Before you get scared from the title of this email, let me explain myself. There are dogs EVERYWHERE. I mean it too. EVERYWHERE! So many dogs. Its like they have their own little society down here. And theyre all so different. White, big, small, black, labs, pitbulls. You name it and Chile has it! So me and my companion were knocking doors a few days ago and one was just barking and barking and barking at us. NON-STOP. And, if one bites you, you have to get 5 rabies shots. 5 shots. I hate shots. My companion got a dog bite about 4 months and ago and she told me how terrible it was. So this dog, BARK, BARK, BARK. Non stop. Then it tried to bite me!!! LITERALLY! I freaked out. So I go to pretend to pick up a rock and the dog runs away. Thank goodness. But then it comes back and tries to bite me. So I pick up a rock and throw it at the dog. The dog never came back. I felt so bad!!! I threw a rock at a dog! THAT IS SO MEAN! I am a dog killer. Such a dog killer. But I really didnt want to have 5 rabies shots who knows where on my body in a foreign country. No. That was NOT about to happen. But the dog didnt yelp when I threw the rock. So I am pretty sure the Lord understands.
ANYWAY! Hahahaha besides the dog, I am in CURACAUTIN!!!! It is about 6 hours south of Concepciòn and FREEZING! At night I sleep with about 8 super heavey blanket, my leggings, my pj bottoms, a sweatshirt, socks, and slippers. And I still get cold! Hahahaha! But the weather is starting to get warmer so thats good. There are only about 16,000 people here in Curacautin. A really small town where everyone knows each other. It reminds me of RV actually. So I fit right in. Kind of . Hahahaha besides being super white and not speaking Spanish :) I fit it! Hahahaha they play a lot of Spanish rock music here. A lot! And they love the song that goes like, this is gonna be the best day of my life. Ya they play that a lot. The Spanish here is WAY fast. SO FAST! And they dont really pronounce their s`s here. Like in gracias, they say gracia. Its just how Chileans talk. Really lazy and really fast. But its all good! It will come to me with time :) The branch here is tiny too. Only about 30ish active members go. The church is so small. Relief society is the same room as the sacrament room. I had to talk about 5 minutes in church just right on the spot too! hahahaha the poor members had to listen to my broken Spanish for 5 minutes. But I made it through!
There is a family that just got baptized here and the daughter, Nathalia, is the best! She is 17 and always comes with me and Hermana Lozano to lessons. She wants to learn English and I want to learn Spanish. So we work together on that :) She wants to study at BYU too. I just love Nathalia.
When you go to a house here, you hardly ever knock on the door. You just yell, ALO! It is so fun! I love doing that! And when it is cold you say, ta helao. Hahaha Chileans just have their own little words so a lot of what I learned doesnt work here. Esta bien.
We got a new investigator my first night here! Ximena. She has 2 daughters and then her husband, but we didnt meet him. Then when we were contacting in the street (which we do A LOT! Lots of street contacting) we met Daniel. Daniel was so sweet and so nice to us. He is about 22 I think and seemed so interested in what we had to say. I got a good feeling about him so we are going to visit him this week.
Well, Chile is fun! I dont understand anything anyone is saying to me, but thats okay! I will learn in time! Its really pretty here and the people are always so sweet, Besides punk 16 year old boys that laugh at just the way I say Hola. Jerks. Anyway, the REST of the people are sweet. Chile is the bomb :)
-Hermana Burnham
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"My 'mom'.....Hermana Lozano."
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"I totally biffed it the other day and got a huge scab on my knee." "I know I am so cool!"
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"The view from our apartment."
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