Saxi Santa

So we passed Christmas pretty well here as you know. A little bit of burnt cinnamon rolls from lighting wrapping paper on fire when our propane tank ran out. But our yummy stuffed chicken with the bishop made up for that hahaha. On Christmas Eve I forgot to mention that we went caroling downtown in the plaza. I think the people enjoyed it, although several were just in a hurry, but others gathered around to listen for a bit.

Then that night we went to the family Serrano for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We ended up eating at like 9:15 pm, but it was a lot of fun. The best part was when the Viejito Pascuero (Santa Claus... literal translation Old Easter Man idk why they dont call him Papa Noel like in other countries) came by with a parade. We went running out of the house with the little kids and the aunt to catch up to the floats. They throw a ton of candy and then at the end, there was even more to be thrown. It was super fun. We left with enough sweets for the whole year. Plus we managed to wiggle our way next to santa for a picture.

Here are the cute little kids of the familia Serrano. Its a tough debate between who the cutest boy is in this picture. Diego is the toodler. He is three almost four and apparently didnt want to be in this picture.  and Alonzo is the little baby with the huge cheeks. He is 13 months. 

So here is something we found quite interesting about Chile. Apparently this years favorite Christmas decoration was Santa Claus playing the saxiphone. We saw at least a dozen of these life size creatures on balconies, porches, and even in houses of investigators and members. We offically call him "Saxi Santa!" Also this was at the same house that I sent as the coolest Christmas display. You can see one of the awesome trees that werent clear in the other photo. Saxi Santa was a last minute addition it seems. 

Favorite plant. Not that the plant is my favorite but that most people think they can just cut their plants like this and that the average size person can walk under it. It happenes all the time with trees and bushes and now this vine. We call it the average latin height plant:)

So.... this may not be an average market, but for the dogs this is as good as it gets. We took several pictures of this dog eating some roadkill. Of all the weird things the market has to offer, this was the grossest in the dog market. 

So I left my camera at the house, so I am still missing some photos from the challenge. These pictures were ones we took with Hna Crum`s camera. 

So before you watch this video there is some explaining to do. Well we were out taking photos one day, Hna Crum learned that you could pause the video recording on her camera and then continue to record again. So one night before bed she attempted to make a movie like a flip book. She wanted to attach a whole bunch of quick shots together using the pause button. Well, as you will see she hadnt quite figured out when the camera was paused and when it was recording. I happen to think it is hilarious, but it may be one of those "have to be there moments". Let us know. 

Split it. Like a banana. In half. Break yourself in the process.

Well, I figure I will be seeing you guys in a few short days, so I will make this email short so we can chat it up on Thursday.


"M" wasn't able to come to church on Sunday,  not because she is busy,  but because she is moving to Antofagasta. Oppostition is not really that fun, but hopefully the missionaries in her new sector can get to her as well. The governement strike ended though so "M.T." can go and get her divorce done. That is a blessing! She still has her baptismal date for May:) 

Hna Crum and I had our ward Christmas activity this week. It ended up being great, although at the start we were a little worried. We wanted to have a fun gift exchange and told everyone to bring a gift that was 4 dollars or less. Well, I guess they didnt understand those instructions, even though we explained a million times how to play. People were still asking who they needed to bring a gift for and what would happen if they all brought a gift for the same person. We explained all could be used as back up gifts. We spent a lot of the day decorating the chapel and in the end about 35 people came. Several did not bring gifts, which was a huge concern at first, but with our extra gifts and the extra gifts from the bishop we were perfect! It was a ton of fun and the ward really got into it. We also had four investigators show up, so it was an overall Christmas  success!


By the way, I love the family pictures. They are adorable. Ivory is really getting tall and Jett looks like a little chubbster. 

 SO, we had tranfers last Saturday, and of course I am staying with Hna Crum to finish up training, but guess what???? My other hijita got transfered into our sector in Calama!!!! She is actually in Ticapilla which is like 2 and a half hours away, but its still the Calama zone. This Saturday we had Christmas confernece with the mission president and it was like a family reunion hahaha. Cant you see the resemblance??

Christmas Challenge Continued...

Coolest Rock:

So Louie is not in this picture, but I figure it still counts. This is the train that transports all of the purified cooper ( coolest rock obviously:). Its a little blurry but those are stacks of cooper plats. Each stack has 7 plates and each plate weighs about 1000lbs. The cooper is also 99.8 % pure (if I remember correctly). This train rolls through the sector about 5 times a day carrying all of these platese. After taking the picture we left coins on the tracks to have a smashed penny effect when the next train passed. It totally worked!


Favorite transportation:

The Tur-Bus,  official Mormon transport:) I especially love the buses because theyre double deckers. The best seat is the front row on the top. You feel like you are going to crash all of the time, but you have an awesome view and more leg space. 

Favorite Exercise hahah. P90X all the way lol:) Also you can see our lovely apartment in the background!

I love you guys. Have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Challenge Continued

Well, we got the answer from president and he is not going to be able to interview "J" until January. That's not too far away at least. Plus the extra time will let extra preparation and conversion happen, and we will be able to work with her family a little bit more. So it's all for the better in the end. 

This week was fairly better than last week. I was at least feeling better (mentally not physically that's a whole other story). We are working with "M" (a new M) and things have been going pretty well. She has several beliefs that are right in line with ours. It's pretty funny because she asks us a question and waits for the answer and then is like  "oh that's what I read in the bible as well. awesome". So it is kind of funny. Her most recent question was about the Virgin Mary. We told her that we respect and honor her as the mother of Jesus, but that we do not adore her. I was a little worried because normally that question is followed by stories in that the Virgin helped the person. However, to my surprise. She was like " oh, that's good because it seems like God doesn't like it much when we adore others or images". She has a ton of faith and we asked her if she would prepare herself for baptism. She didnt want to commit to a date or anything because she has a lot of questions about the Priesthood and doesnt want to be baptized by someone corrupt or who is only worthy on Sundays at church. She said that she didn't know if God`s power could really be on earth and also she didn't know how she would able to identify it. We told her that she would need to come to church and get to know some of the preisthood members. We explained that God makes use of regular, but worthy,  men to bless us all. This past Sunday, she was traveling to Antofagasta, but she commited to come to church this up coming Sunday. We are super excited. The cutest part of the lesson was the end. She said the closing prayer and started with "Dear Heavenly Father". I was super happy because it shows that she is changing and probably studying the pamphlets. At the end, however she just said "amen" and finished, so then I was like ok maybe she wasnt studying hahaha. However, she then said " wait, I forgot `in the name of Jesus Christ`. I cheered silently:)

Louie at church:)

This wasnt part of the challenge, but I think it wins for creepiest Christmas. Louie even got scared!

This was definitely the coolest display we have seen yet. Unfortunately you cant see the awesome lights in full effect. But the trees twinkle in cute pastels. They are seriously beautiful..Also your questions about Christmas traditions here: so normally with lights..... a ton of houses have lights outside on their house. They are even some reindeer and santas. However, the normal lights are normally bright and flashy. The more its hurts to look the better. It is super funny. I find the US is much more romantic and classy when it comes to outside decor. The trees are also super fun here. They will strand like 6 different types of lights on these babies (again sunglasses needed to look at them). 

Apparently as well, the majority of their Christmas takes place on Christmas eve. They have a big dinner with the family and such, but then open all of the gifts at midnight. I am still confused about when Santa comes if the kids never go to sleep, but he makes it work. 

There is also a traditional holiday drink here I think equivalent to our eggnog, but its coffee with milk, sugar, vanilla, and then some other flavoring called "cola de mono" (monkey tail). It is traditionally served with alcohol, but can also be made without. Plus they have a coffee substitute here called Eco that is made out of wheat, so they also make mormon cola de mono.

Louie with H and Y. They are some recent converts that we had Family Home Evening with this week. They are definitely hilarious. Y is from Colombia and H is from Venezuela. They are always trying to get us to learn their dances and music and such. Now, I have the desire to go to Colombia:)

For the FHE we created manger scenes with waffers and marshmallows. I would say this is the best decorated house (or manger hahaha)

Well, i got a little behind on the challenge this week, but there will be more coming. I love you guys:)

Hna Biggs

Christmas Challenge!

Its been a hard week really, but I will just have to keep pushing through. We are hoping for some Christmas miracles since during this time people are more receptive to Jesus Christ. You guys have probably heard about the "He is the Gift" video. The church is doing huge stuff here in Chile with it too. On Sunday the 7th the church bought out the head title of youtube (just like in the states i think), and we have been given a million pass along cards to give out. We showed the video at church and are inviting the members to give the cards to their friends. Plus, we are doing more street contacts than ever. Hna. Crum and I are in all out war to give out more cards each day. Its a lot of fun. In addition, we have met a lot of people and have a few return dates for this week. We are also hoping to go to the ferria next sunday after church and set up a little stand to get people interested and invite them to come to church for Christmas Sunday. I think we are going to see great results:)

So Louie had some interesting adventures this week. Unfortunately he is not in half of these pictures because I hadnt made him yet, but the events were too great I couldnt help but snap pictures.

So Louie´s first big adventure was our walk to the waterfall. We have been told that it was a meter tall, but still I thought it would be fun to see some life in the desert, so we set out.. 

We got mildly distracted by the llamas and donkeys. 

The first cow I have seen in the mission! Right after this we started debating if the sign was correct that said that the waterfall was 4 km away. 

We thought this might be it, and Hna Crum was ready to turn around:)

Then we saw the waterfalls! They were actually way cooler than we had imagined, but also further away. 

I have some more pictures, but Ill spare the storage space in the email.  Here are some requests from the holiday challenge. 

***FYI***

Our family celebrates the 24 days of Christmas with a little treat each day.  Because we are unable to mail a treat each day to Emilee in Chile we asked her to give us a daily treat.  We first challenged her to make a replica of our Elf on the Shelf  "Louie" and then each day complete one of our photo challenges with Louie in the picture.  Here are the first results of our challenge!  

Morning Hair: We call this the elf hat. it works great for the oil treatments I do about twice a weeks:) Hna Crum obviously didnt want part in this pic at 7 am.

Something weird that we ate: I didnt take an after photo but we made avocado ice cream. It was surprisingly good, but we had to fashion our trash can into an ice cream maker and roll it across the floor forever:)

Something unusual: Jello slurping races

Another something unusaual that we saw this week,  Louie wasn't there though. It's one of the religious dances that they do here during carnival and for the Virgin Mary. Its called caporal and its the most popular. Last Febuary I knew four people on this same team that competed, so it was awesome to see the dance. 

 And... finally the wash and wear skirt.

Gourmet Sins

  Bueno I dont have much time today because we had to go a buy a crazy huge closet and got trapped waiting in ¨Lider¨(literally the same store as Walmart) forever. I didnt realize how big on customer service I was until today haha. It was terrible, but then we got together with some other sisters and went out for lunch at Gourmet Sins. A little ironic that 6 sisternaries wanted to go to gourmet sins, but the hamburgers were amazing.

​

  Good news! "J" has still been living the word of wisdom and should be getting baptized next Saturday! This week we have to arrange the interview and then we will be in the home stretch. She has been doing really well, and says that she no longer has a desire to smoke or drink! We have also gotten a lot closer to her family which is a huge miracle! Her younger brother even came to church on Sunday all by himself. He just stayed for the first hour and then part of young mens, but it was great. Her aunt has also been receptive although she says she is not. 

 We met another great investigator whose name is "D". She is the cousin of one of the converts and started attending church when her house burned down.  She knew that the Mormon church had helped her cousin leave drugs and alcohol, so she asked for help with her house. A few weeks has passed and she found a new apartment to rent while she tries to figure everything out and its in our sector. She really feels that our church is going to help her accomplish her goals of getting closer to Heavenly Father and Christ. The lesson we had was really great. She had some questions, and we all felt the spirit. The only thing is that she has decided that she wants to basically be a nun,  but in our church!! We were a little shocked since thats not something you normally hear, but thats what she wants. We quickly explained the importance of the family, but she wanted us to study the bible and see if we could find somthing that talked about being a wife of God or something like that. We both couldnt think of any place in the bible that talks about that, but we are preparing a lesson so that she understands how she can accomplish her goal (we suppose is) of returning to live with God. It was definitely a funny request and we asked the other sisters about it. They said we could say that Mormon nuns are sister missionaries hahaha. Not such a bad idea:) Anyways, we are excited to be meeting with "D" and hope things continue to go well. 

Well thats all we have time for today! I love you guys so much!

Hna Biggs

When's Thanksgiving?

FIRST.................... you WILL miss me on Thanksgiving??? Apparently since Chile doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, my companion and I were convinced that Thanksgiving was this week. So to be honest, we ran to the grocery on Thursday to buy food to make Thanksgiving lunch. We thought we were super cute and everything turned out perfect. BUT if now you are insinuating that Thanksgiving is this week, we are going to have to do it all over again. We are laughing so hard at ourselves right now. 

Yup there is all of the beautiful work... one week early. We made mashed potatoes and gravy, deviled eggs, asparagus, sweet carrots, oven baked chicken and potatoes. It was delicious! We even finished it off with the best pie ever made. It was oreo crust with vanilla pudding and bananas and topped with whipped cream. We ate the whole thing in less than 24 hours. 

To make matters even more embarrassing, we even decorated for Christmas by hanging ornaments and and stringing popcorn. We spent the whole time singing Christmas music and reminiscing about the Macy´s Day Parade (which although I havent been home for Thanksgiving in 3 years now, I never have missed the parade) This is just embarrassing. Happy Holidays:)

Well I guess the good news is that "J" has another baptismal date for the 13th of December and has been clean for 2 weeks already. Also we had two great lessons with her grandmother and had a "once" with her aunt and cousin. We are really making progress. One of our investigators also told us that she is going to get a divorce, so that she can marry her boyfriend and she now has a baptismal date for May 2015. Our fast was also greatly answered this week and we met 3 new investigators and 2 new families. It was amazing. But the whole Thanksgiving thing is pretty embarrassing. 

I love you all and will get over the embarrassment at some point. At least nobody else has to know about this mistake except for my companion and I. Love you all. Happy Thanksgiving!

Hna Biggs
Video Emilee's companion took of their holiday decorating:

Keeping It "Sexy"

This week was pretty good. We missed a day of work in our sector because we went to Tocapilla for Hna. Crum´s visa, but besides that we were able to get a lot accomplished. One of our investigators went to get her divorce filed!! We are super excited. It takes about a month and then she will need to get married, but this is difinitely a big step for her. She has been attending church pretty regularly, so I can only imagine it will be a few months before she gets baptized. J is doing better. She's been pretty restrained to her house, but it helps keep her safe. She went to church this week, and we tried to get her grandmother involved in the lessons, but she got up after a few minutes and never came back. We are going to try to be a Little more agressive this week. I know she has been prepared with all of this chaos; we just have to help her recognize this. Some of our investigators are already starting their summer vacations, so that makes it hard to find them. However, we are looking to have real miracles this transfer and are giving it our all to try to find new people. 

We have also started doing service with this elderly home in our sector. We went on Saturday to serve them once and we are going back next Saturday to clean up the garden and outdoor area. 7 members were able to go with us and we had a ton of fun talking with the people. There was this one old lady that fell in love with all of the old men. We noticed that she had her nails painted and she told us that she likes to keep "you know how they say..... everything sexy." It was super hilarious. One of the other old ladies had a person visiting her and we got to talking about her job and work and such. The visitor is a single mom and a really hard worker. She told us about how one of her children had died and we were able to testify of the plan of salvation. The spirit was really strong, and hopefully we will be able to get a hold of her this week. The elderly home has been a fun Little way to mix up the traditional missionary work, but it also worked as a great service for the Ward. I hope it will really help them become more united, they seemed to enjoy it. 

This week was our ward´s primary program, and though it was nothing like your guys program it was still pretty cute. How did your primary program go or is it this Sunday? 

Well I hope everyone has a fun week. I love you all:)

hna Biggs

Pictures from when I found out who I was training!!

Warning! Heavy Traffic: llamas, alpacas, goats, and sheep

Summer is coming in full swing here and although its still not terribly hot, the sun stings. My poor new companion has a super red neck and scalp! Its super sad. Oh by the way, I am training Hna. Crum! She is from Mesa, Az and went to MVT too. She graduated in 2013 and should know Tanner and knows Bailee as well. Her first name is Jenna (Jenavieve) so maybe Bailee can remember. It's super funny to be able to talk about the same streets and places and everything. However, I have realized all of things that I dont know have happened. She knowa a  ton of new music and events and I am just like " yeah I guess I have been here for a while". Ive gotten into my own little Chilean world, and I forgot that the other world exists I guess. Hahaha I suppose I will be in for a rude awaking in a bit. 

The work is still progressing here. We found two new investigators and they both seem super great. We are doing a lot of praying and trying to work efficiently so we can have great success. J seems to be moving in reverse. We went to visit her on Saturday, but she wasnt home. Her grandma told us to come back the next day and said she wanted to go to church with her on Sunday. Well, the next day we returned and about 30 seconds after we walked in, J came stumbling in completely drunk. It was really sad to see. I dont know her that well, but I can imagine she is going through some pretty rough stuff right now. Her grandmother has become very receptive and opened up to us about J and her family life. It is extremely sad and somewhat frightening. Hna. Crum and I were praying about what may be helpful to teach not only J, but also her family, and I remembered a talk that one of the Santiago mission presidents gave to us during my time at the MTC. He talked about the powers of the atonement. He classified them as the Redeeming power, the Strengthening power, and the Healing power. The redeeming power helps us to overcome our sins when we take actions that separate us from Heavenly Father. The strengthening power of the atonement is when lack of knowledge, conversion, pride and other things like that seperate us from God. Finally, he talked about the healing power of the atonement that helps us overcome the things that happen to us that may separate us from God, but that we arent necessarily responsible for having happened, such as abuse. We need the three powers in different moments of our lives, and Hna Crum and I feel like that may be a message that J and her family could need to progress a little bit more and fully trust in God and Jesus Christ. We have an appointment on Tuesday and are praying to have a lot of Holy Ghost help!

I love you guys and hope that you have an awesome week. try to relax with those days off. Take care!

Hna Biggs

Meeting hijita in Antofagasta!

Today we went to San Pedro de Atacama and visted this awesome Laguna! Water in the driest desert in the world!

San Pedro is the little town of green behind me!

Got stuck in traffic behind this herd of llamas, alpacas, goats, and sheep!

Baby Number Two!

This week we didnt get to work as much as I would have liked. Monday and Tuesday we didnt get any lessons in, but certainly walked a lot. On Wednesday, I finally took a half sick day due to some respiratory problems. But I am much better now, so I am grateful for that. Then on Thursday we went to Tocapilla again to do Hna. Wisrock´s visa, and we were gone all day. Finally for the weekend we could get some quality missionary work done. 

We keep seeing miracles with J and her family. This week her grandmother went out of town, so she was living with her mom. When we went to visit them they were preparing to go Trick or Treating, so we did their makeup and then went out with them to ask for tricks while simultaneously doing contacts. We didnt get any candies, but met some fun people. J´s mom asked us to come and visit her, so we are super stoked! Her mom has had some hard consequences for her decisions, and I can imagine would love to know that she can be clean and forgiven. I cannot wait to see the whole family progress! It was certainly a Halloween miracle ( if that exists:) 

We couldnt get a hold of R or C  this week. We had appointments, but they werent there. Hopefully this week we can get in contact again. 

Well to continue the craziness of this week, Saturday was the end of my 7th transfer, and Hna Wisrock got assigned to serve in Antofagasta. And................ I will be training AGAIN!! I am super excited, but kinda nervous that I will have a gringa this time and have to teach her Spanish. There are only 4 sisters coming this transfer and someone heard that they are all gringas, so I am trying to prepare myself. We will see. I am going to Antofagasta Wednesday morning to learn who she is and take her to Calama. I cant wait!!!!!

So Sunday was spent on good-byes for Hna Wisrock. It was a lot of fun, but still I am pretty new to the sector considering I just got here 4 weeks ago. I know the streets and everything, but dont feel that I have gotten to know the people so well. Hopefully they dont all think I am weird and dont want us to visit them hahah. That would stink, but I think we will be fine. 

Its going to be an exciting transfer! Have an awesome week. Hopefully it isnt as crazy as this past one. Good luck with the new show!!

Hermana Biggs

Good byes with Bishop Martinez and his family

   

More Goodbyes:)

Fun with the Tocapilla district for the day!

and the best goodbye..... to our crazy apartment. We moved into our much more relaxed (and bigger) place on Saturday! This is the old place,but I will take pics of the new one next week.

Another Grand Miracle

Wow that sounds like a pretty big Halloween week. I cant believe that its already holiday season again. We have seen a few Christmas decorations already at the stores, and today we went to the mall (first mall I have been to in Chile) and there was a Christmas song on the radio. I was messing around on the piano the other week and tried a few Christmas hymns. I think its going to be pretty difficult to get through the season seeing as I almost started crying during the First Noel, but I will make it through. 

Yesterday afternoon we had a stake activity about missionary work with the members. Different members shared experiences they had had with missionaries or as missionaries and then I talked about how big of an influence members have in missionary work. At the end the stake president had put together a little flyer for the members to invite us and a non member friend to once. we had a pretty positive response and now have several appointments with members that have promised to bring a friend to a fun night. We are pretty happy about everything and have hopes. Unfortunately not our whole ward attended, so I think we will have to get some more of the flyers and present it during church or something. 

We had a funny experience on Wednesday this week. We left the apartment with a lot of hope, but quickly the hope turned to dispair. Not only did our appointments fall through, but our back up plans werent home either. We tried going to several houses but nothing was resulting. We decided we could just try doing street contacts instead and wait until it was a little later and more people might be home. However, with every street contact that we did, not only were the people not interested but they all had their own negative comments and insults to say to us. One after one.

 We were getting severely unexcited when someone walking by said, "hi, how are you guys doing? I always see you guys walking all over". I thought that this must be our reward. We started talking and he was really sweet. However, quickly the conversation turned to more insults and negativity. When we finished sharing our testimonies we left tragically upset. Missionary work can be hard, but never had I had so many problems in one day in only a few hours time. We decided to sit down and relax for a minute trying to think what we could do to recover our happiness. 

After about ten minutes we decided, to try to go and visit a member that lived close by and could be in her house. When we arrived, we saw that all of the youth were gathering at her house to have a BBQ in random celebration. We were super surprised, but then she invited us to participate as well. We were more than happy! Nothing to heal a wounded misionarys heart like a good BBQ, but that wasnt the end. Not only could we help them get everything ready, but then several non member friends came and two less active youth. It was amazing. We were able to meet some new people and all we did was walk into a BBQ. It was really a testimony to me of the grand help that members really all. We had gone all over the place trying to find people and here they had arrived without thinking. It was awesome. 

I could also see that sometimes Heavenly Father just tests us and tests us more and THEN we recieve the blessings. I thought that that nice guy who approached us was going to be our reward after having such a unproductive afternoon. I was suprised when clearly it was not the reward we thought it was going to be. However, sometimes, I suppose life is just like that we give our all and then he requires a little more. His blessings come but in His own ways and in His own time. 

I love you guys. Good luck with all of the Halloween responsibilities

Hna Biggs

PS. I forgot about the photos.  There are some of me and my companion with our hard hats and vests heading to the Chuquicamata mine tour. We loved the hats hahah. The first part of the tour went to the ghost town where the workers used to live until they found out that the air was really toxic. That freaky pinocho is from a parade that the city had that was left there. The city was so odd, because it was super normal but totally deserted. Everyone just left. There are still street signs and schools with desks, banks, grocery stores, etc all just sitting there. However, the mine has been getting so big that some of  the city is now covered. There was a hospital but its covered with dugged up ground. We saw like nighborhoods and then all of sudden the giant hill of dirt. It was odd.

The Book Of Mormon Is True

My companion and I are doing well. It took some time for her to get comfortable because I think her past companion might have been a little interesting, but I just tried getting to know her and talking about her interests and life and I think she has become a little more loving and open.  

We didnt end up having the baptism on Saturday; it is now rescheduled for November, but we will see what happens. To be honest J has some strong struggles but a really stubborn attitude. We were trying to focus this week on how Heavenly Father has the power to do anything if we trust and put faith in Him. We asked her to share her testimony with us, and she has made some big changes. It is really interesting working with her, but we have faith that she will keep progressing and hopefully apply the gospel to her life. 

This week we had so much going on. On Tuesday we had interviews with President Dalton. On Wednesday night and all of Thursday we went to Tocapilla to do my companion´s visa. We finally got back and could have some regular days for the weekend, but it was crazy. Tocapilla is a little city about three hours from Calama on the coast. It was so beautiful! I loved it. Unfortunately we spent a grand part of the day at Immigration and the FBI, but it was still fun. 

We met a new investigator who works at a little shop in our sector. Her name is "C" and she seems really sweet. Her scheldule is really busy with work, but she is anxious to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We are really trying to stress to all of our investigators the need to read and pray in order to gain the first parts of a lasting testimony. I love teaching about the Book of Mormon and presenting it to people. The reacctions to additional scriptures are normally pretty mixed, but we can always reason that God loves all of His children and communicates with all of them. I know that the strongest part of my testimony, the part that will and does get me through any doubt is the answer that I recieved when I asked if the Book of Mormon was true in 2011. I cant deny the answer that I recieved and for that I know that the church is really the true church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. 

In Preach my Gospel, it says that whatever person, member or not, can read and pray about the Book of Mormon and receive an answer to that prayer. We are asking all of the members and less actives (and investigators) to put that statement to the test! I know that they can receive answers. 

Today for P-day we went to Chuquicamata which is a huge cooper mine about a half an hour from Calama. It was a ton of fun and I have awesome pictures, but I forgot to bring my card reader so you'll have to wait til next week, sorry. 

I love you guys and hope you have a great week

Hna. Biggs

We Interrupt This Mission For A Transfer

I arrived in Calama on Tuesday night after an eleven hour bus ride. I have now officially seen all of the cities in the missions expect for Vallenar,  so that is pretty cool!   My companion is Hna Wisrock from Huntington Beach California.  We dont have too many investigators but many of them are progressing, so we are super excited,  but still focusing on finding new people.

In our sector we dont have a mamita to cook for us, so I finally get to try out some of the Chilean recipes I have been gathering for the last nine months.  Maybe I will have them perfected by the time I get back to the states. Its kinda funny that I have already been here for nine months. I guess now when people ask if I know this or that missionary, I normally do. I occassionally speak faster than the Chileans (which is a true record:) and my personal studies are much more profound than just reading Preach my Gospel lessons and the scriptures listed.  When people ask if I have a story about some sort of experience, I normally can answer postively, so its kind of a weird feeling.   I have a lot of fine tuning and improving to do, but I think I am finally feeling different.  The mission has been so awesome and fulfilling, I can only imagine how much I will be able to grow in the last nine months.

I love you guys and hope you had an awesome break. I guess I should start awaiting to have an iphone when I get home then:) how awesome! Be careful of internet usage with everyone, you can easily run into things you hadnt planned on: I love you guys!

 Ghosty lives on!  (Emilee's fish she had for years that died last year)

My new companion and I.

Calama Here I Come

 The new address to send packages is: Casilla de Correo 70, Antofagasta Chile. Also, I did recieve my package! We came to Copiapo for Pday and the zone leaders brought it to me. Thank you so much! I am eating cadbury eggs as I write. The shoes are great and will be a big improvement considering the only other pair I have, have two giant holes in the bottom, so its like walking barefoot:) Thank you so much for the balloons and everything too. I really loved it all! 

Well, I have big news. I am getting a special transfer to Calama. President Dalton called me yesterday to ask if I would be ok with moving after only 2 weeks in my third transfer in Caldera. I was really depressed, but of course I had to say yes. He said that my new companion is really homesick, and her second companion wasnt helping, so I am going to be with her and her current companion is coming here. He reassured me that I was doing really great in Caldera, but I still have doubts hahaha, but whatever, he said not to worry. I leave tomorrow at 10:30am, but the other sister is arriving tonight at 7, so we will be in a trio for the night. I am super sad to be leaving and especially so unexpectedly, but I am sure Calama will be great. 

Today, we have just been running around like crazy saying goodbye and making last minute memories, so its been fun but a little hectic. 

Did you guys enjoy General Conference? I thought it was great! Plus we had a new investigator come for the last session, and Bednar´s talk about missionary work helped her to understand our enthusiam for the gospel. She has a few family members that are members and met with missionaries several years ago, but had told us that " She was too old to be baptized because she didnt have anything more to give". We thought it was a pretty funny answer, and hopefully General Conference gave her a needed spiritual experience. 

I liked the 70´s talk (dont remember his name for the moment) about how we can be more spiritually confident. He had like six ideas and talked really fast, but it was good. One of his tips was about making sure we felt good about our bodies. I thought it was kinda funny because we had listened to the Women´s meeting about "does God really care about our makeup and dress size?" and then he was like "if you need to make diet changes, make them", but I really liked it. 

Do you guys have any fun Fall break plans? I hope you guys enjoy the break. I love you guys so much!

Hermana Biggs

 Late Birthday Party with the Alcayaga family! Yum!

A nice view of Caldera. If you look closely you can see the chapel.

 My shortest time with a companion. Hermana King -2 weeks

Happy Sister missionaries with their packages from home!