10/09/23 I'm not trunky!

Katie and her compi

Wowowow you guys this is my last p day before the one where I'll be actually going home 

Okeyyy what happened this week? 

 Uhhh 

Pretty Iquique

First off we went to antofa!!! Leader meeting ️️ it was my last one... it was crazy because lots of the people I might never get to see again  I also had to share a testimony again, the other one was better, I was a lot more nervous for this one. I also got my new nametags right on time to go home hahah 

I loved the conference because for the first time in forever they emphasized the importance of studies!!! I feel like they're always sacrificing studies for service or work time or whatever, but president talked about how we need to prioritize and take advantage of every minute of studies!! So I'm excited to see that put into practice! It's something I've felt like has been discarded to the side for a long time now!! 

We also talked about cleanliness!!! Which was great because now our apartment is cleeeeaaannn he talked about how the way we keep our desks and our houses is a reflection of how our mind and heart are. Messy desk= messy mind, dirty bathroom=dirty heart. 

In the evening I got to go on one last exchange with Hermana Jofre! I'm gonna miss her  she's one of my favorite Chileans and talking to her was really soothing for my soul. And we saw this beautiful miracle where we found this guy who was looking for the truth and who's grandma was a member but had passed away a while ago. It was a beautiful moment!! 

Just a few things to put
in the suitcase hehe!!!!

Something I loved as well was the love that hermana Wu has showed me. A long time ago I remember I had commented how I missed music but that it was hard to practice because I didn't have it printed... she asked me to send it to her and she would print it  so that was very kind... recently (two months ago) I had asked if they happened to have a mixer laying around somewhere, so she bought me one!!! To use and give back to her at the end of my mission!! Well this week, she noticed that I didn't have a jacket and asked me about it. I told her I had forgotten to bring it from iquique and so she looked high and low and found me a blanket to use while on the bus, which is the only reason I was able to sleep, i woulda been suffering if not

She's just such an example of love and sacrifice for others, taking care of needs and remembering the little things. 

On Wednesday we had traveled all night so we were both pretty exhausted. We had arrived at like 5am, traveled to the apartment and crashed, until about 8:30am ish when the elders called us to plan the presentation we had to give at like 11am (leaving the house at 10:30am), so it was like right away we got to work, worked on the presentation until like 9:30am, got showered and dressed and ate as fast as we could in order to get 15 minutes of planning in and 10 minutes of studies, and went to the meeting where we had to give the presentation, then we had a million things to do, one of which being climb the mountain that is our sector to the highest point (we do this every day, but that day it was a lot harder), and then in the evening we had soccer night and they wanted me to play but I was barely surviving in the corner, so I just chatted with Emily who has recently returned to activity in la iglesia! It was a good conversation and I think i helped her find direction in her life. I hope to continue to be friends with her after the mission. 

I made them pancakes
and they were very happy,
 they had apparently prayed
really hard that someone
would give them food.
We didn't have nearly
anything in the house
but I found things
o make pancakes with 

Thursday we had to go to Alto Hospicio to give the same presentation (but with different zone leaders. It came out better in Iquique) and do exchanges with the hermanas there... we'll be going back one more time this week (with the other companionship) and then we're done! We also have exchanges with the hermanas we live with tomorrow and with the hermana leaders of the mission (girl APs), so once again we're only gonna be together like 3 days this week. Sigh. One day we'll have a normal week. Oh wait, no we won't, I'm going home next week  

Anways, in Hospicio was great! We were able to find some really cool people for them to teach (one of them has a baptismal date now!!) And I was able to teach the hermanita how to do a couple cool life hacks in the sector and in areabook!! 

Friday was pretty normal!! We went and knocked literally soooo many doors and talked to soooo many people and got rejected by very nearly all of them. Then un the evening we had a lesson with a reference from the elders, aaaand he was super interested!! And accepted a baptismal date!!!! Just about the only time we got accepted that day haha. We came home exhausted and slept hard until... 

Saturday we got up early and did the normal morning thing except we had to leave at like 8am to go to a primary activity. We went and climbed our mountain again, this time almost running, and picked up our amigas to take them to the primary activity, and they loooved it! It was a mini MTC where they taught the little kids how to be missionaries and had us help a bunch, and they had us sing and Presidente Wu was there over Zoom and it was so cute!! Afterwards the kids had to contact us on the patio of the church, and the one little kid literally just came up to us and was like  Hey! You! Do you wanna be a member of the church of Jesus Christ? And we were like, uhh okay and then he walked away. Another one was a little girl who wasn't baptized because her dad won't let her (she's 10 but her mom is a member and her dad isnt), and she taught US how important baptism is. We told her she needs to teach her dad haha. 

She said get hammy...and I did

Sunday we did the usual Sunday thing, wake up, get ready (fasting this time), and climb the mountain again to pick up all our friends and wake them up and get them to church. I was feeling a little frustrated because it's literally 45 minutes climbing a literal mountain every day, and it's like no one else cares if these people go to church. There are so many members with cars and phones that could support us in this so we don't have to physically kill ourselves every Sunday in order to get them to church, but no one else cares. Idk how to help the ward be interested. It's not just that they don't know or that we're not working with them enough or whatever, it's literally just that they don't want to. But anyways, that's the situation. We met a cool friend on Saturday that went to church on Sunday!! She's sooo cool. She never learned to write, and only kind of knew how to read, so she's studying in a place for adults and she's learning so quickly!! She's trying to learn so she can be more valuable in the workplace and provide better for her family! And I'm so grateful to know her and to see that really at any age you can learn anything (she's like 50)!! 

Today was my last p day and we were moving at 100 miles an hour all day, and walked a TON! We went to a big old feria for clothes (like think DI clothes section mixed with garage sale but giant) and found some dresses! Then we went to the mall and I found some cute things for Holly and mom hehe. And then we went to eat pizza with the zone (Papa johns!!) And my comp played ping pong while I talked to my dad, and then we went shopping and I bought lots of Chilean treats for my family to try!! All my favorite things!! 

still hammy

In other news I had to do the dating and eternal marriage unit in myplan this week and it was a little crazyyy. I mainly got that the most important thing to our happiness and testimony (as President Nelson just said in his talk in general conference) is personal purity and virtue, specifically living the law of chastity. I've been thinking about dating ever since then and what kind of guy I want, and I guess that's the most important thing to me. Someone who loves God enough to live the law of chastity and someone who loves me (and who gets along with my family!) 

There's this quote I love from a talk... 

"it's not easy to teach self control when the world is teaching indulgence," 

and as President Nelson said, 

still hammy

"Any addiction—be it gaming, gambling, debt, drugs, alcohol, anger, pornography, sex, or even food—offends God. Why? Because your obsession becomes your god. You look to it rather than to Him for solace." 

We hace to be disciplined and we have to be careful. We don't get a do-over on life (and I don't get a do-over on the mission). I have been striving to look for solutions instead of excuses and put my eternal desires above my right now desires (I want to rest, I want to eat sugar, I want to cry, I want to go home, I want to chat longer----> all of this is less important than the eternal goal of helping these people come unto Christ, and all of it is less important than returning personally to my Heavenly Father.) 

Self mastery comes from diligent practice and every day we can master ourselves a little bit more. Every week we can start over again when we take that little bit of bread and water that mean so much. This is the blessing of repentance. This is the blessing of the Atonement of our brother Jesus Christ. 

I love you all!!

xo-hna griffin