I learned

People!

Vale Canobra started her missionary application!! Yeah!!! So happy. I know you don't know her, but I'm super excited about it.

Ok, Nada que ver (One of our favorite phrases here. It is like 'Nothing to do with anything, but...') but I just wanted to tell you all that I want our national language to be Spanish. The gospel makes more sense in Spanish, nicknames are better in Spanish, and it is easier to express and feel love in Spanish. We were talking the other day, and I realized that English is literally a cold language. Here in Chile, people always refer to each other with  'Mi amor', 'Mamita' or 'Mi reina' 'Princesa' or so many other endearing terms. I tried to picture the normal family scene in the States and someone saying to another 'Will you pass me the salt, my love?' or 'How good to see you, my queen!' And it just sounds horrible. Blech. Also, Hermana Lopez was teasing me about one of the pictures in the Liahona with two men shaking hands, about a meter the one from the other. 'Is this really how you salute each other? Really?' Just try to be loving, please, so that I don`t die when I come home.

This week we studied the Atonement together as a mission. It taught me so much and I felt so much progress this week. It amazes me how God takes us from our first moment and shapes us every day to become something so very beautiful. We really are his beloved children. I was also pondering on all the important lessons that God has taught me here- in my mission, I learned how to really fast. I learned how to really repent. I learned how to study the word of God. I learned to value General Conference. I learned to sing in front of people. I learned to speak Spanish. I learned to love. I now know how to really express that love to those that surround me. I can show patience towards myself and wait upon the Lord when He asks. I am more humble than I was before, and I understand now the value of asking help from my priesthood leaders.

All of this is a process, and I know I`m not finished yet. That is something important- Remember how God's work is one eternal round? So are we, and so are all these gospel principles. I learned how to repent, (past tense) but I am still learning how to repent (present tense), and I will still learn very much more about how to repent (future tense).  I will not finish now, or in three months, or in the rest of this lifetime, but I feel so blessed and happy and warm inside in seeing the progress that God has helped me make with all these eternal principles.

That is what life is all about.

Love you all so much!!!

Hermana Oldroyd

Funny Sunday moment- in the house chatting, and Hermana López grabs this off the shelf and starts eating these corn puff things. She offered me some, but I wasn't feeling so inspired, so I passed on that. She paused, looked at me, and said 'But Hermana, don't you realize that these are CrGnBKN?` She pronounced it so funny that we laughed and laughed...

Photo I took for Hermana Sandra to show her I was wearing her earrings

Eco in the morning because of all the cold

Making a peach and cream cake. Oooh good stuff.

Making pizza ON THE COUNTER. I just about died. Do you realize that their recipe says 'three swirls of oil'? Crazy.