June 20, 2011

Hello. This week I’m trying my email a little different. Hopefully this works haha!  
(Jake took photos of a hand written letter)

Anyways, this week has been a little different… There is a member family who are the familia Gatica. When I first got here one daughter (Estella) was on her mission. Well Estella got home this last week and asked us to teach her brother about baptism because his baptism is coming up. So we go over to teach the younger brother, David. Estella, Blanca (other sister), Walter (who is about 30 & weird) and the parents were all at home too. The Dad is in bed very sick.  The way their house is set up has us all in a room with a bed to the side.  So before we start teaching, Estella tells us Walter doesn’t know about the baptism. And sure enough right when we started teaching Walter started going crazy and the sisters were trying to shut him up. Eventually he did and finally we got to teach.  It was kind of a crazy/funny situation cause the sisters were laughing with us. Well when we were done we left and went home.  The next day we find out that the dad died that night…so we plan to go over and talk and support the family. Well right when we get there we see Estella running away mad and her sister asks us to help find her. So we were looking all over for her and can’t find her so we go back to the house and go inside and there is only a casket in the room we were in the night before and all these crazy people doing weird evangelic prayers and weird stuff. That’s why Estella was mad because the dad didn’t want that. Well eventually we leave and they ask us to come back the next day at 2:00pm.  So the next day at 2:00pm we go over to the house and there are a million people there. Then they said lets go and 6 guys pick up the casket and start walking and the group follows and all the crazy evangelicals sang their creep song over and over…Well we walked about 2 miles in the streets blocking traffic and when we get to the cemetery they put the casket in…And cement it closed (above ground graves here). Then when it’s done it starts pouring rain. After church the next day all of the members went to dedicate the grave. The end.


The cool photos I’m sending are from a place the Gatica girls took us today. Enjoy!

This week I got my package of ties and candy…thanks! So I’ve got both now. Things are good. It pours rain every day so I get soaked… The Patagonia jacket works well. 
I walk…a lot and hitchhike in pick up trucks. The buses are cool. They are pimped out school buses with strobe lights and all.  We aren’t having many lessons right now. Most people aren’t home for lessons or they are Catholic.

That’s all I can think of for now! Love you all. Talk to you next week!