Haircut, Broken Foot and a Temple Dedication

HI FAM! So this week, a few big things happened. 

1. I cut my hair, kinda a lot, ha-ha. I was finally just over thy dying ends I had and said, "you know what, short hair can be cute hair too!" So I cut everything off that wasn’t healthy. Up by my face it’s pretty short! I like it!! It gave it a lot of volume and shape, because I also got layers and everything. 

2. On Thursday afternoon, I was walking out of the house to go and conquer the world with the gospel! And I was so excited, that I accidentally stepped on a tile out of our patio that wasn’t level with the ground. Unfortunately, this meant that my foot just bent really hard. I immediately had a lot of pain, so I sat down right there on the ground outside. After a bit I got up and hopped inside. I was really, really worried that I had sprained my ankle, because in the mission, having that kind of a problem is a big deal. So I called some nearby elders, and within twenty minutes from the accident, I got a blessing for it. I decided to just hang out. Hna Woodward saw a pic of it and told me that we would just wait because it wasn’t that bad, it just looked like I bruised my foot pretty bad. On Friday I didn’t leave the house, but then on Saturday I started getting nervous about it, so I organized with Hna Woodward to go to the hospital. She sent me to the best Hospital in South America, Clinica Las Condes. They treated me great, the got me in so fast that Hna Woodward didn’t even make it to my appointment. SO here’s the bad news, I fractured a bone on the side of my foot, and it looks like I’ll be down for about a month. It’s been a hard few days I have to say! Just because president told me right away that this was going to affect my cambios! I figured out pretty fast that they were going to send me to the office. 

3. I got transferred to the office!! Hna Vilches’ training ended, so that was pretty sad, but she’s sooo capable, shell be fantastic! I’m gonna be in the office and honestly I’m not really sure what’s going on much. Presidente hasn’t really said a word to me yet, but I’m assuming that soon he’ll interview me and talk to me about it. I think that during the day, my companion, who will be Hna Ribodino, from Argentina, will go work with some other hnas nearby, and I will be hanging out in the office trying to keep myself busy with the senior couples! Nobody worry about me, because between them and Hna Woodward, I am very well taken care of!! I’ve been here in the office all day just kicking it and they’ve been asking me every few minutes what they can do! 

On Thursday I have another appointment with the doctor, and Hna Woodward is going to go with me so I’ll be able to understand what’s going on, but for now I have my foot in a boot :) 

I know, you’re all pretty proud of me right? Probably the only person you know that can break her foot just walking, ha-ha!  My foot’s pretty dang purple, honestly it’s kind of awesome, someday I’ll show you all pics but not right now because it looks A LOT worse than it is!!

I guess that’s all for today, the temple dedication (Concepcion) was fantastic, just exactly what I needed to keep up my animo! I was kind of really stressed out, but today I’m a lot calmer. I know that this time in my mission isn’t gonna be easy, but I’m sure it’ll be okay, and while I’m here, I’m gonna enjoy!!!! 

I love you all! 

Hna Stanley,

PS - don’t worry about me, just pray for me :) 

A Baptism!

Exactly one year ago from this week, I got here in Chile! It’s really weird thinking about it! It made me miss you all just a little bit (so much so that one day I dreamed I was home for a day with mom and I asked if we could go to Sam’s Club and she said no...) but also its made me miss the mission, even though I’m still here! I realized, my experience here is 2 thirds over!! What????? But anyway, this was our week. 

On Wednesday, we had divisions in Talagante, mas campo (more country). I was with an Hna Gonzales, she’s not a capacitadora (sister training leader), she’s from Colombia, we had so much fun! We ended up finding a Haitian in her sector that only spoke English, so I taught lesson one in English. It was super hard!! I sounded so awkward. Hahaha! I thought "wow I’m gonna be able to testify with so much power, so eloquently here in my own language.” HA! It was really uncomfortable, but it’s fine, she felt the spirit :) On Wednesday night we had our baptismal interview with Kernizan! It went really well. He passed and the interviewer said he had a great testimony. During the week Pres, had told us a few times that we were going to have interviews with him a few different times, but in the end it always got cancelled last minute. So finally on Thursday morning they called and said "president is in the stake doing interviews right now, just kidding don’t come, he doesn’t have time for you guys, just kidding try coming and well see if he has time. Just kidding do come, jk, don’t come." So in the end, I just had to make decision if we were gonna go and try to see if he had time, or not waste the morning like that. The problem was that we had a really, really full week coming up, and I was thinking that we didn’t have more time to try to have interviews and have them get cancelled again. I deliberated, thought out pros and cons, and then made the decision. I said that we weren’t going to go, because the Lord would provide another time for us to have our interviews. Then all of a sudden, the zone leaders called and said "get here really really fast and he’ll see you" so then we had to go running and I thought “WHY??? HF why?? If you had inspired me to go beforehand we wouldn’t have to be running to get there on time!" But then as we left our house, the bus that we take passed right by like the second we left, which never happens because the bus doesn’t pass by there! Then there wasn’t any traffic so we got there exactly in time. I learned from that, HF has a plan, and even though it doesn’t make sense to me, He always provides. 

On Saturday, Kernizan got baptized!!!!!! It was awesome, it’s been so cool teaching him because it hasn’t been like anything big or huge, like a gigantic miracle, just a small miracle. Every conversion story is a miracle, and his has been just very from the books, especially when it comes to reading the BOM. As he read, he converted, as he read, the doubts he had just slowly went away. 

Next Sunday, we have the broadcast of the dedication of the temple in Concepcion, somebody show the pics to Uncle Brian, the temple in Concepcion is absolutely gorgeous!!! So Kernizan is gonna have his interview this week so he can go, we are too!! I’m so excited. 

This week is the last week of training of Hna Vilches. I’m so sad, MY BABY IS SO BIG!!! I’m so proud of her, she’s gonna be a fantastic missionary!! So next week I’ll be letting you know if I’m leaving my sector or if she is... we’ll see. I honestly think staying, but we’ll see :) 

Love you all lots!! Hna Stanley

One Year!

How is Idaho Falls doing? I miss it a lot, and I miss you guys! In two days, I will hit one year since I was in my country! One year since I last went to the IF temple, got Reeds Dairy, went to Target, Sam's Club, and all those other fun IF things. But don’t worry, I’m not trunky just yet!! 

I don’t really have time to write much of a group email, but this week Kernizan was supposed to get baptized, we ended up changing it for this week!! So keep praying for him!

I also had a neat experience this week. We have an investigator whose name is Kattia. She is pregnant, and we have been working with her for a while. Honestly, she wasn’t really progressing at first because she was reading the BoM and everything, but she said that there was some reason she couldn’t go to church and she wouldn’t explain that. But we just felt like we needed to be really persistent with her. So after quite a few more visits, she all of a sudden decided she was ready to go to church. Two weeks ago, she went to church. This week, we weren’t able to visit her, and on Saturday night I felt like we should call her and invite her to church even though I don’t like doing it like that too much. I didn’t do it!!!! I can’t believe I didn’t listen!! But on Sunday morning she called us and said "is there church today?" On Sunday night we visited her and tried to put a fecha (baptism date) with her, but she went back to the same problem as always. She can’t understand why she needs to be baptized again. As she explained this, I just prayed thinking, "Heavenly Father, I don’t know how else to explain this to her, I don’t know what else to try. Please help us, we can’t do this alone." And as she sat there explaining, she just kind of came to the conclusion by herself that she would prepare herself to be baptized. We put the fecha for the 27th, and we have been praying so so so much for her! Kattia, who is Haitian, also decided she will be naming her daughter "Madison Marina" my comps and Is names, hahahah so we are gonna have a little Haitian baby born in December :) Please pray for our people, they are so important to us!! 

Sooo much love, 

Hna Stanley

PS - I got to watch the Women’s session of conference and it was fabulous!!