My Mom is Old but I Love Her

This is my public shout-out for my lovely mother. Because her birthday was this week I've been thinking a lot about her and I'm really thankful for her. Being in a different country makes you appreciate your mom a lot. Unlike some Elders that I know, I'm not talking about making food and doing laundry (I enjoy those things). I'm talking about always teaching me the Gospel and being home to help me out. Thanks mom! Un abrazo!

Okay, let's talk about missionary work for a second. This week was a lot better. Hermana Marroquin and I are feeling a lot better and we're getting excited! I decided to draw a quick sketch to explain this. (when it goes way up on Sunday night, just ignore the part where it goes back down. It's still almost up at that level!)

The diagram goes WAY up last night because we found someone amazing! That whole time my first 6 weeks here we were kind of just continually working with the same people. One of the hardest parts of this work is letting go of people who aren't progressing towards becoming members of the church, even though we know that it's exactly what they need, and they know that perfectly well. We sometimes have to let go of those people and give them some time. We just have to trust that this isn't their moment but maybe it'll be with the next missionaries. And the Lord knows that it's hard to do that, so He will bless us if we are willing to. We were able to see that this week and we're 1 million percent excited to keep working with the great people who are appearing basically out of nowhere. The Lord always has a better plan than we do!

I feel like I should explain at least one of those "I cried" moments. We were going to go to a special District Conference for all the of the sisters. It was to celebrate the anniversary of the Relief Society and they had a bus for everyone to get there (about an hour away). We had every itention of arriving on time, but we left an appointment late and every colectivo (basically a taxi) that passed was going to some other place and couldn't take us. When we finally got to the church, the other Hermana called to tell us that they had just barely left because all the sisters were REALLY ANGRY and there was nothing else they could do. I didn't cry because they left us. I was okay with having more time to work. But I basically just pictured every sister in the ward mad at us, and that was what killed me. I imagined 6 weeks worth of working with these members and gaining their trust, spending time doing service with them, encouraging them to share the Gospel with their friends, and just barely starting to get them excited to work with us. I saw all of that work tumbling to the ground for being 10 minutes late. I broke down in front of the church. But after working the rest of the day, I felt better. And the other hermanas explained later that actually it was only the hermanas from the neighboring branch were mad, and all the sisters from our ward were defending us. I was so relieved to hear that. Working with the members has to be the biggest part of the work! We are one force, working for the Lord. Working for our Savior who wants EVERYONE to come to Him. 

All my friends and family at home who are members of the church, keep doing what you're doing and even more. There is so much work to do! And it makes us so happy when we do what we're supposed to. 

Love you all!

Hermana Glazier

Where's Hermana Glazier

Whenever missionaries send photos from conferences with general authorities, it's always like Where's Waldo. I have to admit I never had the patience to look for my brothers in those photos. But I'm a sister so it's easier to find me!

We had a conference this week with Elder Zeballos of the Seventy. President Arrington, Hermana Arrington, Elder Zeballos and Hermana Zeballos all shared talks that were so amazing it was like an overload of mind-blowing spiritual-ness. I wrote so so so many notes that day. It was a little hard to put it all into practice, but I'm still improving. The good thing is that I have one more cambio with Hermana Marroquin! (I didn't think they would change us but you never know). So we have some time to continue improving. 

One of the things that Elder Zeballos said was so awesome that I wanted to share it. (SPOILER ALERT! Mission secrets! Kidding I'm pretty sure you know but I have to remind you all). He told us how when they announced the age change for missionaries, everyone was like "yeah that makes sense so we don't lose those people in the year or two after high school". So they had a meeting with all the general authorities that were still in Salt Lake to correct that way of thinking. They were told, "That is not why the age has been changed. The age has been changed because the Lord has chosen this moment to hasten His work." I got so excited when he said that. We can be part of one of the most exciting times in the history of ever! This work is so much bigger than us. And I am so blessed to be a part of it. 

I am literally having that missionary moment where I can't remember what I was going to write about. That means...PICTURE TIME!

Pelluhue (or something)

Hermana Peterson and I are the "abuelitas favoritas" cause of our skirts.

We went to a branch activity at a campground. It was basically the same as camping in Utah except there were palm trees too.

More of the activity

Our district this transfer

Zone activity: playing soccer and eating lots of meat (that's what happens when Elders are in charge) also I scored a goal that day! YEAH!

Conference

Me with our countdown to General Conference paper chain! 

Bus window photos

South American Technology...

Yet again, Hermana Glazier is faced with a computer that doesn't have a working USB drive noooooooooo! I had some excellent photos to send but you'll just have to wait until next week. 

So this week was just one big emotional learning experience. Starting with a dagger-to-the-heart zone class that made everyone cry, and ending with a last-minute Sunday night miracle. 

Let me just talk about this zone class for a minute. Our zone leaders talked to us about the Atonement, about everything that Jesus Christ did for us. And that there are so many people in this world that have no idea what that means for them. I can't even explain all of my feelings in that meeting, but I will say that I felt very guilty. I felt grateful for what He did for me and I felt guilty for sometimes making excuses that keep me from sharing it. We, the people that know God and everything He can give us, can't afford to not share that knowledge. 

Throughout the week I struggled to actually put into practice everything that we learned. I think that when we get a little bit excited to change something in our life, the enemy tries to make it a little bit harder. If you can imagine, even I, the never-worried-enough-about-doing-things-right Hermana Glazier, actually got frustrated with herself. But here I am, more than ready to face the last week of this transfer! (what I feel like I just got here!). 

Sunday was one of those days where you're like yeah we have so many appointments with great people and we have a member that's going to go with us to all of the lessons this is gonna be great we're going to meet all our goals and . . . literally none of those people are home. None of them. All of our appointments fell. So we ended up at the house of this one abuelito that we had talked to the other day. This time his wife answered and when we said "hi we're missionaries" she was like "Do you want to come in?" Uh, duh we want to come in. We started talking to her and when I said something about how the people call us "Mormons" she was shocked. "What? You're not the missionaries from San Alfonso?" (the Catholic church just up the street). Oops. She basically told us to leave after that. 

Afterwards was when we saw a miracle. We had no plans so we called a member in the ward. She said we could come over and have a lesson with her and her neighbor. What! Blessings. 

Gotta go, love you all so much! 

Hermana Glazier

Two Little Very Lost Missionaries

That's basically the only thing I have to say about this week. We spend most of our time wandering around all of Cauquenes looking for people whose addresses actually don't exist (we have a list of all the members of the church and it hasn't been updated in a while). So that was pretty unproductive. We're starting a revolution here. At least that's what we're calling it. We realized that we urgently need to start working with the members of this branch and getting them excited. We didn't do very much teaching this week but we did have an awesome activity! It was a night of desserts. Everyone brought their favorite to compete, and we did dessert themed games. Please refer to the embarrassing photos of me below.

That's basically all I have to say (or in other words time to say. . . oops don't hate me) so please enjoy the pictures! LOVE YOU ALL!

Hermana Glazier

Photos:

With the branch mission leader and his famous papas fritas!

Happy b-day Hermana Peterson!

Sometimes we still get invited to little kid birthday parties...

Me trying to eat a doughnut on a string

More photos from the activity! 

Our competition dessert . . . it's brownies with a lovely Trix pattern

More photos from the activity! 

And some fun photos from this morning. I never thought of myself as very tall, but...

La Vaca / Albahaca

Words that sound similar and kept getting confused this week. (The Cow / Basil).

I would like to tell the story of this week through photos. 

1. Las vacas (cows in the distance). This day we decided to take some tourist-y pictures in this great view of the country. I was reminded of when my brother sent a photo preaching to a cow because no one else would listen. We basically felt like that this day. 

2/3. CAUQUENES!

Beautiful place. This week I was really thankful to be here. I feel like there's a lot of potential in this branch and in this area.

4. Valentine's day is somewhat celebrated here, depending on who you talk to (just like all the other holidays). The other hermanas left us a nice little surprise!

5. A lovely surprise Valentine's day package (full of Altoids mostly) from the fam! Didn't get it until Saturday but still. Thanks for all your LOVE! 

6. Do you notice anything wrong about those pass-a-long cards? Yes, I was giving out pass-a-longs in English all day without noticing. Don't know why those were in the house. But at least I understand why one guy looked really confused when he started reading it!

7. The Scholes (senior missionary couple in Cauquenes) had another pancake breakfast today to celebrate the b-day of one of the hermanas. This time we went casual-style which was so weird! I'm getting really really used to missionary life. Am I starting to sound weird? I know I don't have any hope of being completely normal when I get home.

Well, that's about all for now. This week had some depressing moments, but it's okay because we're learning a lot. Things are a little different being in a companionship where we're both newer, but I know it's because the Lord wants me to progress. 

I love you all so much and think about you a lot! (not too much though, gotta stay focused!). 

Con amor, 

Hermana Glazier

Beautiful Feet?

Sometimes Hermana Marroquin and I share scriptures that are funny when applied in a missionary setting. For example: Mosiah 12:21, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,"

My feet are less than beautiful these days. But I do my best to bring good tidings!

This week was interesting (okay every week in the mission is interesting). I won't go into a lot of detail but I will just say . . . the 4 of us hermanas that live together all ate a melon that was on the little-bit-too-ripe side, along with several days of consistently too-large-lunches, and our stomachs suffered for a couple days. Chilean food is delicious but it sometimes gives the digestive system quite the challenge! I have included a photo of the herbal remedy that a member gave us. One of the herbs is mint and the other I don't know how to say in English. I wasn't so confident that I wanted to drink it but I felt a lot better afterwards. I'm gaining a real testimony of the Word of Wisdom these days. I'm also learning to use discernment to be able to trust people. For example when people say "some other day you can visit me," I usually don't believe them. But when a member's like "hey put hot water on this plant matter and drink it and you will be healed," I'm like "yeah sounds good". 

But most of all, trust in the Lord. We can't always trust in people because they will make mistakes. But He can't make mistakes. He will always lead us in the right way. He will tell us what we need to do if we just listen. Sometimes we complain because we don't know what to do or we feel like we haven't received an answer, but we actually just don't want to accept the answer that we have receieved. I'm working on that now - really listening to what He wants me to do, not just what I want to do. I know that He's willing to lead us if we're just willing to follow. 

Well my dear people the time is too short. I hope everyone's doing great and keep doing your best in whatever you're doing! And enjoy the Olympics without me...

Much love,

Hermana Glazier

Photos: 

sketchy herbal tea

Breakfast with the Scholes (senior couple missionaries in our area). Real American pancakes with syrup and all!

God is Great, [Change] is Good, and People are Crazy

If you understand where that title comes from, please don't judge me. I promise I only listen to mission-appropriate music. It just occured to me for some reason. 

The Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. This change to Cauquenes was exactly what I needed to get re-excited about being a missionary! I was always excited in my first area, but sometimes it was hard to kick habits I had formed as a newbie. It was hard sometimes to remember that "oh, yeah, I can talk to this person, I don't have to wait for my companion to do it" or little things like that. That's why I'm incredibly excited to be here in Cauquenes, even though our house is a little bit more sketchy than the last one (see photo below of where we wash the dishes). 

My new companion is Hermana Marroquin. She's from El Salvador and I call her my "compañera chicitita," because she's tiny! But she has a big heart and is a great missionary despite having less time in the mission than me. I'm really excited to work with her!

One thing I've noticed about the mission is that a lot of people initially are impatient with us, but as we continue talking to them happily and excitedly and as we are interested in them as a person, they start to open up. They always open the door like "Yeah? What do you want? Talk to me fast I'm busy right now." And then after talking to us for about 5 minutes they've told us their life story and say they hope the Lord blesses us and we can find people that want to listen (that's if they don't let us in their house). Turning the other cheek really does work. But usually it doesn't go any farther than just a conversation. If a person is not willing to soften their heart, we can't force them to accept anything. That's not how the Gospel works. Like the woman we talked to last night that had lots of questions . . . we thought she was interested but she actually just wanted to argue. After answering all of her questions and doing our best not to argue, she said that she would be praying a lot for us. She also said afterwards that it's great what we're doing, we just need to erase any idea of Joseph Smith from our minds because it's not Biblical. 

Her words didn't make me angry, just a little bit sad. I know we can't argue with people because it gets nowhere. Sometimes I just really want to ask people, "Have you actually read the Bible? Because if you did you would realize that everything we're saying is true." BUT don't worry I never say that. We have to love everyone if we're going to be representatives of the Savior. I already love the people of Cauquenes and I'm so excited to be here in a little branch (first time in a branch not a ward WOOT!). 

Love you all, please pray that someday we can have a kitchen sink that is actually inside the house (joking but kind of serious). 

Hermana Glazier

The photo with my toothbrush: symbolism that I have already completed 6 months in the mission cause I had to start a new toothbrush (one for every 6 months).