¡Viva la Viña!: The Strongest Medicine: Prayer

September 22, 2014

Hola familia mía!

I love hearing about your week. I´m so sorry to hear about one of your chickens, mom. I can´t say that I know if we get to have our animals we´ve lost in the next life. This isn´t doctrine or anything but I believe that they have to be there right?? Where else would their spirit go? But I am glad to hear that you gave it a funeral instead of eating it for lunch--you´re not completely a 19th century woman...yet ;)

But that reminds me. So this past week it was 18 de Septiembre, which is like their 4th of July only they celebrate it like crazy. It was like a 4 day weekend and everything. But one of the menos activas (less active members) that we visit invited us to come over and eat empanadas with her. So we went and she has this old oven in her back yard that she literally lights the top and inside on fire to cook. She says it goes a lot faster than the normal-ish oven inside. It made me think of something you would do! haha. But I can´t even lie. They were the best empanadas that I've ever eaten so I´m 100 percent on board with the horno del fuego! (fire oven).

But yeah, this past week was 18 de Sept. The day I´ve listened to just about every Chilean talk about since the moment I arrived here. It´s almost like they´ve got it confused with Christmas with how much hype there is about it. But really I think it´s more of an excuse to drink and eat a lot. We ate a lot of asado which is like Bbq and empanadas and mote con huesillo (but I stayed away from that last one.. I already learned my lesson with that and I´m not in the mood to throw up in a bus ever again, thank you very much). But now I can say that I´ve celebrated an dieciocho en Chile. Check that off the bucket list! haha

To answer your questions before I forget:

1. Fleas. They´re terrible. I think the current count of bites I have right now is a rough 22!

2. I have been nipped at a few times by dogs. I wasn´t super crazy about dogs before the mission but now I am by far convinced that cats are WAY better than dogs. I know hate is a strong word... but it actually might be the perfect word for these dogs.

3. No, my fitted sheet is still in perfect shape.

4. Really it depends on how cold the night is to have a sleeping bag. For a few months there I was freezing cold during the night, but now it´s not quite as cold so it´s way better.

5. We have pans to bake with but we don´t really bake so it doesn´t really matter.

6. My tooth is doing WAY better. Seriously I really don´t understand what happened. Because it was bothering me more or less for like a week and a half. And then last week the pain was almost unbearable so I called the nurse but I couldn´t get an appointment until this week since no one was working the week of the 18th. I have great timing I know. So I was taking a lot of ibuprofen which didn´t do anything to take away the pain. What I needed was like Vicadin or something. And one night the pain was SO strong that I was just praying and praying and honestly thank you so much for your prayers too, because the next day, no pain. and the day after that, nothing, the next day, nada. I haven´t felt any pain or anything at all since last Tuesday. Honestly the power of prayer is way stronger than any medication. Seriously, gracias from the bottom of my heart. Hermana Kahlein, the wife of the mission president called me today to see how it was but I told her that I haven´t been in pain so we decided that for now we´re going to hold off on the dentist. Honestly, it´s a miracle. Thank you for your prayers!

I was thinking a lot about prayer. Mission President Kahlein said something interesting a while back. He asked us to think of our last spiritual experience. So I´m thinking of a lesson we had a few days back where the spirit was really strong.... Then, he says that if the experience hasn´t been since the last time we prayed, we need to work on our prayers... That really opened my eyes because we all know that prayer is how we communicate with God and all those beautiful things we say about it in church. But I´d never thought about it as a spiritual EXPERIENCE. How cool is that? I read the Book of Mormon in Spanish now and one thing I love about it is that when the people pray, it doesn´t use the word pray (orar) that often. But it uses words like clamò (cried), suplicò (begged), ruegò derramò (shed all of his soul) and more. These words or verbs, give a sense of more urgency, desire, and heart than just the word 'pray'. What verbs would describe our prayers? Do we really realize how much power are in our prayers? Do we realize who we are talking to? Do we understand the love He has for us? Do our prayers reflect the love we feel for Him? For me, this past week prayer was my strongest medicine. And for us it can be more than just medicine, it can be comfort, love, the first and last resort. It is so amazing!

Bueno, I think now I´m starting to rant so I´ll sign off. But know that I love you all and I pray, really pray, for you guys every day. I love, love, love you!!!

Hasta la proxima semana!

Con todo el amor en mi corazòn,

Hermana Ebans