What a way to wanna be

Fridays will forever be known as 'Pump It Fridays'. Ha ha I love Fridays! I woke up Friday morning and went on my run up the hill. Well it was the coolest thing, I was able to make it to the point where I have been turning around without stopping on Friday and when I got there I thought to myself, 'I can go farther.' So I did! It was amazing! I felt so strong and it felt so good to keep going up and up and up. I have been feeling so strong lately not just physically but spiritually as well. I have mentioned to a few people how much this experience is like the mission, but it seems that I am a much more successful teacher than I ever was as a missionary. I can't describe how awesome it is to see people come in with that excitement in their eyes telling us they have a job.

Friday night we met up with a guy in our ward Victor and we drove to the YSA conference which was held in a place called El Belloto A.K.A. the armpit of Vina del Mar. It wasn`t the nicest place on the planet, but we had a lot of fun getting dressed up and heading to the dance. We met some more friends, made some more connections and danced the night away. I still am not a fan of YSA dances here, but I guess it is something I will have to get used to. You`d think they would at least play a lot of salsa or merengue, but they play mostly regeton which is kind of like spanish hiphop/rap. Not my fav, but oh well. After the dance I stayed up playing guitar with my friend Juanjo till about 4 am. Seriously, I wish he would move to America and be my best friend. He is awesome. We spent the night with the conference goers which entailed sleeping on a very cold tile floor, so much fun :) I woke up about a billion times throughout the night without the ability to breathe, but I was better off than a lot of girls.

Pancha, Natali, me and Sarah at the dance.

Saturday morning was kind of a crazy experience. Everyone had gone to the beach the day before and aparently they hadn´t put on enough sun screen because our friend Natali had to go to the hospital with a really bad sunburn and what Sarah thinks was heat stroke. She is fine now but it was crazy. The night before they had to take two other people to the hospital because they were so burned. We had breakfast and then everyone was packing up, cleaning the building, but we didn´t feel all that obligated to stay, so we took off for Valparaiso. We went to the house of this famous poet, Pablo Neruda. He is CRAZY! Well not crazy, but just very intricate. Every wall was painted a different color or with different patterns of designs and he had a plethora of things, lots of stuff. He was an amazing poet, horrible husband and an upstanding statesman of Chile until the government was taken over, at which point he was thrown out of the chilean congress (he was a senator). After his house we went to the beach, hoping that the clouds would burn off...They didn´t. It was a fairly boring Valentines Day.

Victor, me and Sarah in Valpo.

In the front yard of Pablo Neruda´s house facing the beach, this was the only sun we saw all day.

Sunday was a great day. AFter church, the sister missionaries came over and ate with us. I made fajitas and they were SO good! The sisters are so great and I just love being around them. One of the sisters, Sister Webber, and I are going to sing in sacrament meeting and at a fireside. She has an AMAZING voice. I am really excited. In the evening we had a family home evening and a lot of the Single Adults came over. It was really fun to have them in our house and become better friends with them. We are hoping to continue it!