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...