Hola from the bottom of the world!! I have so much to say, I have no idea where to begin! Getting here was really long. I basically traveled for about 3 days. But I made it and I’m doing great! Chile honestly feels like home! I am so grateful to be here!! My mission President and his wife are incredible! They are so full of love and rely on the Savior! I can’t believe how blessed I am to be able to serve with them! Hermana Isom doesn’t speak any Spanish. It’s hard for her. But she said she does it because she loves the Savior. They received this call to serve because the other mission president got cancer and had to leave. When the call was extended to them, they had 2 weeks to get ready, and then they left. But they said they accepted the call because they love the Lord. That would be so hard! They are so full of faith and love, and they are incredible!! I love them!! I think this goes without saying, but it’s hard being thrown into another culture and completely immersed in a language that you don’t understand. BUT, I still love it here!! It is absolutely freezing here, beautiful, and incredible. The kids here are SO cute!! It is still a little hard getting used to dogs everywhere. But apparently Punta Arenas doesn’t have as many dogs as some other areas. So I’m grateful to start here! I love the people!!
My trainer is amazing! Her name is Hermana Egbert, and she is from Utah!! We are pretty similar in a lot of ways, and she helps me out a ton! She went to school in Hawaii before she came here and worked for an eye surgeon! She is so great!! There is such a special spirit here in Punta Arenas! The people are so kind and loving, the members are great and so willing to work, and there are a lot of people here that Heavenly Father has prepared. We get to walk along the ocean every day, and its beautiful!! We get to see dolphins every day, so that’s fun! And the sunrises and sunsets are beautiful! Also, apparently penguins get here in September. So I hope I’m still around for that!
I’ve already seen so many miracles here! I wish I had more time to say everything that I would like to, but I will just share one experience! Yesterday was hard but good!! I couldn’t understand anything in church, and then every appointment we had fell through! We tried going to this cemetery here that is pretty famous and passing out plan of salvation pamphlets, but we found out you can’t proselyte on Sunday. So we are going to try that another day this week. But anyway, basically we were knocking doors in the cold and walking all day! Nobody let us in. But we weren’t discouraged. We knew that as long as we were trying and had the Spirit with us, that everything was going the way that Heavenly Father wanted it to. We had time to knock one last door. It was a reference we got from the Elders a while ago. They had knocked the door probably 3 months ago, and the girl told them they could come back another day. The name kept popping into my trainers head, so we went! We knocked on the door and a guy answered! We asked for his wife and she was excited and let us in! They are in their early 20s and live here because he is in the military! She is from Mexico, and he is Chilean! But she said that she has been having problems with her church because she doesn’t like that some people justify being mean using God as the reason. Anyway, she knows people that are Mormon and loves them and wanted to know more!! They were asking lots of questions, and it was way cool to see God put things into our minds to say to them! He really knows them perfectly! She shared some personal things, so without going into too much detail, God knew exactly what she needed to hear and used us to say it! It was an incredible lesson! But what was also a huge blessing was about half way through the lesson we found out they both spoke English!!!! So I was able to teach and listen in English, and I can’t tell you how big of a blessing that was!! In that moment, I was so grateful we had shown our faith in God that day by continuing to work hard and stay hopeful!! Because we exercised our faith, God produced a miracle! And I know we didn’t do any of it! We were just instruments in His hands. I’m so grateful I get to be here seeing Him work miracles! Anyway, they are golden. We are going to go by next week and continue to teach them!! But this is not our work. This is God’s work! He is in charge. As long as we are being good people, living worthily so we can have the Spirit to be with us, and exercising faith in God, everything happens how it is supposed to!! I love you all so much!! Have faith, be patient, and see God work miracles in your life!! I love you!!
--Hermana West
