Jan 24

Hello!
How was your trip? It sounds like you guys had a really good time and had lots of things to do. Did you come home to snow and cold weather? How is winter going there?
Things here are going great. Oscar was baptized on Sunday afternoon and it was amazing! He has such a testimony of the gospel even though we found him and started teaching him less then 9 weeks ago. It really helps me to see what a power there is in this work that we do. Oscar was prepared to receive the gospel long before we knocked on his door. All we did was connect the dots to all the knowledge that he already knew. In the meeting that he went to last weekend they made him get up in front of every pastor in Chile and explain why he was renouncing.... and he did it! Also we had a lesson with him and our zone leader to talk about how we can help him start sharing the gospel with all of his people. Unfortunately his church and all of the members live in the Elders area so we won’t be teaching them but its okay. :) The important thing is that they get the chance to hear about the gospel. Whether it is us or the Elders it really doesn’t matter.
We had the conference and interviews this week which were good. I learned a lot about the atonement and the creation. It is crazy how fast the time flys, it seems like just last week we had the Christmas conference. Oh and I got your package of candy! Thank you! That was really fun to get. My companion loves the almond brittle that you made. And I just like candy so everything was good for me. :) The weather here continues to get hotter and I actually got a little burned yesterday. But it’s not too bad, I actually like the heat more then the cold. The pulgas have taken a little break with is nice. It might have something to do with the flea collar at the foot of my bed... but who knows?? lol The lotion seems to help too. :)
Other than that everything is going good. We have a lot of things to do here which is nice and I am still SO grateful to live in my area.
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Love,
Hermana Lichty

Jan 16

Well that cruise sounds like it will be a lot of fun.. how did you convince dad to go? I thought he didn't like them because he gets motion sick. But that is sweet, you will have to take a lot of pictures! I am sure that will be nice to get out of the cold weather for a little bit. :)
Everything here is going well. We are waiting on news from our Pastor. We are SOO nervous because this whole weekend he has been in Santiago because...... he is renouncing his title and pastor and all his leadership in the church so that he can be baptized this coming weekend. My companion and I have been praying a lot for him because we know that people are going to say a lot of really mean and negative things to him. Also because so many good things are going to come from his conversion. We are getting ready to start teaching his congregation. This week we hope to make plans to start going from house to house with him :) SOO please keep all of that in your prayer this week.
This week we have another mission conference which should be good. I always look forward to them. We have also been having luck finding people to teach which has been great. It is crazy how fast this change is already going by! By the end of this week we will be at the half way point. My companion is doing really good at practice and learning English which has been fun. So cracks me up because she is always saying the most random things. She read a lot of things in English and studied for years before the mission so its funny to listen to her put things together. She is the only companion that I have had that has really tempted to learn learning English. Sometimes it is frustrating though because I have had a time remembering how to say certain things in English and when she asks question my mind is just blanks out. But it’s okay :)
And yes I got the shoes this last Tuesday. They are good but give me blisters and I have a horrible tan line on my feet from my other shoes. So I am embarrassed to wear them because my tan line is SO ugly. One day I will take a picture and send it to you. lol But I have been using the soles of the new ones in my old ones and that works really well too. SO thank you!
I hope you have a wonderful week and enjoy your cruise!
Love you all,
Hermana Lichty

Jan 9 2012

Hello!

My week was good. Yes I am still enjoying the weather here although there are a couple of hours in the afternoon that are really hot. My tan lines get darker by the day. lol I think the ones on my feet and legs are the darkest and most ridiculous. It will be kind of embarrassing to come home and wear sandals and shorts. I think the biggest trial for me this week has been the pulgas, all of the sudden they started to bit me a lot! So I went and bought another flea coller for my bed and I am back to wearing a lot of lotion to try and prevent them. I was really glad I still had allergy pills because there were a few night that my feet and legs itched so bad from all the bits that I couldn´t sleep. But the allergy medicine really knocks me out so it was okay. lol Also our house has been getting attacked by ants! I don´t know if I told you about that before or not. But we have been having to use a lot of sprays to keep them under control. I have never seen so many ants in such a concentrated space. Today we woke up and there was a line of ants that went from a little crack in our bedroom, up the stairs, into our study room, and all the way around the boarder of the wall. There were hundreds and hundreds, it was kinda gross. But we sprayed them all and the crack so a least we have one less place for them to enter.

We found a family yesterday that we started to teach. They are so nice and they really listened and responded well. I was really excited because I feel like my companion and I teach really well together and she has really helped me to improve my Spanish. We are still teaching Oscar and he is going to a conference this coming weekend. He said he wants to renounce his title and power in the Church so we are praying for him. It is not an easy thing to do. We also presented him a lesson about the need for a Restoration only using the bible. He said he is going to teach it to his church this Wednesday. :)

So what is a fuzz buster? I really have no idea what it is. lol So Adam has a girlfriend too? That is so weird to me! When I left all they did was work on Zach´s car and watch TV. It sounds like Steph had fun in New Orleans. What kind of plans does she have with this boy though? He seems to live awfully far away.

No packages yet... but I am crossing my fingers for tomorrow.We have our zone meeting in the morning so it is very possible that I will get it then. The Zone leaders went to Viña last Friday for a leaders conference. Thank you for sending that oil, I am excited for it to get here so I can try it out. :)

But we have been staying busy this week and finding new people to teach which has been wonderful.

Are you staying busy at your office? How is Dad doing at his Job?

Love you all,

Hermana Lichty

Happy New Year 2012

Changes!

I have really good news! I get to keep my companion for another change! I am really excited because she is a great companion and very patient with me. The sad news is Hna Norton is leaving for the interior.. So I wont see her again until we leave. But Hermana Cárcamo and I have a lot of things we would like to accomplish in this new changes so we are very excited.

The new years was really good! It was completely different from last years experience. Here they have this tradition to make scarecrow like people, like they stuff clothes with burnable materials and then make heads for them and then stick them in posts in the ground. Then a little before midnight they burn them. It was fun to walk around and look at all of the stuffed people. Right in front of our house the neighbors made a stuffed family with a mom and dad and two little kids. So we got to watch them burn. lol

We had a special dinner that night with a family that is in a different ward. But it was fun and they gave us a lot of food! I am not use to eating meals at night so it was a little much, but it was really nice of them. We had a baptism Friday before the New Years eve activity in our ward so that was nice. It was a little girl that we found at the beginning of the change who´s family is struggling a little to stay active. But I think she will really be able to help them. Her name is Juliana.

As far as mail goes, I know that I have a package in Viña but I won´t get it until next Wednesday. Because we are really far away from everything even if our mail gets to the office we still have to wait weeks until someone goes down there or someone comes up. But I am very excited for the shoes. The ones that I am wearing are getting a holes in the bottom. :)

I am glad you guys had a good Christmas and new years. It is still weird for me to see pictures of Zach and his girlfriend. As far as Steph and her dreadlocks boy go... that should be interesting. Is she thinking of moving down there with him?

It is starting to get even warmer here which has brought the fleas back... SO SAD! For some reason they are leaving welts the size of quarters were they bit me! I am trying really hard to pretend that they are not there and that they don't itch. But it will be okay, no worries :)

Well everything else here is going good. I am really enjoying my area and the people here in the ward. Oscar the pastor is doing great and has started to teach the people in his church about the need for a Restoration. Little by little :)

Con Amor,

Hermana Lichty

Merry Christmas!

Hello... tanto tiempo! :)

It was great to talk to you all yesterday! It was great to hear from you all. Just remind dad that if we go to the zoo I am going to start talking in Spanish to him. lol I am glad that you guys had such a relaxed Christmas, but a bummer that Steph didn´t want to drive down for it. Hopefully she is doing well. I still think that is weird to hear about Zach and his girlfriend. How long have they been dating? So is Steph dating this guy in New Orleans or are they ¨just friends¨. It is going to be so interesting to meet all these people when I get back home.

So as I told you all on the phone last night we had another baptism yesterday. It was a boy named Ian. It was a good service and the other Hermanas had a baptism too so we had a double baptism. It was a really neat way to spend Christmas. Also there were a lot of activities that they had in our ward.

We taught the pastor Christmas eve and showed the José Smith movie and he felt the Spirit so strong that he changed..... AND he can hardly wait to be baptized next month. That man is like a walking miracle for us. I have never met nor taught a Pastor that was so humble and ready to receive the gospel. He is still teaching a lot of people at the evangelical church so we are going to see if he will let us start to teach them. :)

Other then that everything is going good. This is the last week of the change so it will be interesting to see if I get a new companion or not. I am hoping not. :)

I love you all and it was great to hear from you all!

Love,

Hermana Lichty

Christmas Week 2011

Well Christmas is coming fast here in la serena.. We can´t believe that it is this weekend! But we are excited. The package that you sent with the Christmas presents arrived this week. We are very excited and it is a huge temptation not to open them. My companion is really happy about it too. It is so good that you sent her a Christmas package too. It is the only one that she will have this year. Nobody sent her anything. :( But she has been talking about this present that you sent her and how she is going to write you a thank you card in English. She is so nice. So today we are going to do an interchange in the morning so I can go buy her a Christmas present, I am thinking of maybe filling a stocking for her or something. I planned it with the other Hermanas so that it will be a surprise.

The work here is going great. It is fun to be here during the navidad. There are a lot of programs that the ward and stake have been planing so that has been fun. And we have our Christmas conference tomorrow. It is so crazy that I have been in Chile for an entire year! I remember last year we had the Christmas conference three days after I got here and I didn´t understand anything! So this year it will be a very different experience, I am looking forward to it.

The ward here is doing good and we are having a lot of success as a companionship. I am really happy about everything that we are doing and the progress that we are seeing. We are planning a baptism for the 24th and two confirmations on the 25th. So that will be part of our Christmas. ;) And the pastor that we are teaching is doing so good! We had a stake activity Saturday that he went to were we watched a video with Thomas S Monson and did some Christmas things. Then the next day he came to church again AND accepted a baptismal date! SO crazy, but everyone is so excited about it. He is still teaching people at the evangelical church, BUT he is teaching them the lessons that we are teaching him. So this is going to turn into something great. :) My companion and I are amazed and so excited!

We have some other people that are progress too and one that should be baptized new years eve, so that will be fun. Our ward is huge so there are two companionships working the area. My companion and I have the smaller poorer part and the other Hermanas have the other part that is like 3 times as bigger and closer to the beach. But I really love our little area! The people and families that we have here are wonderful. Also we got a new ward mission leader that is so much better. So I know that is really going to make things easier for us.

Hmmm.... I am trying to think what else.. the weather has been getting hotter. I have never been in a place with so much humidity! I thought is was bad in Viña. In our house we have to been really careful because mold grows very easily everywhere because the walls literally get little drops of water, because of the humidity. And there are always clouds that surround our area keeping the heat and humidity hanging in the air. Sometimes it is a little miserable in the afternoon, but it only lasts for an hour or two. But I love la serena there is always something new to see and someone new to teach. :)

Do you have a lot of plans for Christmas? Who is all coming to the house? I was thinking you guys should make a list of questions again so we wont run out of time. They want us to plan on only talking for 30 minutes this year.. so we will see. I still need to figure out all of the details with the other hermanas but I will let you know sometime this week. Is there anything else happening this week or for the end of the year? How is Stephanie doing.. is she still dating that guy with the dreads?

Love you all,

Hermana Lichty

12-12-11

Hello!

It has been a really fast week! We are doing really good here in Brillador! I really like this area. We had a baptism yesterday of a lady named Mabel. It was so great to be able to help her. She was someone that the Elders had found almost 2 years ago but at the time wanted nothing to do with them, or any of the other missionaries that passed by. But with time she was prepared to receive the gospel through a lot of personal trials and things. It has been amazing to watch her change! I have never seen a change so dramatic before! It was very humbling to see her at all of the appointments because she was always changing and talking about her experiences reading the Book of Mormon.

Oscar is doing good. We had two really good lessons with him this last week and he is thinking about being baptized because he realized that he wasn't baptized with someone that had the authority. It is crazy because we are the first missionaries to teach him that although he has talked to a lot of them. But from the beginning when we first contacted him he was very humble and had a real interest. But the last appointment that we had with him he showed us pictures of him baptizing groups of people so it will be amazing if we can get him to fully understand and he can be truly converted. So I am looking forward to watching him progress more this change.
The training that we had this week was good. Very long but we are learning a lot of things that will really help us to help the people. My companion and I are doing really great together. I am harder to get along with then she is.. lol So I am working on becoming a better companion.

So Jasper is doing a lot better with his manners. lol I am excited to meet him because he sounds really funny. How long were his classes.. like 6 weeks or something? Is the weather getting really cold? I am really loving the weather here :)

The pulgas here are not too bad, although I think that I am just use to them now. lol They have really liked biting my feet and ankles lately but it could be a lot worse. There is a hermana that lives with us that has this oil.. its called thieves oil. It smells like Christmas and it is suppose to help keep all the bugs away including the pulgas. So if you see any of that I think it would be fun to use on my bed. We have lavender spray that we are using from that lavender oil that you sent me. It seems to work but I am kind of sick of the smell. lol

We have a conference on the 20th so I am hoping the mail gets here before that!

Well I have to get going but thanks for everything!

Love you all,

Hermana Lichty