Near Death Experiences

Holaaaaaaa!!!

First of all, Abby, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??? You saw PRESIDENT UCHTDORF and you didn´t shake his hand??????? I would have been knocking people to the ground and jumping over them to get to him!!! I´m ashamed of you. The next time you see a General Authority you better not make that same mistake!!!!

Well. With that said, did everyone just love conference?? It feels just like yesterday that I was watching Conference in the MTC sitting next to Hna. Mount and Elder McGuire. Can anyone believe that this was 6 months ago?? SO weird. But once again, Elder Holland kicked Satan´s butt with his talk. So amazing. And the best part is he managed to be direct and hilarious at the same time. My personal favorite line was, " temptation will come but we do not have to throw the door open, serve it tea and crumpets and then show it where the silverware is kept!!! . . . . . You shouldn´t be serving tea anyway!!" Someday I would really like to meet him and shake his hand (yes Abby, that was another dig at you. What are you going to do?? I´m on a different continent right now. MUAHAHAHAHA.)

So we´re having a baptism next week!! Her name is Linda, she´s 13 and is the granddaughter of another recent convert. She´s really great, really excited for her baptism and the best part is that her mom agreed to sign the permission slip. That´s where we usually have problems, but it looks like, fingers crossed, that she won´t be having any issues. We are also still working with this family, Jorge, Lourdes and Erika (they have another son too but he´s only 4 so he can´t get baptized yet.) They are so ready, so prepared, they just have no idea!! Lourdes and Erika have said, I´m ready to go, baptize us!! Jorge said, I want to get baptized but I´m afraid I´ll get baptized and then sin again, or not persevere, and plus I can´t forgive my family for the terrible things they did to me when I was growing up. Common fears, and the last one is legitimate, so we´re trying to help him out with that. They come to church every Sunday and read and pray and do everything that they´re supposed to-he just has to overcome these two little things and then they´ll be good to go. Insights would be appreciated if anyone has them!!

As far as the nursing stuff goes, we´ve been having a pretty fun time. We have this elder who´s been having some neurological problems so he had to have an EEG. Well Hna. Foster decided we better go with him and his companion bc we´ve never used this doctor before, so off we went. We had set the appt. the day before by going into the office, so you can imagine how surprised we were when we came and no one was there!! Well the lady showed up after 5 or 10 minutes and let us in, and then looked at us and said, well why are you here?? Hna. Foster said, we´re here for the appt. The lady´s like, but you didn´t confirm it!!! We were like . . . . . ummmm what?? we came yesterday to your office to set the appt, what more did you want us to do?? So after a little more arguing, she finally lets the elders in, takes the one into a back room and shuts the door. Well, anyone who´s served a mission knows that that´s totally not okay, so the other elder was like, ummm, should I go in with him?? We were like, um yeah!! So he knocks on the door and the lady comes out and is like, what?? The elder says I need to come in with him, and the lady goes, WHY?? So after MORE arguing and explaining that we´re missionaries and therefore cannot be alone like EVER, she finally let him into the room, sat him in a chair and commanded him not to touch anything. Well after the door closed Hna. Foster and I just started laughing. It was too funny, this lady was totally having a power trip. But for the most part, we´re having a good time setting appts, picking up meds, taking calls from the missionaries, and having fun with the office elders. Oh, did I tell you that Elder Sandberg, who was in my district in the MTC, is the new financial secretary?? He´ll be in the office for 9 months too, so that´ll be fun.

So we´ve been having some interesting Ecuador experiences this week. On thursday President called us with an assignment to go meet this lady at the McDonalds near his house to pick up some papers from this lady so that this family in Machala could get married. Well, we waited and waited and she never showed, which was sad because now this family can´t get baptized, but while we were waiting we decided to get breakfast. It cracked us up because they have options but they´re all the same!! It´s seriously hilarious!! So then this lady never showed so we went back home. Well in the cab I seriously thought we were going to die. I know I say that every time but this time I mean it. He was going so fast that Hna. Foster asked him if he was in a hurry. He was like no, why?? and she said, because I´m scared!!! We didn´t die, obviously, but we were pretty freaked out. Then this morning, we took the bus to the mall and it was really scary. Like it was going so fast that when we went over a bump I popped out of my seat into the air. Then when we got to the cyber and opened our mail, Hna. Foster had an email from her mom that said, what were you doing at 9:45 this morning?? This is when we were on the bus!! So she told her mom and then asked why she asked. Well just now we opened our mail again and her mom had written back saying that she had gotten this overwhelming sense that we were in danger and that she needed to pray for us. Thank you Sister Foster, you might have saved our lives!!! But isn´t it cool how we can sense when something´s wrong with our families?? I just thought that was so cool.

Well, we´re going to go back and write letters now, so be good, read your scriptures, reread the conference talks and don´t do anything you shouldn´t be doing. Always live your life as if Jesus Christ was standing right beside you, because if you do that, he will be.

MUCHO AMOR

Hermana Chamberlain