Hermana Ball: The city of Swans

This week has been the craziest week ever. I only have 35 minutes because today is a holiday- the "day of the Virgin" so none of the computer cyber's are open and we are just pumping this through the church.

First, I love being a Hermana lider (trainer) so much. It is so much fun to be talking with the girls and helping them out. We live so far out that we got to spend the night with some of our girls in a layover and I love them so much! I love learning, serving, teaching, and laughing with them.

Well family I am in Puerto Cisnes! Look it up. You are going to die. It took me 2 taxis, 5 buses, and an airplane to get here. It is the most isolated area in the whole mission- one of the buses was 4 hours up the Patagonian mountains. CRAZY.

I love my little pueblito. It is a fishing town with the population of about my high school, Lone Peak, and it is smashed between three sides of beautiful mountain and the ocean! I LOVE Puerto Cisnes. Fun facts- I sent a picture home of our house- the big yellow one. It’s an old church.

our house

Next cool thing, our actual church is just a house church. And have a branch of about 24 people. It is so cute- and it is a crazy experience because we do it all, we lead the music, we do talks, we switch off being the teachers- this week I am the teacher of old testament and part of primary. I looove it.

It's crazy. But, we have 2 investigators right now who I have faith in! Puerto Cisnes hasn’t had a baptism in 2 years and we are working with O, who is about 55 and so cute. She came to church with us and is sooo cute.

Fun facts about Cisnes:

-It rains. Oh boy, does it rain. But its all good because its crazy beautiful. Right now we were heading into summer, but I got transferred which means I haven’t seen real sun or had summer since Mexico and I won't see summer until I am back in good ole Utah! My whole mission has been in rain or more rain. But luckily here it stops in the afternoon for a little bit- ha-ha that’s when we snag photos.

Also we had our first Lider (training) meeting with all the zone leaders. It’s crazy because we had to Skype in. We also will be doing this for all of our district meetings because we are so far out. Ha-ha

There aren´t any grocery stores- Hinds quick stop would be a dream and we eat sooo much bread- (shoot.) but the cool thing is we eat in a little bed and breakfast with some members and the food is soo good. The best I have had my whole mission.

I am the only gringo for about 4 hours. So it’s a little overwhelming for some of the people. Lets just say in Sacrament a lady bore testimony of prayers being answered because she has been praying for a "gringa" to teach her English!

Our sector is so tiny. I love it. It takes us about 25 minutes to cross from one side to the other.

However, this week has been crazy. One of the member’s houses burned down, so as missionaries and as a branch we have dropped it all to help them out. It’s been incredible to see the love and service. All the women are cleaning the objects or clothes. The priesthood is helping with the house. And as missionaries we have taken over their daughter’s unfinished house to get it all set up for them.

Thank you dad for teaching me the ways. We have it gutted and painted this weekend. Then today we are going to head back over to paint and finishing up.