24 June 2013

Kami letter from Antofagasta (dated 6/24/13)

Hola familia, otra vez, aquí esta lunes para escribirles ;) 
esta semana fue muy buena!

ok.. i´ll write english for you all... ;) this week was really good. super fun with my new companion, Hermana Albornoz from Argentina! I can already tell a lot of improvement this week in my spanish. I can speak a lot better and understand more still. It´s so nice to finally be able to know what´s going on and not feel so lost anymore :) My new companion is great. She arrived here in Chile the same day as me, but since I was in the MTC longer I have a month more in the mission than her. So once again, we´re both really new. But it´s good, and we both have the same ideas of how things should work, so we hopefully will see lots of success and fun this transfer. 
Speaking of, my companion loves american cookies and wants me to make them sometime ;) Can you guys send me a recipe for chocolate chip cookies? ;)

I met another Queen Creek missionary the other day! He´s Elder Red or Redd or something..but he´s in our stake too. Lives super close to Elder Hamblin. Weird!! 
I was at a members house the other day and they had their iPad and asked my town name. They pulled up Google Maps and we were looking around Queen Creek ;) Super cool! I forgot how different it is there! haha 

My health problems are all back to normal, thank goodness. I just know I´m going to be more careful now with everything I do and eat... ;) Because I was back to normal, I finally got to go to Chañaral for my visa stuff. We (Hna Frost, Hna Castor from Mexico, and I) left at like 2am, took a 5 hour bus ride, hung out at the church until the office opened, waited for like 3 hours at the office, finally it was our turn, took 20 minutes each, and left there around 4:30 arriving back in Antofagasta around 9:30ish. It was a LONG day!! But it´s nice to finally have all of that taken care of! 

yes, we did get to watch that broadcast yesterday. WOW amazing!! It was neat to have the whole world participating too. I hope the stuff they said comes into practice, because even with the little experience I have here, when members refer and help the work is so much better and more effective! So if you guys know of anyone you might want to share the gospel with, tell the missionaries! And doing things like family home evening with the missionaries and their investigators is always fun too. It´s a big thing here to do, I´m not sure if the missionaries in the states do it as much, but we always have members offering to have "Noche de Hogar" with them. 
It made me decide that I´m going to be the one to start stepping up and volunteering, helping, serving, more than I did before. I always was a little shy to do so, but I want to be able to do all I can. 
I also was thinking during it about family history. They mentioned it in the conference. Did you guys ever get a chance to do the temple work for those family names I found? I wish I could do them with you, but I can´t right now ;) 

Hmm.... I think that´s about all for today. The week was really quick, and not much happened since we were adjusting with the tranfers and such. But next week I´ll have more! 

Miss and love you all LOTTSS!! <3 
--Hermana Severtson

17 June 2013

Kami Letter from Antofagasta (dated 6/17/2013)

Hola familia!

HAPPY FATHER´S DAY!! I hope you had a wonderful day, love ya daddy! :)

Guess what? This week I hit my 4 months in the mission!! FOUR MONTHS. That´s gone super fast. As for your question with the Spanish, yes, I have improved a LOT. This transfer I was able to understand a LOT more, partly because we had to ;) And as for speaking, I stayed about the same. We mostly spoke English together, so I didn´t improve much in the speaking. But speaking has been easier for me from the beginning. 
BUT, I bet this transfer will be a LOT more improving once again, because I´m getting another Latina companion! Hermana LeFevre is getting transferred, and another latina is coming in. the other two hermanas are staying too, so i´ll live with 3 other latinas, pure spanish ;) Maybe i´ll get to the point of almost forgetting English ;) haha even with my comp now, we sometimes say little things in Spanish without realizing it, so i´m sure with only Spanish, it´ll happen more! 

So like you asked, yes, my foot is doing SO much better. It´s pretty much back to normal. But guess what else? That bad chicken I ate last week? I got an infection from it. haha I guess it´s a good thing i´m in antofagasta right now, and close to the assistants, because between us 4 hermanas and our sicknesses, they have been at our house a LOT. I was sick up until Thursday!! My stomach was swollen and HUGE, I looked like I was pregnant. For real. And it hurt really bad!! It was making these super loud gurgling noises, REALLY LOUD, and it was huge, and I couldn´t walk, sit, anything, it just hurt. And I felt really full like I couldn´t eat anything, and I couldn´t zip up my skirts all the way. It was bad. haha I couldn´t eat any lactose, soda, meat, cake/cookies, nothing. I lived off of bread and soda crackers for like 4 days. NOT FUN. I´m back to a normal diet right now, so that´s nice. 

I felt better monday morning, so we did our pday stuff, then tried to work at night. We were at a members house, and I couldn´t stand it anymore, I felt so sick. They had another friend there, who gave me a blessing. But he didn´t have his oil, so it was just for strength. It was really cool, and my first blessing in Spanish, so that was neat too ;) 

Tuesday morning, once again I felt better at first, went to work, then felt horrible. we once again were at a members, and all i could do was lay on the couch. I had a fever and my stomach was going crazy yelling at me, and I was in a lot of pain. We called Elder Chacon (the doctor) and Elder Bradley in the office to come drive us home and see what´s wrong with me. My companion felt better by Sunday night, but Tuesday night I was still really sick. Elder Chacon gave me 3 different types of medicine to take and told me to rest Wednesday all day. Then they also gave me a blessing..but in English because Elder Bradley is from the US. 
Wednesday, yeah more rest. all day. I went to a member´s house (a good friend of ours here) and slept pretty much all day, and my companion got another member to work with.

Thursday, I started feeling better, went to our planning in the morning, and there I felt really bad again. My stomach got all big again and hurt. We called Elder Chacon again, he told me to rest the afternoon, and to stay really strict on my food restrictions. That night I felt better again, and have felt better ever since! But yeah, interesting week! I hope the health problems are about done for me...for the rest of my mission!

We had stake conference yesterday. It was cool to see again all my friends in Antofagasta. President and Hermana Bruce spoke too..they had like 10+ speakers there! But it was really good..from what I understood from it ;)

That´s about all for this week. Sick, rest, and healing ;) This next week should be SO much better..i hope! ;)
Have fun at EFY and other scout camps this week. EFY is my favorite, I love it! They have EFY here too, and all the youth talk about how fun it is ;) 

Les extraño y les amo mucho! Tengan una buena semana, y voy a escribirles la próxima semana. 
Sea feliz y recuerdan ustedes son hijos de Dios! <3

Con amor, 
Hermana Severtson


10 June 2013

Kami Letter from Antofagasta (dated 6/10/13)

hey hey hey!!! 
Well, like you asked, my foot is doing a little better. Ok, a lot, but still not perfect. It hurts a little more at the end of the night, or if we go "up" to work in the cerro/mountain, because it´s SUPER steep! But it´s doing better. The new shoes I bought are a lot better and slowly but surely it´s healing ;) 

BUT, we had another health related adventure this week. I guess my companion and I ate something bad Saturday night. We were at a less-active member´s house, and they gave us chicken and french fries that they had bought somewhere. It was SUPER greasy and you could tell it had been sitting out a little because it was kinda cold. But it was good, so we ate it. Sunday morning, we woke up, I had a little stomach ache, but didn´t think much of it. After church, I felt worse, but still not too bad to work. I had a little headache too, and felt a little weak, but whatever. So we went to lunch, and I felt worse. Then Hermana LeFevre started feeling a little sick too.... I´ll spare you the details, but let´s just say good thing the member had two bathrooms ;) We called the office Elders to pick us up to take us home because we were pretty far from our apartment, which they did thank goodness, and yeah. We were in bed/bathroom the rest of the night. Well, I was, Hermana LeFevre didn´t feel too sick, just had to use the bathroom a lot, I felt sick, had pain in my abs area, and had to use the bathroom ;) I slept pretty much all afternoon and all through the night. I´m feeling a lot better now, just still a little weak and sick because I haven´t eaten much. 

It was just kinda sad, because our zone had a really cool activity planned. We were going to go to La Portada, which is the port area we took pictures our first day with president and play futbol or something on the beach. I was excited, but then I was told I was supposed to go to Chañaral (another city about 6hrs away) to do stuff for my visa. So when I was sick, I was told not to go today, but tomorrow i´ll go. So I was excited to do the activity! But then I still felt sick this morning and we couldn´t go ;( But whatever. We have lots of free time now to relax. 

Wednesday we had our last conference with Pres and Hermana Bruce. They leave the 28th of this month, and our new president comes the 29th. It was a really good conference.. They´re an awesome president and I´ll miss them. But I know too the next President will be good too. They bought us all these super cool Journals that have the mission name and logo on them, they´re really awesome! Funny, whenever we have conferences and stuff, I feel like I always have to do something! ha at the newbies conf I played the piano and said the closing prayer. at our last zone conference i had to bear my testimony with all the other new missionaries, then at this conference, I said the opening prayer. out of EVERYONE! ha ;) I don´t know if it´s good or bad that President knows me :) haha nah, I don´t mind. It´s just kinda funny ;)

We met another cool Less active last week, named Yolanda. oh, she´s hilarious. She´s like 87 years old and has lived alone for the last 20 years. She probably told us at least 5 times that her dog has an attitude and doesn´t eat his food if there´s no meat in it, that her house used to have like 16 rooms but her neighbor had a fire so it´s smaller now, that she likes to cut things, and that has a lot of patience. haha her house was so cluttered and so funny. She had a TON of earrings that she made to sell (but i´m not sure anyone knows shes selling them..ha) and gave us each a pair. And she had a little strand of thread with little plastic babies she tied to it with her patience ;) these babies are like an inch long and super hilarious, I don´t know why she had them. But she gave us each one and told me mine´s named Jonathan. She´s so funny, we are going to go visit her again ;) 

We set a baptism date with our investigator Maria!! We were so excited because when we asked if she wanted to be baptized, she said "por supuesto, no tengo ningún duda" which is "of course, i have no doubt!" but we called her yesterday to go to church, and she said she couldn´t go, and couldn´t be baptized either. ;( We were going to go visit her last night, but we were sick. Ahh we were so sad!! I don´t know what happened... hopefully we can get something figured out. 

We have cambios next week..... Sunday night we find out. I think I´m staying here...but I also thought that last transfer. So we´ll see. I loved this transfer a lot, and my companion! It went so fast. But whatever. Change is good I guess. haha 

I read a good talk this week, by Pres Monson called "Who Honors God, God Honors" It´s about missionary work and preparing for missions, so those boys should read it ;)

Can you look up for me when ASU starts next fall? We´ll have transfers (unless anything changes) June 30 and Aug 11. Aug 11 I would leave here and finally get home like wed the 13... which is exactly 18 months. So I think that´d be really cool. Depending when school starts. 

Thanks for sending pictures of the cousins! How fun! Looks like you are all super busy with all your camps and stuff, but having a good time too. I miss ya all lotss!! 

Love ya!! 
<3 Hermana Severtson






03 June 2013

Kami Letter from Antofagasta (dated 6/3/13)


Hello to the Home Front!

Kami Severtson Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 12:23 PM

¡Hola a la familia mejor en el mundo! :)
This week was another great week!! A crazy week though. My foot started hurting me..about a week and a half or two weeks ago. My shoes were really hurting them. My left foot had hurt a little, then like 2 or 3 days later it went away. So my right foot started hurting, so I figured it would go away too..no. It got worse. Then we went hiking last Monday..and got worse again. I couldn´t walk very well Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday... Tuesday, Elder Chacon (the Elder who´s a doctor) told me to buy new shoes (which I did wed morning--and had to use my credit card, but i think you said you got that taken care of..so thanks!) and gave me some pills to help with the swelling, because it was pretty swollen. I bought new shoes, and I can tell they´re helping, just still hurting my foot. It´s my heel and achilles (or however you spell that) tendon area. and only when I step down on it. and after I rest and don´t walk for a little bit, it hurts worse. One of the hermanas i live with has sists in her ovaries and in a lot of pain this week. So Friday and Saturday afternoon I stayed home with her to rest my foot. Saturday afternoon, after I had taken all the pills and stuff, and my foot was hurting WORSE, Elder Chacon said we would go to the Clinica (hospital/emergency room) to get an xray. We waited there for probably an hour and a half, finally saw the doctor, she touched my heel and said "ok, buy insoles and you´ll be good. bye." we asked for an xray and she said it´s only for emergencies. So we left. Super lame. Elder Chacon thinks it´s something like tendonitis or something, but we dont know because we didn´t get an xray! Yesterday it felt a LOT better! almost normal. And today hurt a little more than yesterday, but still less than friday/saturday. So if it keeps giving me problems, we´ll go to a different clinica later this week. But I really hope it´s just getting better and better. I have a little limp when I walk. It´s less pain, but still just hard to bend my foot/ankle area.
So, Saturday night/Sunday morning at like 1am, the hermana with the sists had really bad pain. So we all woke up and called Elder Chacon and the elders came and took her to the emergency room. It was kinda crazy. She woke up to go to the bathroom, then got really cold and her hands really shakey. And we were all super tired all Sunday ;)
 
We are teaching two girls right now, neither have a date for a baptism, but hopefully this week. They both were able to come to churchwith us yesterday for the first time! There´s Maria, she´s 16, and has actually gone to church many times with her friend in another ward. She has all the pamphlets an has read them all, just never talked to the missionaries. She´s great! And Francisca. She´s 18, has a baby, and her boyfriend is a less-active member in another ward. She and her boyfriend came yesterday. It´s exciting to finally have people we´re teaching. We´re finally getting the hang of how things work since we´re so new, and how to communicate in Spanish, so it´s super nice! Just that we have transfers again in two weeks. That makes me sad :( But who knows! Maybe we´ll stay together, maybe not. We just gotta see. ;)
 
We had a zone activity today!! We had been "banned" because our zone hasn´t made the baptism goal in 20 months. In the past, they really made goals super high to try to reach them, and never did. So we finally made a reasonabl goal, and got it! So today we played soccer and basketball (I wanted to play SO bad, but couldn´t because of my foot :P) and got approved to watch Remember The Titans! Super fun!
 
That´s awesome Bentley has an interview at Desert Schools!! Which location?? That´s so cool, she´ll love it! It´s a great job! Hey, and maybe when I´m home, I can take her place when she leaves :) haha  And Porter working all day, and Garrett at the Pecans..how awesome ;) start saving now for those missions!!
 
The English classes are going good. last week we only had like 4 people there. 2 recent converts, a less active and her non-member boyfriend. Sometimes we have more, but I kinda like the smaller ones, it´s easier to teach and make sure everyone is understanding. The less active girl told us after that she wants to start going back to church more, and accompany us to some lessons to "re-learn" the gospel stuff!! It was so cool!
 
So remember Sergio? Our ward mission leader went to visit him and give him a blessing. Turns out, luckily, he doesn´t live alone, one of his daughters lives with him. And he thought my comp and I visited him in a dream! He couldnt remember it was real! haha I thought that was really funny ;) We haven´t had the chance to go visit him again, because of the crazy happenings this week, but maybe this week we can stop by again.
 
That´s about all for this week. Miss you all and love you lots!
<3 Hermana Severtson