Piojos y Patria

VIVA CHILE!! 

We are in the middle of the biggest party time of the year here, el 18 de
Septiembre! They’ve already been partying for dayyyyyyyyys and it will
keep going almost all next week, at least until Thursday. ITS SO FUN! But
let me start at the beginning of the week... 


On Tuesday, we got up early and went and did a service project with the
elders from PH (Padre Hurtado) It was fun! It was kind of sad, because we
picked up garbage in a park for little kids and a futbol cancha. The sad
part was that it smelled like marijuana really bad, and all of the garbage
was broken glass bottles ;( , but don’t worry, I only cut myself on the
broken glass once, ha-ha. 
So almost two weeks ago, I started scratching my head a lot.... I was just
joking around and I told my comp, "ha-ha with my luck I probably have
lice”. After a few days, I got actually worried about it, so I made my
comp check me. She didn’t find anything. On Tuesday afternoon, we were
saying a prayer, and I scratched my head. As I pulled my hand out, I look
down and see that there was a little bug on my hand. So I’m like "OKAY I
HAVE LICE." My companion gets digging around and immediately finds another
one. So ya... that happened this week... On Tuesday night we went and
visited a member who cuts hair, and she checked me and informed me that I
did indeed have lice. If you know me at all, you know that I’m not good
with bugs, actually hate them with all of my force.... so knowing that I
had a bunch in my hair and that they were laying eggs pretty much almost
killed me. But I laughed it off. The elders are literally never gonna let
me live it down. I had to call one of them because the day before hand he
had loaned me his hat, so I had to tell him "hey I have lice so wash your
hat in bleach" and he says "hna, do you shower?'"  Freaking elders. But
ya, on Wednesday we went to a conference for all of the new missionaries
and their trainers, it was good! And then Hna Woodward gave me instruction
on how to kill lice. So on Thursday morning, we had a really importance
meeting with the president of the municipalidad here in PH with the six
missionaries here. I had to go with lice........ ha-ha but it was a good
meeting, and now the community will be helping us advertise for our
activities so we can find more people!! It’s going to be great!! Then on
Thursday, we went home and Hna Vilches had to put some gross medication
stuff we bought in my hair layer by layer, and start to pick out all of
the lice and eggs she could find (oy even just writing this makes my head
start to itch!). And then and after we picked everything we could find, I
washed my hair. Then we had to put mayonnaise (YES MAYONAISE) in my hair
and leave it there for 8 HOURS!! So during that time, I made six batches
of brownies, cleaned the whole house, read the whole book of Helaman,
shaved my legs and many more things. Ha-ha, I was so bored; I’m not used
to having free time. Meanwhile, everyone I know received a plate of
brownies on Friday. After the mayo, I washed my hair with shampoo, then
put vinegar in my hair, left it there for fifteen minutes, then washed my
hair again, dried it, and straightened it. It was an ORDEAL to put it in
one word, but now I am LICE FREEE! Thank HF for the blessings you have,
even as simple as not having lice you guys. On Saturday we had a ward
activity for the 18th (Chilean Independence Day)! It was so fun, we ate
typical food like choripan (which is a grilled sausage, inside the typical
Chilean bread, marraqueta). It’s my favorite!! And mote con huesillo,
which is n a kind of juice, with mote which is like seed from tiigo, and a
dried peach in the juice. It’s my favorite Chilean drink, it’s so goooood!
And then we watched people dance la cueca, the typical Chilean dance! It’s
really pretty I took a video!! Then obviously we played soccer, and the
elders said I couldn’t play because I was a girl, so I jumped in there and
started playing. I gotta say, not too bad. I made two goals ;) by pure
luck, but hey I’ll take it!! I later figured out that they said that just
to get me to play, ha-ha. We were also going with some other missionaries
to go contact in the feria. Not much else happened this week... 

OH YA. Today, I saved a puppy. We went to go get together with the zone to
find out the cambios (transfers), and there was a front yard next to the
church full of puppies. When we left, I saw that one of the puppies had
come out of the fence, but wasn’t sure how to get back in!! So I won his
love, convinced him to come to me, then picked him up and gave him back to
his mom. They got it on camera, so it should be coming out in the Chilean
news pretty soon, keep your eyes open! Ha-ha! Well, it looks like the
computer isn’t gonna let me send pics so I’ll see if a member can let me
use their computer tomorrow or something! I love you all lots, I hope you
all have a great Chilean Independence Day!! 

Love Hermana Stanley!