, I've been snacking on carrots and cucumbers. My companion gets really embarrassed when I walk down the street munching on veggies. The first time she saw me putting a ziploc of cucumbers in my bag she starting cracking up. She couldn´t believe it. Sometimes we try to do good things and there's just so much opposition. Haha but honestly, I've felt so good eating more vegetables. 

This week was full of weird random stuff. We drank pollen tea (so natural there was even a bee in it), contacted a Chinese family that didn't know Spanish or English, taught very unique people, etc. I don't remember what else happened but it was just a weird week. 

Spiritual uplift for the week - let's talk about death for a second. Isn't it so awesome that the knowledge of the Gospel gives us so much hope - we don't have to fear death! We were talking about that in the 3rd hour combined class yesterday. Actually they were explaining how we should prepare for our own death - focused on funeral preparations; what should be done with the coffin, temple clothes, the funeral service, etc. There were a couple of investigators there and I can only pray that they weren't traumatized.

Thanks again for all your support, love you all!

Hermana Glazier

Photos:Waking up to a tiny birthday cake. 

Not really feeling 20 years old with my retainers and all.

Companion from Argentina not handling the cold too well..

Birthday!

                                                                                        

                                                                                                  

Torn

Am I supposed to cheer for Chile or the U.S. these days? The good thing is that the colors are the same :)

This will be brief because we have to be in our house early today (while Chile's playing). 

So the interesting missionary experience of the week was: teaching in English. So there's this kid who has studied English a lot and his mom knows some members of the church. She was asking them if the missionaries could go to their house so he could practice his English. The member said that we could, but we would be teaching him what we teach everyone else - about the Restored Gospel. She said that was fine, so we went a few days later. My companion doesn't know much more than "hello how are you" so I was basically teaching alone. It was actually really hard. There are so many things that I learned how to explain in Spanish and I had a hard time explaining clearly in English. Never thought I would have that experience in the mission. It was cool though and we could still feel the Spirit really strong! The kid actually understood really well and said he was going to read and pray. My companion felt awkward at some parts because she didn't know if she should try to say something, but it was still cool.

This week was Branch conference woohoo! We had a great activity on Friday - talent show and dessert competition. Not that many people participated with the desserts so all the missionaries won something...(see photo of our awesome certificates. My lemon bars won "most sophisticated").

We also all sang in the branch choir on Sunday. They told us to wear bright colors so we decided to take some photos after. 

And finally, Elder and Hermana Scholes made me a birthday cake! I had almost forgotten about my birthday but now everyone's going to remember. So weird that I won't be a teenager anymore....

Well thanks for all the love and prayers and letters and support. Love you all!

Hermana Glazier

P.S. let's go red, white, and blue!

¡Viva Chile!

Well folks, the season of the World Cup has come. That means staying inside the house while Chile is playing instead of being out working. It's a little bit hard focusing again with so much time inside the house, but the good news is that I was able to work on a project we're doing with all the Relief Society sisters. We're learning how to knit with . . . looms? Not 100% sure what you call this stuff in English, but it's cool anyway. You can see the photos of my progress right now but hopefully not too far in the future we'll have a finished project! I know you're probably thinking, "seriously, that's how you're spending valuable mission time?" Yes, my friends, your question is vaild. But the important part is that we're spending time with the sisters here. We have to work together or nothing will ever get done.

This week we also had a night without electricity. Someone *cough cough not me* lost our electric bill and never sent it to the mission office. We got everything figured out by the next day and we're all alive. I can't complain much because, like I said, I wasn't in charge of the electric bill. We can't complain about our situation if we aren't willing to fulfill a responsibility that would change it. That's something I've learned in the mission as well. In the church we are very good about criticizing and pointing out all the things people don't do well in their callings. But we have to remember that that person has been set apart to do that work. The Lord trusts them and if they mess up once in a while that's just part of the learning process. If I one day am in charge of the electric bill, I will never forget to send it because I will remember how scared I was entering a dark house, thinking that the other hermanas were lurking somewhere, waiting to scare us...

As if that weren't enough excitement, this week we also had quite a traumatizing occurrence. (Queasy people please don't read this, I can only tell the story without fainting because I've heard it about 20 times this week) We had to go early to district class this week so Hermana Amaya decided to shower the night before. Unfortunately, she slipped and fell. As she stood up, she noticed that she had a razor hanging from her arm and there was blood everwhere. She had caught her arm in my razor (that as she always explains, has like 5 blades because I like good razors okay, not my fault) and it cut her arm open pretty deep. I was absolutely no help in the situation, seeing as I don't do well around blood. In fact, just telling this story is putting butterflies in my stomach. When I saw her arm I went running for the other room and the other sisters had to help her out. In the end she had to go to the hospital and get 5 stitches. I didn't even know that part until the next day because I fell asleep as they were caring for the wound. The moral of this story is: Hermana Glazier is not always the best companion and, I hope my poor kids never have injuries in the future. 

So as not to end on that distressing note, the good news is that this week there was a baptism in the other branch in Cauquenes. Remember Hernan? This week he baptized his girlfriend! We weren't teaching her because, like I said, she's from the other part of Cauquenes. But still, it was pretty exciting for me! 

Well, love you all, happy Father's Day (yesterday, be good. 

Hermana Glazier

Whatever Cliché Phrase About Rain

Whatever chiché rain phrase you want can be the title of this letter. This week we started getting a little appetizer of the rainy season to come. We also realized that we're going to have to make some small adjustments in our house...look closely at the photo that may look like just an inconspicuous wall. There's one corner where the water gets in a little bit. Or we might just leave it...mushrooms are expensive here and you never know when a lunch appointment could fall. 

My companion continues to have health problems, leading to one of the most defining experiences of my mission so far. We had to travel to Chillán (like 2 hours away) to go to the doctor, and neither of us know Chillán at all - it's one of the bigger cities in the mission. We got off in a bus terminal that we didn't recognize because we usually go in a different bus company. When we called the missionaries from Chillán to ask for directions, none of them knew where we were either. We started walking, asking for directions from random people in the street (or at least the people who were willing to stop and talk in the rain). Finally we learned that we had to take a certain kind of taxi, and all of those taxis that passed for about 20 minutes were full. We decided to start walking towards the direction that the taxis were going. Finally one of the Elders called us, trying to give directions even though he didn't really know where we needed to go. As we were talking to him our phone died, so we just kept walking. The security guards in a train station nearby luckily had the right type of phone charger at let us use it. When we called the elders again, they were already coming to look for us because when our phone died they thought something might have happened to us. We stayed there talking to the security guards for a few minutes about the church until the elders came and showed us where we needed to go. After that everything went well, but we both decided that we'll be going to Concepción next time (it's farther away but I think it would be worth it). 

I say this is a defining moment of my mission for 2 reasons: first, this would literally never happen in my normal life at home. Second, I wasn't stressed out at all that whole time. We were cracking up the whole time. I think that this is something I'm learning how to do more and more - just go with what we have and make the best of it. Don't look back at what we should have done or might have done, however dumb our mistakes were. It would have been so easy to ask the bus driver where we needed to go, or ask someone BEFORE getting to a miscellaneous part of Chillán. But that's how we learn in this life, by our own dumb mistakes. And who knows what might happen with those security guards in the train station who had never talked to missionaries before? 

I love being here in Cauquenes and being in Chile and being a missionary. The love of the Lord is what drives it all. Thanks for all your love, those at home! Keep working hard always. The enemy doesn't rest so we can't either. We know who will win in the end, we just have to choose to be part of that team. 

Love you all!

Hermana Glazier

Photos: eating a typical Ecuadorian dish, chicken with rice (thank you Hermana Morán), our great district (stayed all the same this transfer - woohoo Cauquenes!), Dansko's got two new models...

False Alarm

So, it's transfer week. The week you all (or at least we all in the mission) have been waiting for. Turns out, our entire district is staying the same. I'm so relieved to be staying in Cauquenes! Yesterday I felt really strongly that I was leaving. In Sacrament meeting I bore my testimony and it came out more like a goodbye-speech without even meaning to. Then in the closing hymn I started crying uncontrollably, thinking about all that I have been through and learned here in Cauquenes. I wasn't even thinking about leaving, I was just really emotional. But all the members were like "aw, Hermana Glazier is leaving!" And I was like "hey, we don't even know that until tomorrow! Stop it!". To top it all off the ward mission leader made me take a goodbye-picture with him and his wife "just in case". Now I have to face the ridicule of everyone seeing that I'm actually still here for 6 more weeks, how embarrassing. All that emotion for basically nothing. I will never make a transfer-prediction again, no matter how I feel at church! 

This week was interesting. For the first time ever, I had to stay in one day for health - related issues. Don't worry mom, I'm not dying. 'Twas my dear companion. She's had some health issues and one day she just couldn't work. I cleaned the whole house while she rested, and then when she didn't feel any better I decided to try to find a sister in the ward that could be my companion for a while to at least work part of the day. Turns out, our phone was out of minutes and the office elders were out working so no one could get us more minutes on our phone for another hour. Then I never found anyone that could go out so we ended up going to a member's house and I did some computer work (with the list of members). It was the weirdest day. As tiring or cold as it may be, I feel so much better being outside. 

We also had a great conference with all the sisters in the mission! It was fantastic and it was great to see all the sisters. Being in Cauquenes for a long time means not knowing that many other missionaries. The good thing is that made me less nervous for the solo I sang - "Hija de un Rey" (Daughter of a King). I was shaking a ton from the nerves. Everyone probably thought it was the vibrato in my voice, like, professional or something. Yes, hermanas, go on and think that. The point is, that song is great because it reminds us who we are. If we just remember who we are, we won't get down on ourselves so much. We are doing a lot of great things and we just have to keep going!

Love you all, remember who you are and keep moving forward. 

Love, Hermana Glazier

                                                                                            Hermana Glazier & Hermana Oldroyd  (cousin)

                                          Hermana Glazier and Hermana Amayo with President's wife

p.s. please enjoy the pictures of our matching Chile t-shirts! We'll see how the work goes around here for the World Cup...