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.