First week in Chile MTC

February, 4, 2014

Hola mi familia!

So today, Tuesday, is our P-day officially!! And I{m going to apologize beforehand for my terrible spelling and random characters because like I said the key board is in spanish so things are not where they are suppose to be. Also this will probably be a novel because I have SO MUCH to catch you guys up on. But I{m sure you guys will survive ¨:) Ok so the airport story, I don{t remember everything I told you on the phone so sorry there is some repeats! Anyway I get to Atlanta and eventually there are like 14 other missionaryies there all going to Chile MTC or CCM as it is in spanish. Our flight was delayed a few hours then we finally get on and taxi for 2 and a half hours before we´re told we have to deplane because of the snow. It´s seriously was like two inches.. and had to sleep in the airport! Crazy! But I guess how many people get to say they had a sleepover with the Elders on their mission haha so that was fun! We didn{t really sleep though. We tried to pass time by going and riding the plane train but it was closed :( So the flight was rescheduled then delayed then delayed then delayed then delayed then cancelled. Meanwhile we met a bunch of kids our age going to Belize to do humanitarian aide for their church and so we talked with them for a while and Hermana Francen and I were able to give one of them a Book of Mormon and I just bore a short testimony of it{s truthfulness so I guess the airport stay wasn{t totally for nothing. Then we were rerouted through Lima to finally get to Santiago. So 29 hours later from when we were suppose to leave we boarded the plane to Lima which actually did take off. I think I forgot planes could do that anymore at that point.. So crazy! But honestly I couldn{t have been with a better group of Hermanas and Elders! I love them all so much and no one once said anything negative. Whenever something was delayed it was just like ok well we{ve alrady been here a day a few hours won{t hurt us anymore. So finally in Lima we have to get on a flight to Sanitago but they didni{t have enough room for all of us so we had to slip into two groups one with a 6 hours layover there and then my group had a 17! But not really because thankfully we were able to swithc to a earlier flight so we were only there like 6 hours or so and the other group like 3. The other plane{s wheel broke though so they were delayed too so we got to spend more time together. I mean of course the wheel would break right? Luckily we got on our flight which was only like 3 hours and finally made it to Santiago a few hours behind the others, but guess what didn{t make it.. our luggage! So we spent like 3 hours trying to talk to this guy in our broken spanish and his broken english if he could find our luggage. It was so frusturating at that point becuaes he was just working really slowly and inefficiently just how it seemed everyone who we had tried to get us to help us had been since like day 1. Notice the use of the word day because I left Tuesday morning and we didn{t get to Chile until Thursday night. All I got to say is Satan must really not want us here. I mean snow in Atlanta and shutting down the entire airport and roads?? A wheel breaking? Our luggage getting lost?? Taking 2 days to get to Chile?? It was a lot more dramatic then it really needed to be! But I am here! And my luggage arrived Friday night so thankfully I only had to go one more day without anything. That was such a relief!!Anyway I{m here now and just love it!! I{m pretty sure the Chile CCM is the greatest MTC on the earth!! The Santiago Temple is in the same square so we{re living on temple grounds! Seriously the only thing that seperates the temple from our front door is a fountain! How cool is that! And we get to go tomorrow so I{m super excited!! It´s super small, like probably as big as our stake center. I´ll try to send pictures if I can but it´s beautiful! Classes are going really well! Hermana Watt and I taught our first lesson yesterday and it went great! The spirit was really strong we were both in tears and we asked ¨Carolina¨¨ the investigator who{s really our teacher, if she would get baptized and she said possibly! Our second lesson didn{t go as well but it was still good, we just ran out of time. Spanish is really hard. It gets so frusturating sometimes because they expect us to teach in spanish and stuff but they haven{t even gone over verb congurating yet! I{m so glad I took so much spanish in school because I have so grasp of what is going on and able to do a lot of the talking for us. But I have so much work to do! Thankfully though I can fully pray and bear a simple testimony in spanish so at least I have that. Food is good. Basically it{s pasta, meat, and rice everyday and they serve the same stuff for lunch and dinner although sunday they threw us a curve ball and had mashed potaotes. It{s good but bland. Oh and the bread is FABULOUS! Hermana Watt and I have limited ourselves to every other day at dinner because that stuff is dangerous! It was funny, for dessert yesterday they had chocolate empanadas but I guess they accidently mixed up the powdered sugar to sprinkle on top with baking soda! I bit into one and was like Woah! Not what I was expecting.. Then they came around and were collecting them so we figured there was something not right. Don{t worry though they fixed it for dinner and they were DELICIOUS!!

Also at the CCM here they have a laundry service so we don{t have to do our own laundry which is aweosme! This sweet old lady, Blanca, does it for us and she speaks the fastest spanish I{ve ever heard in my life so I just keep telling her gracias. And for P-day which is today they let us leave the CCM and walk around Santiago! It{s so beautiful here! I love it! Hermana Watt and I bought some pan chocolate which is like a croissant with chocolate and jugo Mango which is mango juice although I{m sure you figured that out. SOO SOO GOOD!! Also for our physical activity in the morning since there{s not a gym here we get to go down to one of the parks for an hour! It{s really cool they have exercise equipment outside set up so it reminds me of like a child{s playground but for health conscious adults. I love it! Everyone here is super friendly and loves our blonde hair haha. It was so funny the other day Hermana Watt and I were just standing outside our class room building during one of our breaks. The building is inside this gate but right next to the sidewalk of one of the busy streets so people are always walking by. Anyway this couple was walking by and they pulled out their phone and starting taking pictures of us! So I just smiled and posed haha I hope it ends up on instagram! #BlondesCanSpeakSpanish.

Church on sunday was awesome! How many times to you get to be in a fast and testimony meeting full of only missionaries? So awesome! I thought fasting for the full 24 hours would be hard but I fasted to not be hungry and really it was a lot easier then fasting has ever seemed before. The testimonies were awesome even though I could really only understand when the gringos were speak spanish because the chilean accent is kinda hard to distinguish the different words. I love singing the hymns in spanish! I don{t know why we even bother singing them in english when they sound so beautiful in spanish!!
The hardest thing is remembering my name is no longer Samantha. I can´t tell you how many times I´m like oh I´m Sama-- I mean Hermana Evans haha. But the name Samantha is dead to me for the next 18 months and I couldn´t be more happy to be Hermana Evans. I{m so happy to be a missionary and love the work I get to do!
I{m so happy here and doing good. Spanish is frusturating but I know it{ll be a blessing eventually and it´s only the first week. I love my district so much!! They crack me up and we´re all best friends! My companion is awesome! I seriously don´t know how I got to be so lucky! All is well even if the food is boring. I love you all and can´t wait to hear from you next week!!!

Con todo el amor en mi corazon,

Hermana Evans

PS I didn{t read through this after so I{m sorry if I sould like a crazy person..

Stop over in Peru

Hermana Watt and me in front of the Santiago temple