Too Many Grapes

Please see the photo of all the grapes we have in our house. Everyone has been gifting us grapes. Everyone grows them here and I guess they think we need them. We always tell people that "No, we really don't need to eat more" and they say "but you walk so much!" and we say "and we EAT so much too!" but they don't understand. It's okay. I can lose weight some day in the future.

In addition to all those grapes, we taught a lesson with a woman that we had talked to in the street, and she gave us a bunch of weird fruits. She has an enormous garden with all kinds of fruit that doesn't exist in the states. I was actually kind of freaked out to try some of them. 

Okay before you think that eating fruit was the most exciting part of the week - we had an emergency transfer! Some of the other hermanas needed to change, so we recieved an unexpected call on Friday. We were told that Hermana Marroquin had to go to an area close to Concepción, and that Hermana Amaya would be my new companion. I was really surprised because I lived with Hna Amaya in Tomé. She's a really hard worker and we're excited to be working together here in Cauquenes, even though it was an unexpected change. I will miss my compañera chicitita, Hna Marroquin. She taught me a lot. But I know that the Lord has a reason for everything. 

So, guess what happens this weekend . . . GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! I have never been so excited for a church meeting like I am now. I honestly got teared up just thinking about it yesterday in church. Yeah, I know, a little bit ridiculous. But I just can't wait to hear the words of the prophets! We spend so much time here explaining to people, "yeah, God has actually called a prophet again to guide us on the earth, don't you want to learn more about that?" and it's so great to be able to hear his words! When I have a tough day I like to read conference talks. I know our leaders really are inspired of the Lord, and that following their counsel helps us more than thinking we know a better way. They speak the truth, not just pretty words. Also, how cool is it that our church meetings will be exactly the same this weekend? We will be singing, praying, listening to the same things at the same time. I love that. 

I hope you're all doing well, wherever you may be. Be good and pray always. 

LOVE YOU ALL!

Hermana Glazier 

Photos:

All the weird fruits (that pomegranate I'm holding is different that in America, right? I can't even remember)

Last day with Hermana Marroquin

Branch choir (preparing for district conference)

New comp Hermana Amaya

Missionary with a cold, battling both evil and a runny nose...

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International Artist

That's what the Branch Mission Leader has been calling me these last couple days. Why? Because we had a branch talent show and I sang in it! 

Okay, when I say I sang in it, I mean the 4 sisters here sang together. We made a parody of "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz called "Con Fe" (with faith). Basically it just talks about the mission, what we do here, and what we left behind. We thought it was pretty clever/funny, and luckily the audience laughed too. (And that was a relief. Sometimes I feel like my sense of humor has been completely consumed in the whole missionary-weirdness-thing). Then I sang a last-minute unprepared sketchy version of "The Scientist" by Coldplay because we had like 5 numbers on the program. Luckily the standard in this talent show wasn't very high. Lessons of the mission: thinking/acting/talking/testifying/even singing on the spot. 

Apart from the talent show and a baptismal service for the other sisters in the branch, this week was pretty slow. We had a ton of great people that we were really excited to teach throughout the week and they all just kind of slowly disappeared from our plans. Weren't ever home, too busy, lots of other things like that. But we are teaching Teresa, our little ray of hope! She's so awesome. Her basically husband (they're not actually married but they've lived together for +/- 15 years) doesn't really approve, but she's decided to be baptized. He showed up at the end of our lesson with her yesterday, creating an extremely uncomfortable situation. In Chile everyone greets each other with a kiss on the cheek, but as sister missionaries we can't greet men that way (rule of the mission). We have to just shake their hand. 97% of they get it and they're like okay sounds good, you're missionaries. But this man didn't like it so much. He was very offended and started rambling about how there's only one God and we can't be discriminatory. I was like yeah okay this person's not going to listen to logic, let's just get outta here. But Teresa was defending us! She kept saying that rules are rules and that she wants to continue in this church, no matter what he says. When we said we wanted to leave them with a prayer he said "no I can say my own prayer" and left. There must be opposition in all things, and I am so proud of Teresa for being so bold. She inspires me to be more firm in what I believe! (Especially not greeting men I don't know with kisses). 

Love you all, I will send pictures next week. 

Love, Hermana Glazier

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