Hermana Glazier in Chile: Spring is ALMOST in the air

This week I am very pleased to hear that my General Conference excitement is infecting a few of you people over there. And just think - we'll be watching it together!

This was quite the week. 18 de Septiembre (the biggest national holiday here) is coming up and everyone's getting out of classes and getting excited. It changes the work a little seeing as basically all the people we've been teaching left on vacation for the holiday. But we are very excited to keep working and participating in the festivities on the side. Empanadas here we come!

We even had a zone activity today to celebrate 18 de Septiembre flying kites! It's a tradicion for the holiday so we went to try it out. It was fun even though there wasn't a lot of wind. And more importantly, now I have a great $2 Chilean flag-print kite as a souvenir. We had to buy them during work time on Saturdayand felt kind of dumb carting them around all afternoon, presenting ourselves as missionaries with this kite (folded up but still long) sticking out of our bags...

Last week we got haircuts. We were both very nervous to go, not knowing where or who or how to explain what we wanted. Almost backed out a few times, thinking yeah I can just do it when I get home. But in the end I was just thinking "Okay, I can knock doors, asking people to come in their house, in a far away country, not knowing any of these people, with another north American, without any fear. And I'm chickening out of just a simple haircut?" And we went! Final verdict: next time I'll just wait until I get home. I just wanted a trim and side bangs (they had grown out really long). The lady didn't understand what side bangs means I guess and cut them straight across saying "but you can style them how you want afterwards". Doesn't exactly work that way...so here I am with new bangs! It was weird at first but they're "growing" (ha) on me. My companion also ended up with hair a LOT shorter than she wanted. Looks like we need to start studying more vocabulary that doesn't have to do with the Gospel.

This week we had a great service activity with all the missionaries around Concepción. We helped clean out the cemetary (taking out all the dead flowers and everything). The cemetary is gigantic and so cool! Definitely would be creepy at night, but I enjoyed it. Not to mention I got to use the Mormon Helping Hands jersy thing for the first time in my life! Service feels so more official with those things.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty exhausted these days. There's a lot of work to do here and I always feel pretty behind schedule (there are so many members, new converts we should be teaching, investigators, etc.). But I'm learning a little every day. I think that's how life is always going to be...we're never going to be able to do everything that we want to, We're here to learn how to prioritize. And if we put what the Lord wants first, things will work out fine.

Thanks for all,

Hermana Glazier