Feliz Lunes! (September 29, 2014)

Feliz Lunes!

This week has flown by.  I can't believe it's over already.  Time is weird.

Last week after I emailed we went ice skating which was super fun.  I'm pretty proud of myself because I didn't fall at all, and I kinda learned how to skate backwards.  Woohoo, champ! haha

The Spanish is coming along better.  I still get lost a lot, but I'm starting to understand more and more.  It would definitely help if the people would slow down and enunciate more, but se la vi. Haha, Even though they talk too fast the people here are so amazing.  

Right now Hermana Bretón and I are working with some really awesome poeple who really want to learn if this message is true.  The Mesías family in particular is so awesome.  The dad, Reynaldo, is going to be baptized the 11th of October!  He wants to learn all he can and he is an awesome example for his family.  His wife was a less active member but now she's active, and they have two kids, 10 and 8, who want to be baptized as well.  They are always so kind to us and they're going to be a strong family in the ward.  Their son Sebastian drew pictures of Hna Bretón and me that I'll have to send next week because they're super funny.  We're also working with a man named Jorge whose wife is a member, and he's super excited to be taking the lessons.  He's gone on business to Chiloé for the next month, but he didn't want to stop taking the lessons, so we're going to teach him via skype! Our first skype lesson is tomorrow :D I'm super excited!

One of the families in the ward, the Luengo family, has a daughter who's eight years old and is learning English in school, so she's always super excited to practice her Spanish with me. Haha it's nice to have a friend that understands my Spanish :)  Her family is superb.  They are super supportive of the missionaries and they always try to help us in whatever way they can.

I had Chilean hamburgers for the first time this week.  They are super different than American hamburgers, but they were super good.  They put aji pebre (a salsa like thing) on their hamburgers and it's super good.

One of the Hermanas in the ward teaches a Zumba class each Tuesday and Friday night from 8:00-9:00, and Hermana Bretón and I got permission to go this Friday.  It was a blast!  I'm pretty horrible at dancing because I have two left feet, but it was still a ton of fun.  Fingers crossed we get to go again this week.

Other than that not too much else happened here this week, but some awesome things are happening this weekend... General Conference!  We have the incredible opportunity to listen to the prophet and apostles give counsel and guidance specifically for us specifically for this time.  Everyone is invited to listen, and I promise it'll be awesome!

Love you all a ton and hope things are going well for everyone!

Keep on keeping on,

Hermana Coombs

Hermana Clark, me, Hermana Pierce (friend from college!)

Hermana Bretón rescuing me at the airport

Picture from the day we arrived in Osorno

Missionaries with Elder Viñas of the Seventy

Punta Arenas -- September 22, 2014

Hola everybody!

Last week was pretty crazy, and I'm happy to report that I eventually made it to Punta Arenas safe and sound.  I'm also happy to report that I didn't lose my passport again :) Haha hopefully that never happens again.

I flew into Punta Arenas on Tuesday and my flight got in around 2:00 in the afternoon.  I picked up my bags, headed out to be picked up by my companion or someone who helps the missionaries, and no one was there!  I was super confused.  I didn't have a cellphone to call anyone.  I tried about a million times to use a phone in the airport (which is super tiny), only to find out that it only makes calls to Punta Arenas, and the only number I knew of was a number in the US.  After all that I just decided to wait hoping that someone would eventually come get me.  About an hour later my companion and another companionship showed up, and they were super funny.  They had just called the mission office to find out when I was flying to Punta Arenas, and the people in the office realized they forgot to tell anyone I was coming.  They hurried over as soon as they found out though and everything ended up being fine :)  Talk about a crazy life.

I absolutely love it here in Punta Arenas!  The coast is super bonita, the people are SO nice, and Hermana Bretón (my companion) rocks my socks.  It's super windy here and I'm pretty sure the thing they call my room is actually a refrigerator, so I'm super super super glad I have that sleeping bag to keep me warm at night.  Also, I'm sad to report that I'm for sure going to get fat, so please don't make fun of me.  I've never eaten so much food before in my life. 

We didn't have a normal missionary day until Saturday because Chile had it's independence day, which is a two day celebration.  America really needs to get with the program and celebrate for more than one day :)  Anyway, the Independence Day celebrations were awesome!  We went to an activity at the church and it was so much fun.  Lots of awesome people, awesome games, and Cueca dancing.  Cueca is a traditional dance in Chile.  Chile is awesome :)

Right now Hermana Bretón and I are teaching two awesome families that want to be baptized!!  They are seriously so awesome.

The spanish is coming along slowly, but it'll take time for my ear to get used to the Chilean spanish.  Everyone talks super fast, and people use words that don't mean anything (example: they say "po" after everything and it means absolutely nothing. "¿Este es su perro? Sí po").  I'm relying on facial expressions a ton haha.  Oh well, with time and practice it'll get better.

Keep being awesome! 

Con amor,

Hermana Coombs

Craziest Week of my life!!!

¡Hola!

So I have some good news and some bad news.

Bad News:  I'm going to get fat while I'm here in Chile :(  It's a fact and it makes me muy triste, but se la vi.  Apparently they fatten us up to protect us against the cold.

Good News: Chile is awesome!  I'm absolutely loving it here.

My first few days were probably the most stressful days of my life because I was sicker than dog buns and sleeping more than 12 hours a day (I'm finally starting to get a little bit better), I lost my passport, and a ton of other crazy things happened.  My temporary companion (Hermana Clark) has a lot of leadership duties, so we had a very abnormal week of missionary work.  We spent almost all day Wednesday in the bus terminal helping missionaries get to where they needed to go (cambios are crazy).  Friday we went to two other zones in the mission, Puerto Monte and Puerto Varas for some conferences.  Puerto Varas is SO BEAUTIFUL!  When you look up Osorno and you see Volcan Osorno, it's actually in Puerto Varas, and it's incredible in person.  I'm tempted to say that Southern Chile is the best kept secret in the world.  The water here is super clean, the people are super nice, and it is incredibly beautiful.

BUT TODAY GOT EVEN CRAZIER.   They got my passport today and bought me a ticket to Punta Arenas for tomorrow morning.  Apparently I can only take one suitcase with me and they ship the others on a bus, so for the forseeable future I'll only have one suitcase.  Hermana Clark has been waiting for her new companion to get in from Cohaiyque, and she just got in about 30 min ago, and you'll never guess who it is.... HERMANA PIERCE :D  Crazy! 

Even though losing my passport was very irresponsible and probably the most stressful thing ever, the Lord knows best.  Being here in Osorno for the past week has been such a blessing for me.  I was able to partially recover from my sickness, I was able to meet Hermana Clark, and I got to see Hermana Pierce.  When things are going horribly wrong we need to put our trust in the Lord and know that everything will work out alright.  Miracles are real, we just have to make sure we notice them and appreciate them.  I'm so grateful for all the miracles I've seen this past week.

Keep being awesome!  Viva la Chile!

Stay sweet,

Hermana Coombs

September 9, 2014 Osorno, Chile Mission Home

Hola Familia!

I made it to Osorno safe and sound :) I'm still pretty sick with a really bad cold (headache, congestion, a bad cough, etc), but I'm hanging tough.  I fly out tomorrow morning for Punta Arenas!! :) Yay!  My first place is crazy beautiful (at least that's what I've heard) and it's super close to the Antarctica, so hopefully I'll see some penguins.  That would be too legit to quit.  I haven't met my trainer yet because she's at the bottom of the country, but President Obeso said she's from the Dominican Republic.  I'm super excited to have a native Spanish speaker!  Speaking of President Obeso, he and his wife are the sweetest people ever (next to you of course).  But really though, I love them already.

As excited as I am to go to my area, getting on another plane and then a boat sounds exhausting.  On the plane ride from Mexico City to Santiago I sat next to a Chilean Olympian!  He's a professional kayaker and he was way nice.

Well I'm going to have to stop that story there because I have a much more important one.  One of the Hermanas who is serving in the mission office with her husband asked for all our passports (especially since I'll need it for my flight tomorrow) and I realized I left it in the seat pocket in front of me on the plane.  Leaving out all the suspense, my passport is in Santiago and they're sending someone to get it.  Turns out I won't be heading to Punta Arenas tomorrow, but it's all good because the Lord's the one in charge here and I'm just super grateful for the tender mercy that my passport isn't lost forever.

Wow!!  What an exciting first day :) Here's to many more!  Love you all so much and hopefully you'll hear from me soon!

LOVE YOU!!

Hermana Coombs

Hermana Coombs and President and Sister Obeso

September 4, 2014

Hola!!

Wow, I feel like so much has happened this week.  First things first, I jinxed myself and threw up the morning after my last email, but don't worry because it was just something I ate.  Then later that night the power went out in our casa, which was quite the adventure.  I was the only one with a flashlight (can you tell we're all super prepared?) so everyone came and hung out in our room until the power came back on.  Haha it was quite the party :)

Sorry if this letter has lots of mistakes in it; Spanish is destroying my life.  I can't speak Spanish fluently, and it's making me forget English, so communication is really a struggle.  The other day I was trying to say something in Spanish and I couldn't remember the word, but then I couldn't remember it in English either.  The struggle is so real.  Also some nights when I'm righting in my journal I'll randomly throw in Spanish words without even realizing it.  And sometimes I'll be talking to someone in English and I'll just accidentally start speaking in Spanish.  Hop on the struggle bus.

Random things that happened this week: I learned to split an apple in half with my bare hands (don't mess with me). I got a case for my Spanish scriptures and it's too legit to quit.  Apparently the CCM likes to randomly go around and do preventative fumigation to the casas, and they chose to fumigate ours the other day, which really complicated life.

Yesterday there was a torrential downpour again and the streets started flooding.  The elders in our district decided they wanted to see how well a paper airplane would fly in the rain, so we had a paper airplane contest and they all actually did surprisingly well.  Then we got the idea to make a gigantic paper airplane and fly it out a window on the third story of a building today.  It was an epic fail because the windows only opened up so you could throw the airplane straight at the ground, but it was fun to do anyway :)

Happy belated Labor Day!!  Unfortunately Mexico isn't as cool as America, so we didn't get to celebrate, but I hope everyone had a good time.  Mexico does however celebrate their Independence Day on the 15th, and I am so incredibly sad I'm going to miss the huge fiesta.  Even the CCM is throwing a fiesta for everyone who is still going to be here.  Even though I'll be missing the fiesta I'll be having a fiesta of my own in Chile!! :)  We got our flight plans the other day and I fly out Monday night at 8:25.  It's an 8 hour flight to Santiago, then I have a 5 hour lay-over, and another 1.5 hour flight to Osorno.  It's going to be a SUPER long day, but I'm so excited! :D

One last thing I'd like to leave you all with is a thought from our devotional on Sunday by Richard G. Scott.  Prayer is a sacred privilege, and he always answers our prayers.  It might not be right away, and we might not always recognize the answer, but he ALWAYS answers us.  Elder Scott said that prayers are answered one of three ways: 1) peace, comfort, assurance 2) unsettling feeling 3) No immediate response - he does this so we can exercise faith and act in faith.  I know that our Heavenly Father listens when we pray and he will answer our prayers when we pray in faith. 

I love you guys so much and I hope everyone is doing well.  Have an awesome week!!

Stay sweet,

Hermana Coombs

Awesome cover for Spanish scriptures

us getting ready for "graduation"