Chicken in the Pine Tree

Hola!! This week not a lot happened except for on Saturday when we had a huge party with our branch to celebrate September 18th! This is like Chiles 4th of July, and they party like crazy down here. We were probably at the church house from 11am-8pm, so it was a super long day. I will attach all of the pictures, but we basically ate a ton of food and played some games, and I learned the cueca which is a traditional chilean dance! And the food was sooo good!! We got to help some hermanas make empanadas and salads and they turned out amazing. At one point during the activity all of the kids ran inside yelling that there was a chicken in the pine tree, and it turns out they weren't lying so this week I got to pet a chicken for the first time. Chile is so cool.

This week we had a really cool experience with one of our friends. We were teaching her the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom, and to say we were nervous is an understatement because so far she had accepted and applied everything we had taught her, and usually these two things can be hard for people. So while we are teaching her she makes a couple comments here and there and things are going well. Then she said that she loves coffee and drinks it every morning at work, and my comp looked at me and we both were a little worried, but then she mentioned how she felt like she relied on it too much and that she was willing to change that to keep this commandment. That was such a miracle. When we heard this we were in shock of how willing she was to change, but one thing I have learned this week is that God is always a part of this work and is always preparing His children's hearts to receive the gospel. I have been studying a lot about Nephi and how he always acted in faith, and in turn got to experience many miracles. I like this correlation a lot, that as we exercise faith, we show God that we are ready and worthy to receive miracles. When we live with this mentality and put our faith in God, we can see so many miracles in our lives that we wouldn't have recognized before.


Hope you all are doing well!
Hermana Stewart


pics
- trying to set up the flag without a ladder




- touching a chicken






- the best empanadas ever

- learning the cueca with my comp

- the branch!