03/27/23 Transfers🥲

 Soooooo im going to alto hospicio. Which is a lovely, wealthy town in the middle of the most tropical part of our mission and there are no street dogs there... except its the opposite of everything i just wrote. 

An ugly, poor town in the middle of the driest desert in the mission, and its full of street dogs. But ive heard the work there is wonderful. By the time you all read this i imagine I'll already be there. More on this in a second. 

Last P day we went to huasco which was actually so fun!! We're the only hermanas in the zone so it's always a little weird hanging out with zone... we joke about how we're barely a part of the group because the elders see us as if we're a different creature or something, and it's amplified here where the nearest other hermanas are like 2 hours away. 

But that day we were able to have a little time and space where we didn't have to hang out with them, and then afterwards we played volleyball! 

While we were there we saw seagulls, puffins, sea lions, star fish, and pelicans which were all really cool!! We also got this fancy ice cream, and I did that thing from the movies where I licked the ice cream and it tumbled to the ground... except it rolled down my entire front first... and I was wearing a light gray shirt and white pants, so I was covered in chocolate ice cream that was super visible for the rest of the day. We arrived late back to Vallenar, and so that was a very "semana seis" beginning of semana seis. 

Something else notable here is that ALL of the leaders here are going home like now, so none of them even cared about like anything... been an interesting week haha. 

Later in the week we had a beautiful lesson with Andres. I can't help but think how amazing it is that we found him. We have a phrase that we use here, which is "él es un escogido de pana" which means, he is really really elect. Or something to that effect. It doesnt translate very well. But he is so cool. Apparently he works in geological studies and has a TON of knowledge about sooo many things. He talked to us about how we came into his life in exactly the right moment. His mom passed away last week, and he was able to find so much peace through the Book of Mormon and the gospel. Im really sad I won't be here to see his baptism, which will likely be soon, and that I won't be here when he gets to see general conference next week. But that's mission life  

We have a friend named Ruben who is really interested. He really wants to learn... but the way he does that is by picking apart every single thing that we say. It's so frustrating sometimes to teach him because we'll tall about the bible and the book of mormon and he'll be like, yes but where did the word "bible" come from? And then we'll try and direct the conversation back to the topic, and he'll interrupt us in a very... belittling way, because we're women (I wish I was making this up) and therefore we can't understand the intricate thoughts of his complicated brain. But hey, at least he's not rejecting our message. Charity is key here I guess! 

It's so crazy to me the difference between Andres and Ruben... Andres assuming we have the answers to everything because we know the gospel, even though he knows wayyyy more about things and asks way deeper questions than we've ever bothered to ask ourselves that we take days researching and helping him find an answer.... meanwhile Ruben asks us questions that have nothing to do with what we're teaching, and assumes we're too dumb to even understand the question half the time. People are so interesting I guess! 

Some crazy things from this week: 

-we received transfer news on Saturday night as a mission on a zoom meeting. The meeting ended at about 10:45pm with the news that I would be going to Alto Hospicio, which is about 16 hours from my beloved Vallenar. And then a little later that same night we received the news that I would be leaving at 7:30pm on Sunday night. Which left me with very VERY little time to pack my entire life from the last 5 months into one big and one little suitcase, and to say goodbye to the one million wonderful people that I have loved so much here in Vallenar. I was heartbroken. I hardly slept because I felt there was so much to do. 

I'm still heartbroken. 

I love Vallenar. With my whole soul. The people here have become my chilean family. I have dear real friends here that I will never forget and plan to stay in contact with for forever. I've learned so much here that has brought me so much joy, and I wish it didn't hurt so much to love so much. As I mentioned last week, it's so hard to walk down streets not knowing if it will be the last time. Or to visit my favorite abuelita here, hna Milena, and not know when the next time I talk to her will be (probably not in this life if I'm being honest). I want to hate the mission for taking them away from me, but the mission is what brought me to them in the first place. Is it more worth it to not love them or to have my heart broken in order to leave them? 

And things will never be the same. Obviously, I can stay in contact. And I will. Obviously I can come back. And I plan to. But it will never be the same. It just wont. And that breaks my heart. 

I'm currently writing this on Saturday night because I needed a break from packing, but I anticipate I will probably cry in church tomorrow. I've already cried a couple of times here. It's so frustrating how little time I have to say goodbye when I don't even want to leave! 

But in order to stay sane I need to look on the bright side. I'm going to be comps with a girl from Argentina. My trainer, hna Tommy also trained her, so we're like "sisters" and hopefully we'll have a similar style of working. Also, Alto Hospicio is getting made into a stake, and with that they're going to have a general authority (I don't remember who) come to Alto Hospicio and speak to us. I'm also going to be sharing a ward with more senior missionaries (who are like 20 years younger than the Pierces) and I've heard they're super cool. And the work there is supposedly really good. 

I don't know almost anyone there, but I'm going to be in a bigger zone than ever before... with a LOT of elders. And I'll be sharing an apartment again as far as I know. 

OK so I'm finishing this now from Alto Hospicio!! 

First off, love the members I've met so far, and my comp is a doll. 

Leaving was really hard, but I had a whole crowd of members with me at the terminal. Church was also really hard I was super sad and cried a bunch... and it was made even worse, because the closing song goes like this: 

Oh hermanos adios, pues adiós 

El momento de ir vino ya 

Si guardamos la fe en el gran Dios

Nos veremos aun más allá

Mas allá, más allá, 

Oh hermanos adios pues adiós 

Más allá, más allá, 

Moraremos con Dios en amor

Which is basically like God be with you till we meet again vibes. So yah, me and my closest member friend were sitting in the back row, crying our eyes out. 

But the rest of the day was kind of crazy, because the elders had a friend decide she wanted to be baptized that SAME DAY. And they organized the whole baptism in under two hours, which is INSANE!!! 

So after that we had to run home and I had to finish packing and cleaning, because my bus left so early, and then we had dinner as a zone together and then we rushed over to the terminal and waited for the bus. 

My crowd of members included a song they wrote for me basically thanking me for being there and loving them. It was really sweet!! 

Then I got on the bus. For 16 hours  

I'm super tired, so sorry if this is written terribly. 

Love you all!! 

xo-hna griffin

I don't have photos cuz they all stayed on my phone from my old sector