A really great last FHE and the first day of the last workshop...

Tonight we went to our last FHE with the senior missionaries down here. The missionaries are serving in many different capacities here in Santiago, either with church administration, church health for the missionaries, temple missions or serving in mission offices. They have been some of our favorite people here and have taught us some amazing things. Tonight, the Leavitts were in charge and they decided to ask a few people to share significant experiences that were had around conference and how people prepare. They asked Sarah and I to share one from our lives and I shared my experience last conference. I was amazed as I talked about how I had been struggling and then how I felt as I heard Elder Cook´s talk ´Hope Ya Know We Had a Hard Time´ at how far I have come in just these six months. The Lord has been so good to me. I was also absolutely amazed at these wonderful missionaries, their faith, and all that they had been through in their lives. It was really the best last FHE.

In other news, I have some pictures!! I bought this cool little gadget that you can put your SD card in and it has a USB plug in, so here you go!!

A picture I am quite proud of of the temple...Amazing I know.

This is our workshop group from last week. Me, Daniel, David Andres, David, Jorge, Patricia, Andrea, Maria and Sarah.

Nell and our friend Ivan on the bus to San Jose de Maipo

Ivan working his negotiation magic to get us a private ride back to the city for about a dollar more and we got to stay longer too!

Ivan. :)

Sarah and Nell at the ranger station. Sarah looks so cute here :)

I am aware that it appears I took a lot of pictures of Ivan...I don´t know why.

All my single ladies! Ha ha these are the women of the hike. Daniella, me, Pancha, Sarah and Nell

And our fearless leaders. Nico, Ivan and Victor.

The fellowship of the hike. ha ha

Us white girls stickin together.

This sign says Rock Sanctuary...I thought it was kinda funny. How hard could the life of a rock be??

This is me about halfway up feeling really great about life. It was hot, but I had hiked 4k without dying.

Lunch break at the lagoon about 2k from the glacier.

And we made it.

Nell and I had just discussed how happy we were and decided to photo document it. I love Chile!

Um...the sign...

The view looking back as we hiked down.

My workshop from last week. Me, Gabriel, Marina, Victor, Christopher, David, Cristian, Nadia, Jorge and

Antonio´s dad cookin up some chicken while the lamb is roasting.

Me and Antonio behind roasting lamb.

Antonio´s dad attempting to take a picture while his crazy uncle tries to push me in the pool with all my clothes on...Nice.

The lamb roast.

Today we started our last workshop...We have 11 alumnos which is exciting, though we already know we are losing one so we are hoping to finish with ten. It was kind of a struggle today, they aren´t like any of our other groups so it was different. We have way more adults than PEF students which is interesting, but for some odd reason, they think they are the exception to the rule and that they don´t need to do anything to get a job, so we´ll see if their attitude changes...

Only one workshop left?

Thursday was a wonderful end to my second to last workshop. I really can´t believe I will only do this one more time and then I will be done...Where has the time gone? I don´t really even know why it was so good, but there was just a good feeling behind it all and everyone ended really pumped and excited about the steps they were going to take to finding work. What I loved the most was that in the phone calls, every single one of them called a reference that had been given them by someone else in the workshop. They were really so great with eachother. After the workshop was over I helped several of them with making email accounts. (It baffles me that people still do n´t have email, but that is why I helped!) I also helped Victor, a recent convert, with a resume and then sending it with a letter of presentation. It was really funny because I could tell how much he had listened because he kept quoting me. I also helped a few women who had come in to the center to make some resumes. This was kind of interesting to me, because I think it is hard for people in general to talk about themselves. Society tells us that talking about our talents is prideful, so when it comes time to do make a resume it is hard for some. Others really don´t even recognize their abilities. I am really greatful for the opportunity to teach this workshop because it has taught me to see my abilities and also the areas that I need to work on. I am also grateful my parents taught me to work at a young age. I look at these fifty something women who come in and have literally NEVER worked in their lives and I am just amazed that women twice my age have no experience in the work force.

Yesterday I had a huge scare because I had misplaced my thumb drive. Since my computer is not currently working, it is the only copy I have of my work from this semester, so it was a little scary for me. I found it, sent in some homework, and worked on a few pending projects. I finished a book yesterday and started another. I still have three I need to read, but I am confident I will get it done before it is due.

Sarah went to Argentina, but because I have a lot of homework to do before my dad gets here next week, I ended up not going. Antonio invited me to an asado (barbeque) that his family was having, so I went. They roasted a lamb and when I say they roasted a lamb, I mean, it was a little lamb body without a head and the hooves cut off and skinned. It was the coolest thing ever! It takes about five hours to do, but oh man was it worth the wait. It was SO good. We watched the Colo Colo game on T.V. while we waited and I had fun visiting with his family. They kept teasing me because they couldn´t pronounce my name. I teased back that I had no problem saying theirs and that they just needed to practice mine. Antonio´s immediate family are members, but his aunt and uncle who´s house we are at aren´t. It was really funny because his cousin was talking to me and asked me how to say my last name. I told him and he repeated it almost perfectly. Then with the straightest face he said, ´Check it out, I have one drink and I can speak english.´ We busted up laughing.

Completely Wednesday

It appears that the processor in my computer is bad, which is why it appears to turn on, but doesn´t do anything. Gregory, the guy from my workshop, took out the memory and messed with it and came to this conclusion. He could be lying for all I know, but he appeared to know what he was doing so I am going to believe him. This means I will have no computer until I get it fixed in the states which = no pictures. I am going to try to find another way, but in the mean time, know that my face doesn´t change much from day to day. :) I have most of my work for this semester saved on a thumb drive, so I am safe for now.

Today´s workshop was great as usual. I lost three from yesterday. Two told me they wouldn´t be there and apparently the other one had some sort of transportation problem. The interviews were really good today and it was kind of neat to see how everyone reacted to certain situations. I am always amazed at who does well and who doesn´t in the interview process and what these blunt latin americans will say in the interview. I have this really funny Argentinian lady that in her interview straight up said she still wasn´t a legal chilean citizen...I told her she should probably not say that. When we got to the weakness part of the workshop, I noticed how well I was able to help them work on that. Normally I tell them that I don´t know them well enough to help them thi nk of a weakness, but today I was able to talk them through the process. Gotta love growing moments.

I went to the temple today after work. I had kind of an interesting experience and I have no clue what it means, but it almost felt like the first time I went to the temple. I called my older sister and we talked about it and I realized that I have not been this spiritually strong since I got home from my mission. This experience has helped me to get back into those good habits I made as a missionary and look for opportunities to serve and what not. I´m still not sure what to make of my feelings, but I am grateful none the less that the Lord still knows me. :)

All Smiles

My computer is on the fritz again so I don´t have any pictures to post still because I can´t get them off of my camera...but as soon as it gets fixed (and I am hoping that happens tomorrow) I will be throwing some pictures up on here. I can´t believe I am almost done here...BUT MY DAD IS COMING NEXT WEEK! And I am so excited about that. It has been kinda crazy trying to get everything in order, but I am gettin er done as they say.

Today was a great start to a workshop. Sarah and I are split up again this week because we had quite a few signed up in both centers. I have a group of 12 which is a pretty good sized group and they are a lot of fun. I have quite a few Perpetual Education students and today I started off a little different by explaining to them that even though they aren´t specifically looking for a job and they have to be in the workshop as one of the prerequisits for the PEF, I hoped that they would really internalize the principles and realize that one day they WILL be looking for a job and that it was really important to learn the techniques now. They were all really good about it and made some jokes later, but for the most part were really on the ball and working hard which I was appriciative of. I really love this week´s group. They are all willing to help each other and stepped out of their comfort zone fairly quickly. During lunch they all sat around talking together about life and the mission and then they started teasing me saying that all Americans were rich and all sorts of funny stuff like that. I explained that my internship wasn´t paid so they should be buying me food since I am currently making no money. It was awesome.

I was pretty proud of myself too because I did a contact within my workshop. ha ha, one of my students works with computers and when I saw that I asked him if there was any way he could look at my lap top to see what was up. He messed with it and then told me he was going to bring a tool tomorrow to hopefully fix it. If not I can´t wait to get back to the states and get that thing figured out because having a lap top that doesn´t work is the most frustrating thing in the world.

I was thinking today about how much I have grown and changed in the last three months. My first workshop was very interesting...and now I feel like I can teach this thing with my eyes shut. I wonder if that will be how it is for me once I graduate. I truly hope so. The Lord has really blessed me with a lot of confidence while I have been here and I have learned so many things about life and what I want to do with mine. When I decided to come down here, I wasn´t really sure why, but I knew it was the right thing and I think looking at who I am now I can see just why Heavenly Father saw it fit to send me here...again :) This has been a mini mission like experience and it has brought to my rememberance all of the good that one person can do if they just love the people enough and put forth the effort. I will always remember that, and I will always do my best to love the people I work with and put forth an honest effort to help.

One Great Weekend

Friday I read all morning and finished another of the many books I have to read for my classes. It feels good to see that little stack of books I have finished get bigger and bigger and I am really enjoying most of what I have to read. The spanish poetry has been great because it has really broadened my vocabulary which has been fun. The other day in our workshop I used the word exponentially in spanish and Sarah commented on how impressed she was. I thought that was pretty funny.

Friday afternoon was amazingly wonderful. My friend Gustavo, who is awesome and really thoughtful, and I went on a tour of the inside of La Moneda (the Chilean white house, kind of). We had gone out to lunch on Monday and I had mentioned to him that I had been there several times and never gotten to actually get inside so he worked it out so that we were able to take a tour. What a stud. It was really interesting, a lot more to do with the art and what not of the inside than the actual building, but it was still really cool to be inside and to imagine all of these presidents I have read about walking the halls. They have a replica room set up to be like the office of Salbador Allende, the president who died in the military take over in 1973. It was pretty sweet. (pictures will be posted tomorrow, don't you worry)

Then Sarah and I went salsa dancing with two of our friends who served in my mission but that I pretty much met here. One of them, Antonio, took our workshop a few weeks back. We went to this really nice salsa club and it was so much fun to watch all of these people dancing. I think Latin dancing is just amazing and so much fun to do. Alexis our other friend that was there with us was really good and was teaching us moves (and by teaching I mean I just kept the rythm and let him throw me around the dance floor and look good). Antonio wasn't as good but we had a lot of fun laughing the whole time because I kept messing up and stepping on him or hitting other people...Woops!

We got home...very late and then woke up a few hours later to head on a hiking trip we had planned with some of the YSA from our ward. The hike itself was so beautiful and it was about 8k one way up to this glacier. (pictures to come tomorrow) The glacier itself wasn't that impressive since I am from Alaska and all, but it was so fun to be with friends out doing something sporty. I realized while I was hiking that I had met another one of the goals I had set for myself while I was here. A year ago if we had gone hiking I would have been the girl in the back struggling to get up the hill without dying of exhaustion, but since I have been working so hard at getting in shape while I was here, I was in the front. I felt pretty good about this. We all got a little sunburned (okay a lot sunburned) but we had such a fun time. On the way home, I sat next two this american girl on the bus/van ride and we talked a lot about the south. She is heading down south around areas of my mission teaching english so we talked about the south and a little about mormonism. She studied spanish in college but was shocked she couldn't understand the chileans here...I told her it wasn't spanish and that was her problem. :) It was cool talking to her and we exchanged emails so she could write me because she really wants to get hooked up with the YSA programs down there so she can have friends and what not. I am excited for the missionary opportunity. I also think she needs to marry my brother...

I can´t believe I will only do this two more times...

Today I think it really hit me that in two more weeks this will all be over. I think this time leaving Chile will be harder than it was in the mission...I have been there for more low points and helped more people reach high points. I really can´t believe its almost over.

The last day of class was good. We had two people land jobs, one of them actually had several job offers and had to decide which one was going to be better for her. Several others had interviews and it just seemed to be a very successful day. I don´t know how to explain how great it feels to have our workshop attendees just throw their arms around me and thank me for the workshop. I am going to miss that more than anything.

Tonight I went to the temple for the first time in a few weeks. I think with all my planning for Peru I got caught up and I wasn´t on the ball, so it felt good to get there. I am always amazed as I sit through the session that different things stand out to me as if I had never seen or heard them before. What stood out to me most this time was the principle of being obediente as it pertains to the specific blessings we are seeking. It amazes me how sometimes I will pray and pray for something, only to realize that Heavenly Father can´t bless me with what I want because I am slacking in that exact area. As I make those small yet important changes I can always see that specific area opening up in my life. I read President Monson´s talk this afternoon about Joy in the Journey and one part really stood out to me that was also along these lines. He said that there are two parts to our lives, the things we have and the things we lack. If we focus on what we have and not what we don´t, it minimizes the feelings of inadequacy and maximizes the happiness and love we feel and show for others. What an amazing concept.

We stopped by the institute building on our way home since it is on the way and hung out with our buddies. It seems like just in the last few weeks we have been making more and more friends. What luck! Ha ha no matter, we are still grateful for the friends we have and the things we have been planning with them. It will be so strange to be gone...

Second verse same as the first little bit louder and a little bit worse

Day two of this week´s workshop was a little frustrating today. We started almost twenty minutes late because no one was there until then, so we had no one to start teaching at the appointed starting time. Because we waited, we didn´t have as much time to do a lot of the activities and were kind of rushed. This coupled with the fact that they had a hard time with the power statements and actually writing things down instead of telling me that it was ´in their head´ made for a long day. By the time we got to the finishing time I was ready for a break! We didn´t get as far as we would have liked, but we still got a lot done.

The interviews today were interesting. We have two professionals and then a room full of not so experienced workers. It was almost a struggle to keep them on task because they would analize things to the point that the conversation would go in all sorts of crazy directions. The joys of being a teacher. On a good note, two of our alumnos have job interviews tomorrow. This means they won´t be in class, but they promised to stop by afterwards and let us know how it went, so we are excited to hear about it.

After work Sarah and I did divisions with the sisters and for the first time, we actually had lessons to teach with them. Ha ha, we usually do the temple grouds tours with them or walk around doing contacts, so it was exciting. The first lesson was to some investigators that I had met in the church. They come every once in a while and have been investigating for quite a long time. We sang Joseph Smith´s 1st Prayer (Hermana Webber has an amazing voice and we have plans to start a studio and do music in spanish together :) I love the power that hymns have. After that we did a new member lesson with their most recent convert a man named Manuel about the priesthood. He is really an amazing man and as we talked about him soon receiving the preisthood, he kept asking questions and essentially said, ´Are you sure I am ready for that big of a responsibility?´ I shared with him what President Monson said a few years back about callings, ´Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies.´ and explained to him that even though we may not know everything, the Lord calls us and then gives us the attributes needed to complete with the calling if we are willing to do our part and trust in him. After that we taught a peruvian couple Andres and Janet about the Plan of Salvation. They have a little baby, and when we got there the baby was kind of fussy and so I was worried about the lesson, but as we taught, the baby sat quietly, giggled and smiled the whole time. Little children are sometimes so much closer to the spirit then we think.

Its been a few days...

This is us at the dance on Friday. Sarah, Natali, Gustavo, girl I don´t know, Alan, me and Elder Quezada from my mission.

I have been slacking off with my blogging, so here is a catch up update.

Sunday I had a really amazing time at church. We happened to sit down next to some investigators in church and so I spent most of sacrament meeting teaching the guy I was sitting next to about our church. He had so many questions and I was so grateful the Lord had put me there to answer them. I felt like a missionary again and it brought back a lot of really tender memories for me. He is a really smart guy and was quite shocked about the word of wisdom, but he was impressed by it. He came to the YSA class with us and the lesson was on missionary work so myself and another return missionary talked to him more about the service that we give in the church as missionaries. He said he really liked church and that he was going to come back next week, so I am excited about that.

Sunday night we of course had FHE and the lesson was really awesome. Victor played this video of a graduation that Steve Jobs (the owner\creator of Pixar) gave that was amazing about goal setting and never giving up. I set a few long term and short term goals that I am really excited to complete. One of them is my upcoming marathon challenge in September. I doubt I will be ready for it, but each week I am putting in a few more miles so I am excited to actually complete it. The other two were kind of random, but ones that I have been thinking about a lot lately. I really want to start some sort of scholarship program to bring latin americans to the U.S. to study english. I don´t know why, but one day Sarah and I talked about it, and ever since then I have been thinking about how much that would help them, just to be able to learn english and then take it back to t heir country and use it. I am sure this won´t happen for many many years, but it is something that I really want to do. The other goal I have is to write at least one song in my life time that makes it to an EFY CD. That would mean a lot to me.

Monday I went running. It almost killed me but I did it and I am glad I did. I cleaned the house and then met up with my friend Gustavo for lunch. He took me all around and I had a really good time chatting with him. I feel like I have been really blessed in my time here to come in contact with some amazing people. Monday night was of course our FHE with the senior missionaries which was really interesting and about the Mountain Medow Massacre. I had never really heard anything about it so it was pretty interesting to me. Then of course we watched 24 with Todd and went to bed.

Yesterday´s workshop was AMAZING! We have a group of nine and they are all really energetic which makes it so much fun. Sarah and I were at our best (we are stoked to be teaching together again) and it just flowed so well. We had a few that were a bit skeptical of our methods, but over all they were just thrilled with what we were teaching them and were just feeling so good. They love us, we love them, life couldn´t get any better.

After the workshop I seriously put the pedal to the metal and I wrote three papers yesterday. Yeah, I am that cool. I am feeling good about what I am doing and I think I will be able to get everything done well before their deadlines. This is a good thing.

I also started calling people down south to let them know I am going to be down there. I am so excited and I really can´t believe this is going to happen. I am so excited to be there with my dad and show him the most beautiful places on earth!!

I met up with Sarah after her shift in the temple and we were going to go grocery shopping, but we ended up going out to eat with our ward that had just gotten out of Institute. It was fun and we laughed a ton which is always good...My time is going by too fast!!

Another great day

I feel like my time left here in Chile is slipping by. I still have about five weeks including the time I will be down in my mission with MY DAD! WOOP WOOP I just found out he is coming and I am so excited about that. But I really have loved the past couple of days. It feels like I just got off the plane from Utah a few days ago and now, in a few weeks, I will be getting on that plane again, and maybe for the last time...

Today was awesome. I went into the office in the morning to get some homework done. I am one paper away from finishing two of my classes and then I just have my big research paper to get done before May 7th. While we were there, one of the missionaries that was in our ward that finished his mission last week came in with his parents and a convert so that she could get some help finding work. I had a great chat with his parents about the programs of the church and what not. They brought up a good point that here, people become very creative in t heir ways to earn money when they are out of work, whereas a lot of times in the states, people just go on welfare. I had never thought of it before. The thing that they don`t do here at all is plan for the future which is something I am not that great at doing but that I am trying to be better at seeing all the hurt that it causes families down here.

After homework I came home and read some more for one of my classes. My life is so interesting sometimes :)

Sarah got off work early and we went exploring down town a little. I had been to quite a few places, but she hadn`t so we walked around. I bought a really cool little Don Quijote figurine made out of nuts and bolts. It sounds really dumb, but it is really cool. I have started buying things to decorate my classroom with after I graduate. It sounds weird I know, but I want to have cool stuff to put on the walls, so I am trying to buy stuff like that now. Sarah got some cute stuff for her family too.

After that we went to an institute dance. This one was even better than the one I went to before I left for Peru. The place was JAM PACKED! We danced with our friend Gustavo most of the night and he saved us from some creepy guys. There was this guy that was dancing with our friend Natali that didn`t belive I was American until I spoke to him in English. I was having a lot of fun dancing and they said that they had never seen a white girl `tan suelto`or let loose basically. I laughed. When there is more people in the dances, it makes it less uncomfortable for me to have fun, so I was grateful for that. Gustavo invited us to a fireside on Sunday so we are going to try and go.

Hold me closer Salsa Dancer!

I can't wait to explain the title.

Today was an AWESOME end to the workshop. We started with the phone calls and two of my workshop goers landed interviews. They were so excited and so was I. The spirit in the room was just so different from the way it had been on Tuesday when they got there. We had a really good time in the last few hours and I even ended a little early so that the two that had interviews could run home and get ready before they went. At the end of the workshop, each of them took the time to thank me personally, I got a big hug from each of them and I just felt SO great about how the workshop had turned out.

After the workshop, I stayed behind and helped one of my alumnos in making her very first resume. She was so cute but I had to pull some of the information out of her because she wasn't sure what to put down. It was fun to work with her one on one and know that this was a big deal. She came into the workshop today so excited because she had found two job offers that were specifically for LDS youth and she was just bursting with the possiblity to work there. I am excited to hear how it went.

After the workshop I went home and did homework. Part of that was doing an interview with one of the guys from our ward a guy named Victor. He is a thirty something that works in computer programming. It was really interesting to learn about how he got to be working in what he is working in and his views on Chile and politics and what not. I asked him about the economic crisis that is happening here in Chile (and everywhere else for that matter) and he said something extremely profound. He said that the church has always told us to not live beyond our means, to save up and to not have any debt, so he had always done that and even though his job hasn't been affected by the crisis, the raise in prices and costs hasn't affected him at all. What a faithful guy!

Okay, now comes the good part. Sarah and I went to salsa lessons tonight where that guy had invited me earlier. We got there about 10:30 because we were helping our friend Nell with her spanish homework. Nell and I had gone earlier but the lessons were starting later because there weren't enough men. While Nell and I waited the bartender made us each some alcoholic drink without asking us so we had to turn him down which was pretty funny. We looked for a place to secretly dump it, but there wasn't a plant in sight so we had to explain that we didn't drink alcohol. When Sarah and I got there they had just started and there was an exact number of girls and guys counting us. So we are dancing and practicing the steps and training our body to move in ways our american bodies have never moved before and then it was time to pair up. Well the closest man to me happened to be this 50 something old man who had had a few pisco sours in him. He was absolutely uncoordinated (which baffles me, shouldn't all Latin men know how to dance??) and kept trying to get me to tell him where we lived and when we were leaving. I just kept saying in this neighborhood and soon so he would leave me alone. The teacher, Jesus kept using me as an example which was embarassing considering there were a billion latin women who could dance way better than me, but we had SO much fun. Afterwards I thanked Jesus and he told me I danced really well, which was a lie, but coming from a good looking latin guy, I took the compliment. My creepy dance partner tried to get me to stay, but I ran out of there with Sarah as quick as we could. We are going to go back next week because they are going to have a live band!

Recovery

Well I must say it has been a tough thing getting back into the teaching mode. I have been so tired this week from my weekend travels with literally no sleep, but it was worth it. I got home on Monday afternoon and went right to doing homework and unpacking. I fell asleep on the couch Monday afternoon and Lautaro came over for a minute. I was so sleepy and out of it that I answered the door and spoke in english to him and then didn´t know why he couldn´t understand me. It was funny.



This week it was my turn to head over to the other center to teach, so I headed over Tuesday morning. The feel of the other center is very different. It is two stories and was built in the yard of a church building. You kinda feel like you are entering a forbidden fortress when you get to the door because they have a doorbell with a camera to see who comes in. In the center they have three girls that are doing internships as secretaries and then one missionary couple as well as the center manager a paid employee of the church. They get a lot more traffic than our center does mainly because this is more in the area where people need jobs. The center in Vitacura is in the richer part of town and people have to travel a long way to get there.



I started out Tuesday with six alumnos. Three are members and three were not. In the introductiongs, it seemed that everyone was having a hard time, and that they were all passing through difficult moments in their life. It was as if nothing more could go wrong in their lives. I saw the need for uplifting so I tried as hard as I could to be happy and positive and just help them see that they are not alone nor are they without hope. The Lord provides for those who are willing to do all they can to have success and the fact that they were there in the workshop shows that they are willing to do anything! I had one man, a member, who had a hard time with some of the techniques we teach in the workshop. He especially had a hard time with the networking concept because he said he had tried it before and it didn´t work. I tried to explain to him how it works and why it works and he just kept saying no, so finally I looked at him and said, ´It is really easy to say it doesn´t work, but this is a program developed by the church, by men who were called by prophets to do so. I know it works, I have seen it, have some faith!´ He didn´t come back wednesday...



Yesterday (wednesday) was still a really neat experience. Alex, a non member who has this rare disease that only 60 people in the whole world have came in Tuesday so down. Wednesday he was literally a different person. He was smiling, he was laughing, he was joking, it was AWESOME! I pointed that out to him and he just smiled and said, ´I know.´ Angelica, who had to quit her job because of depression issues (her husband left her) came in yesterday with three different job interviews set up! She had been really shy and sad on Tuesday, and she just blossomed over night. I think this might have been the first time that it was physically evident the difference in the workshop attendees. It was awesome.



After work I interviewed a restaraunt owner, his son and th eir head chef for a homework assignment. It was kind of cool to talk with them about their business how it came to be and how well they were doing 16 years later. The son teaches salsa lessons and invited me to go tonight, so Sarah, Nell and i are going to go. I am excited.



Sarah, Nell and I had an adventure tongith trying to find this concert in the park. We met up at an ice cream place and had some real food while watching a special on Michael Jackson. He was an amazing dancer...Then we went out looking for this park that had to be in the some neighborhood we were in but we weren`t sure wehere. We looked up directions on the internet and then hopped on some buses taht should have taken us there. When we got to one of the cross streets we were l ooking for we just started walking and then kept asking people who each pointed u s in different directions. It was really funny. I kept saying `It`s an ADVENTURE!`and we laughed quite a bit. At one point these men in a car honked at us to which I turned around, pointed and said ´Thank you!` really loud. This happened one more time. The last time it happened, all t hree of us turned around pointing and shouting, `Thank you!` at the same time, it was so funny! WE got to the park as they were taking down the concert, so we didn`t actually see it, but it was really fun! :)

So you don´t forget what I look like :)

Here are some pictures from my recent adventure in Peru. Some of the pictures are out of order, but they are pretty cool I think!

Hill and I in the car right after getting off the airplane in Tacna

Some amazing desert pictures

So they put these little catus like plants on hill sides in forms to advertize for things. Cool huh?

Some more desert.

A very strange fruit that looked like cotton on the inside and had a strange consistancy, but was SO good...I wish I could remember the name...

The inside of said fruit.

This is what happens when I fall asleep because I am so tired from a night without sleep on airplanes.

Yup, I was that tired.

Hillary with one of her converts. She just sobbed when we left and kept saying, ´Don´t go Sister Lowe.´It was so cute.

This is the entrance to Arequipa...Its missing the a.

People working in the fields. This was intriguing to me for some odd reason.

Susan driving, these pictures are out of order, this was on the drive from Tacna to Arequipa.

This is us in the car at 4 a.m. heading to Juliaca...I was relatively awake.

Hillary on the other hand...

This is a beatiful lagoon that we drove past. There were flamingos, but we didn´t see them until we had already gotten back in the car.

A cool hut by said lagoon, I am quite proud of this picture.

This is the mist rolling off the highlands. Cool huh?

I spent half my trip trying to get a picture of these ladies in their typical garb. The teeny hat means she is married as well as the little one colored pom poms hanging from her hair.

The boats we road on out to los uros (the floating islands)

Yeah, we played sing along on the boat ride out, it was so fun!

View from the boat.

The look out tower from the island.

The island from the boat, this is the island that the talked about in conference called Apu Inti.

Gillermo, our guide and the husband of the first member on the island.

His mother in law doing her typical weaving stuff, it is SO cool!

Guillermo, his mother and law and his wife Alicia, she has a STRONG testimony!

And of course, us on the island. This is just a sample of the pics, but they are great!