Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!  We were with Elizabeth for her birthday on Thursday, so we were able to celebrate a little something as well. She and her family are so amazing and wonderful to us. They gave us extra birthday cake to take home (that´s what I had for breakfast this morning, don´t judge.) If I have time after I write this, I´ll try to send some pictures.

Last Saturday as we were walking home, we passed by one of our investigators´ houses and noticed that something was a little different, it had burned down. Everyone was okay, but they had to move to a different part of the city and now they´re outside of our sector! Bummer, but at least they´re ok. I´m thinking it might be a blessing in disguise because her biggest obstacle was that she and her husband aren´t actually married. That´s a really big thing here because Chile has a program for single moms that helps them get a discount on houses or some sort of subsity or something like that, so what ends up happening is people live together and just never get married in hopes of getting a nicer house. They were waiting for that to go through for them for a house in Ovejeria when this happened. We went by their new house today to take some cookies and help clean everything thismorning, and the new house in Franke is a lot nicer and has a lot more room, so maybe they´ll stop waiting on the subsity for the other house and finally get married? Who knows. Also, her husband was never there when we taught her, but the missionaries in their new district are Elders, so he´ll have to be there in order for them to teach her, and I really think that´ll be the key for them.

We did divisions yesterday, which means we split up and worked with members. This was the second time we´ve done it this cambio, but the first time it was only for like an hour and the member I was with was an English teacher, but yesterday it was me and a 17 (Today is her birthday, so I guess 18) year old girl named Viroska from another barrio who doesn´t know any English. This really put my small talk abilities to the test... in Spanish. We made it work though. Her family isn´t really active, and when I asked her what it was that helped her to stay active, she told me it was because she had been going out with the missionaries since she was 14. I love hearing stuff like that. She is really sweet and loving and just all around awesome. There are two other girls in our ward who we´ve really connected with, Valentina and Antonia. Their mom is really awesome and we´re going to try to start teaching their dad on Thursday. (Keep that in your prayers!) There is another couple who we really thought we were going to have to drop because the wife was never there and the husband understands everything we teach, but just really doesn´t want to stop being Catholic. We decided to give it one last chance and bring Hermana Paulina (as in Paulina, Freddy, and Cristobal) with us. Yeah. The wife now has a baptismal date and the whole family is planning on coming to church on Sunday because Hermana Paulina is amazing.

This is the last week of the Cambio, so our zone will be changing at the start of next week. We went by the mission home this morning for something and got some insider info that both Hermana McShane and I are going to be staying here for another Cambio. I´m so glad because I LOVE the people we´re working with. I get to be here for when Cristobal and Elizabeth (and hopefully her sisters) get baptized! Amazing.

It´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Osorno. It´s an easier adjustment for me than it is for a lot of the other missionaries because in California it doesn´t snow at Christmastime anyway, so it kinda just feels like home. We´re singing in the Stake Christmas choir and we helped Paulina and Freddy and Cristobal (hereby to be known as La Familia Azocar-Vidal) put up their Christmas tree this week. It´s official!