Dear
Family and Friends,
Ok, this transfer
brought about more changes than I was expecting.... I got transferred to...
Coquimbo (pronounced ko-keem-bow)!!! It’s
in the northern edge of my mission, so I definitely had a 6-hour bus ride to
get here and only got 2 hours of sleep my first night here. Ha. Ha. Awesome.
I’m actually somewhat
sick as I write. Just with a cold, but I’ve
almost lost my voice. My companion was
already here so I traveled up with a group of three other sisters and some
elders. I sat by this sister missionary named Sister Castleton from the Brighton
area. She’s super cute and we talked
basically the whole way. We actually had
the same trainer, Hermana Flores, so it was way fun to talk with her and I think
it helped her to be able to talk to someone in English with experience in the
mission (she is fairly new).
Our bus left at 8 at
night on Wednesday and we got to the bus station here at 3:30 in
the morning, then we had to wait until 4 am for the Zone Leaders to
come and then we went to our pension, which is super dark and damp (it is literally
the Serious Black House from Harry Potter) and we had to have to two other
sisters sleep there (because it was too late to take them to their area). So, I let them have the bed and I found a
foam pad for the other one and I slept on the cold cement ground for 2 hours. It was great. Ha! Ha!
So, my companion is
SUPER cute!! Her name is Hermana Eliza
Andreasen and she is from Queen Creek, Arizona (which is close to Mesa). She is hilarious! Training lasts two transfers (12 weeks) and I
am finishing the second part of her training. Her companion before was from Peru and she
went home. Apparently she was really
weird and didn’t really teach Hermana Andreasen much, so it’s kind of like I’m
re-training her. Fun. Fun. :)
We are in a branch now
and we actually share it with a companionship of Elders. I guess my companion and her last companion were
the first sisters the area had in years, but since they didn’t really do much I
feel like I’m re-opening the area. It’s
actually kind of sad because the members have said stuff to us like, “Oh
finally NOW the sisters have arrived!” I
just don’t understand how there can be missionaries serving that just don’t get
their purpose and how to be missionaries, even at the end of their missions....
Makes me sad and sometimes even really frustrated on the inside... anyway....
Our area is super
sketchy…Ha! Ha! Everyone in the street
always tells us that it’s too dangerous to be out after dark, but nothing has
happened so we are just careful wherever we go. We are right on the coast so we can see the
sea and we are kind of up on a hill. Everything
is just super crappy looking and dirty here…Ha. But our house is clean! Just dark and creepy. Makes me realize how nice my last area was...
You never know how good things are until you don’t have them… So I was going to
send some pics of my companion and our area but the connecter thing isn’t
working... Hopefully next week!
I had a lot of mixed
feelings leaving my last area... I was there for 7 months! It felt like my home and so I sort of feel
like I just got dropped off on the curb again and I’m having to start over
getting used to some things… Ha! Ha! Hermana
Call is awesome, too, so I’m going to miss her, but my new companion is super
cool, too! I feel like I’ve been super
blessed with my gringa companions! They’ve
all been incredible!
Hermana Ramos finished
her mission and went home… It’s weird being one of the oldest sisters in the
mission now, but I’m really grateful that I am an older one because there are
sooooo many noobs and they are basically having to train themselves! That would be way hard! I’m grateful that I’m at least experienced and
know what is going on. That makes it
easier to enjoy being here. I am really
loving my mission! It’s such an
incredible experience filled with so many ups and downs. I can really feel myself being refined and
prepared for the future. There are
really interesting and really intense feelings that you experience on a mission....
It’s difficult to explain, but when it all comes down to it, I think the biggest
over-all feeling that I’ve gotten from being here is just the infinite and
eternal love of God. He loves us so much that He allows us to suffer and
experience things and learn them for ourselves. He puts things in our paths
that we need and it is up to us to get the most out of everything He
gives.
Well, anyway, we are
running short on time today because we had to go to La Serena (most north of
mission Viña del Mar) to change my address so I’m legal and we waited there
forever!! I won’t have time to write people back, but next week I should! Love
you all!!
Love,
Hermana Hermansen
