"Getting to know you, getting to know all about you..."

Sup my peeps.
So anywho, right to the point.. last week Momma made the comment that I didn´t talk enough about the basics (town, companion, pension-apartment...) when I first got here. So this week, I thought that I would rewind a bit and fill y´all in a bit more about those sorts of things.

President Kahnlein: He is really nice, and he cares a lot about the missionaries. He is a letter of the law kind of person.. But he is patient with the missionaries and he is always proud and uplifting with their work. He expects a lot of us, which makes us work hard. He served a mission in the United States, so THANKFULLY he knows english, but it´s the funny "missionary" vocabulary english... ya get me? It makes me smile haha. But yup, that´s him in a nutshell.

My Area (Limache): Limache limache limache....what can I say. We´ve got some narly hills in Limache. For example, this week I spilled going down a everest-scale dirt road hill. Haha...yeaahh I had to take a shower when we got home that night cause their was dusty dirt all over me. It´s kinda suburby in parts and then some more ghetto-y types of areas...like literally 4 "walls" and then something covering it. But I like it! It´s a comfy type of ghetto if ya know what I mean. Like a "crappy first house" kinda feeling..You acknowledge that it´s struggling but you still love it.
The people in Chile are generally really nice...except the cat-calling dudes..that´s just slightly really awkward. I love Limache though...it´s my first home in Chile so it has a piece of my heart.
The weather in Chile is SUPER bipolar....kinda like a desert in the fact that it´s super hot during the day and then freezing at night. So at times, deciding what to wear is confusing.
Que mas...Oh, our ward is really great! There is another set of sisters of our ward as well. The members are all so loving and kind. We are struggling a bit with getting the members to help out with the missionary work (times like that when I wish I was serving in Kannapolis Ward! ;) ...but really). Our apartment pension is in the kinda suburby area. It´s pretty beat down cause missionaries have been using it for over 13 years, but I like it. So yep...that´s all I got about that stuff.

Compañera: Hermana Barros es mi amiga mejor en Chile :) She is a sister to me lots of ways and a momma in others. She is so funny. She doesn´t know english, but she learns random phrases like "I have a toot" and "What´s your problem besides you face?" It´s so funny....ohhhh Hermana Barros. I am so grateful that she is latina!! Because now, I am learning spanish the right way, ya know? But it´s funny cause now I´m learning some words with an Argentinian accent cause she is from argentina.....eh, oh well! Atleast I´m learnin right? She LOVES to be EXACTLY obedient. At times it drives me up the wall, but it´s teaching me a lot and I´m learning that it´s just her faith outwardly demonstrated, so I´m gratful for her example. She keeps me uplifted and always encourages me, even when I feel like I am no help during lessons. She watches out for me like a big sister and then lifts me up like a mom :) She is always happy and excited about the work and her whole heart and soul is in it. She is such an example to me cause she is only a convert of a year and a half..and the only member in her family. Her faith reminds me a lot of Zachary Ward :) I love her so much, and literally everyday I am reminded about how grateful I am for her.

So yep, there´s the background stuff for you guys! Sorry I don´t send pictures through email anymore..most of the computers here are messed up with that kind of stuff, so I´ll just wait and send my whole card home later.

For Christmas..I want my christmas pjs still pleeeease! And maybe some socks ooorr I don´t know...surprise me! Maybe some fruit snacks (cause those don´t exsist here....yeah the food market is a bit different) or maybe stickers for the little niños. Anything! Anything in a package will be Christmas to me :) Oh! But definitely send me my recipe book! (but the measurements are different here..hmmm ..so maybe just a few copies of things like cookies or brownies or stuff like that)(I don´t wanna lose my real book so maybe just send copies) ...and the steps to make rice cripy treats please!

Welp my time is up once again. You guys have no idea how much your emails and prayers help me every week. Thank you thank you thank you soo much with todo mi corazón! I love you all like the dickens. All day every day.
Please be good while I´m gone and search for ways to lift others up every day...cause everyone is going through their own form of Gethsemane in their lives. Seek for ways to lift the burden and help them bear their cross.....through love, faith, a smile, and Christ, all things are possible.
Until next time, remember who you are and what you stand for :)
Love always and always,
Hermana Abigail Page

A sweet letter from Abigail...

Hola familia,
So since today was such a rushed day, I did not get to finish my email to you guys, so as I said I m going to write y'all a letter and get it mailed off next p-day.
To get right to it, I didn't get to tell you guys why the mail was titled, "I never let go Jack.". It's cause for the past week, I was sympathizing with the members of the Titanic. Apparently right before I came, the hot water broke, so we haven't had any for showers and such. If we want hot water, we have to boil some, and then mix it with the cold water, and then put the (now) warmish water in the pots. Then bring the pots inside the shower and use a cup to pour that water on us if we want to rinse. It's quite the process! But sometimes, I get tired of using the dinky cup to rinse so I suit turn on the regular water...I literally forget how to breathe, it's so cold! Be grateful for your water in America! I didn't know how good I had it til I left...(we have been blessed once with hot water for about 15 mins! It was a a Christmas miracle)
Sorry this is the first "family" letter I have written to you guys...there is just letter ally no free time to do stuff like this! (Even less so out in the field)
So I can't remember if I did or not, did I tell you guys about out pets (Monsi, Bermudes, Diego, Samson) in the email? Well either way....I honestly think that sad dog/cat commercial (the one with the Sarah Maclaughlin song) was filmed in Chile. There are scraggly animals everywhere, and I wanna just hold/hug them so bad...but then I remember that they have tons of ticks and fleas...so I let them be. (Great now I am gonna have In the Arms of an Angel" stuck in my head all day)
Que mas...
Oh, public transportation! Did I talk about that in the email. Gosh, I don't remember. Oh well, I'll tell ya again I guess. Before my mission, the extent of my public transport life consisted of the school bus...here, we live off of them! I actually really like it! Even though they cram us in like cattle and drive like they're asleep, it is rather enjoyable! It's an adventure every time.
So to elaborate a little more about our baptism with Jaime, it was so neat :) he is so nice and happy all the time, and I really enjoy being around him! The ward loves him and welcomed him with open arms. So I'm not worried about inactivity or anything like that.
ADVICE to Tory: learn to play the hymns on the piano!!! If you get called foreign, not many people play piano, so we sing acapella almost every song...and it can get pretty rough sometimes, haha. So develope your musical skills for this! You will be grateful later!
ADVICE for the RM's of my family: something that I found in Preach my Gospel the other day I found interesting was the advice to continue to develope your language skills of your mission language AFTER your mission. The Lord called you to speak/learn that language for divine purposes more than for simply 1 1/2 - 2 years. If you keep working on it, He will use you to further His work for your whole life! :) I thought it was really cool!
Momma, could you look on Pinterest for flea remedies for us please! We would great appreciate any suggestions!
Other than that life is normal here. The only thing I'm struggling with is the language...I know I'm progressing and learning everyday, but I can't understand when people talk to me/ during lessons so I fell like I can't. Contribute much to lessons or conversations. It's hard cause I already love these people and I want to tell them, and there are so many things I want to tell them that I know will help them,but because the language I can't. Everyday is a roller coaster of feeling like I can do it, then going down deep in depressed-like discouragement where all I wanna do is cry, to okay okay, and so on and so forth. Sigh...I'm trying to trust completely in the spirit and Christ to be able to get through those rough moments. Some times are better than others...but I am trying. Advice for me?
Other than that, I love being a misionera por nuestro Salvador :)
I have to go none cause p-day is about over. Know I love y'all and pray for you guys everyday!
See you when I see you
Love always and always
Hermana Abigail Page

Visits from the little people

Visit to dad this week. We met up with Ashley & little Violet, and Debbie & Little Claire bear. Dad loved visiting his littlest girls. As always we picked up Katie to give her a taste of home.

Claire loves her new little cousin, Violet!

4 Generations Together! What a wonderful sight!

Friendships are pretty special

Love being a great aunt, and a daughter :)

Now these are some glamourous girls with their own paparazzi!

"Cuidado!"

Hoopla one and all.

To start this little guy out on a good note, right after I emailed you guys last week, we had to stop by the mission office and... I GOT SOME LETTERS! But not from Momma or Daddio... From Sister Nusbaum and Katie!! (so thank you tons you two!!! And Katie, when I have a spare second *literally* I will write you back!)

I am glad to hear about how beautiful Andrew´s funeral was. I wish I could have been there! I´m not gonna lie, hearing about what happened has been really hard on me this week. But a little tender mercy from the Lord has been the fact that literally every lesson we ended up teaching this week was the plan of salvation. So to me, that was a comfort that was reiterated in my mind multiple times this week. Gotta love those tender mercies, huh?

So here in Limache there is this guy who drives around a little Nacho Libre bike that is fixed up to look like a train. So when he drives around he blows the horn and it goes "chuuuuuchhuuu" (like a train)! Well inside his little train bike doohicky is maní (peanuts)! The good kind with baked sugar or whatever on the outside. It may not seem like a huge deal or whatever, but after walking around all day and nothing too exciting happening, to us, that chuuchuuu sound of like a halleuah chorus! The other day, we quite literally chased him down for some maní... yeah, he knows us by name now haha.

My feelings over the past few weeks with spanish can be catigorized as just short of bi-polar. Sometimes I´m like "yaaayyyy, I got this" and then other times I´m like "wow..it sucks to be me right now". But something that I learned this week is that the times when I am beating myself up and down on myself, I am quite simply lacking faith in myself and in the power of the Lord. I´ve learned that patience and faith go hand in hand. Besides, I see progression in my understanding spanish and my ability to speak it, but at times I seem to block all that out and focus on the ´not´. So my goal this week is to lose the fear and keep the faith. I really liked something Mom said in her email to me this week.. "I can´t do perfect, but I can do faith". That´s what I´m gonna do. If I get only remembered as one thing on my mission, I want to be remembered as a missionary that never lacked faith (faith in herself, faith in the work, faith in her companions, faith in her ward, faith in the Lord....fe en todo.) Because faith is the foundation of everything in the gospel. One if the few phrases that I can say in spanish that I always say to our investigators is: Without faith, we can´t do much of anything; but with it, we can do and see miracles....That would be a good way to be remembered if I do say so myself.

So to get to the storytime of the email.... (coughcough)
So this Saturday was a very eventful day! Our investigator Carla was baptized!! And I consider her my first real baptism cause I was there for the teaching process. Carla is wonderful and sweet and has some really good friends in the ward so I am really excited to witness and help her with her transition into the church. Now we are teaching her 10 year old son Oscar..and after the first lesson we had with him, he said "I´m gonna be baptized...Mom can I watch yours this weekend so I can see how it´s done?" We had to calm him down a bit and tell him to take a step at a time cause he was setting the details aready haha. So great.
Then later that afternoon, we were walking down a little side road to visit an investigator. Our dog Monsi got this HUGE dog that lives down there all angry and riled-up and I was right there so I was like " woooaah there big fellow" and so I picked up the pace a little bit cause he was jumping all around and starting to attack Monsi...but when I started to book it for the other side of the road.....(now Mom, before I tell you what hapenned, know that I am okay...........okay, to continue..) Satan (that´s what I call the huge scary, angry, crazy dog) looked over at me and jumped on me and bit my arm. I fell to the ground and then Hermana Barros started hitting him with a brownie pan that was in her hands so I rolled away once he let go. (it was super scary in the moment and it hurt like the dickens but now that I look back on this...its a pretty funny image haha..well for me anyways). At the time, I was luckily wearing my thick winter coat (the blue one), so that stopped a lot of damage from happening to my arm, and I´m gonna have to get an Hermana in the ward to fix it cause it now has a big ole hole in it. But the dog did bite me (like pierce skin with blood and all that nonsense) and the owner didnt have paper proof of a rabies vaccination, so now I´m currently getting a shot every other day for the next two weeks and I´m on meds to make sure I am A-okay. So yep, now I´m a REAL missionary...dog attack (check).
So yes Momma, don´t be scared or nervous, cause I´m aaalllllll good :)

Random sidenotes:
-Dad, before I left you said you were gonna pick up drawing...how´s that going? Caaause I wanna a picture!
-Who´s name do I have for Christmas? Cause I gotta start lookin..
-This week, that one song "somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight, someone´s thinking of me and loving me tonight (dududududu) somewhere out there someones sayin a prayer...blahblahhh" ...that song goes through my head when we are tracting and I start missing home or just think about family..love it!...then I start thinkin about Fivel Goes West...classic!

So yep, that was my week and my time is now up. I know you all have lots of questions that I haven´t answered yet, so I will try and do that next week.
Until then, know I love y´all and I pray for you guys all the time and you are always in my heart...siempre siempre.
Thank you to the moon and back for your support and prayers and everything thiny micjiggy you guys do.
Keep being awesome and keep makin the Lord proud :)
Until next week...
Love always and always,
Hermana Abigail Page

"The Beast"...

First things first..we had zone conference this past week, entonces.... I GOT A PACKAGE FROM MOMMA :D I was so happy, I coulda flew home on a unicorn! Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you a million times over! I got it right when I needed it :) No mail other than that (no letters). Oh, except for today.. We stopped by the mission office for my mission debit card and they gave me a letter from Caleb Marshall haha. I was como "what the random?" But yep, hopefully I will get LOTS of letters from people next zone conference..in about 6 weeks (boooo).

So this week I realizd that I never told you guys about Clase Ingles. There is a brother in our ward that lived in the US, so he teaches english in Thursday at the church and we go. It is like a little slice of heaven once a week. I never knew how much I missed english, until I actually use it and I realize "wow, I do know how to communicate with people!" Sometimes, I feel like I am losing my social skills because I can´t talk to people in a REAL conversation... goodness, I ´m gonna be soo awkward after my mission at this rate! But on a bittersweet note about language, in the night after planning, I am allowed to say that prayer in English..but lately, it has been getting harder and harder for me to say it in only english cause my brain is hot-wired español all-day, er-day. I take it for a good sign though!

Here in Chile, people eat dinner for lunch...meaning that their HUGE meal is almuerzo and then they have a little tea-party/lunch-sized meal for once (meal after almuerzo). I have been struggling with this stomach-wise cause my stomach is used to little to no lunch and then dinner. To "fix" it the Hermanas in our ward give me more food so then "my stomach will change faster.." .....riiiiiiight.. or I´ll just puke on the way home..whichever come first I guess. Normally we don´t get once/dinner (we are supposed to work right through it), but whenever a member invites us over for once, it is my favorite thing ever! I feel like we are having a tea party cause once always consists of little sandwiches, some kind of hot drink, and then a postre/dessert. Me encanta :)

As I have said before, there are MUCHOS dogs in Chile everywhere. When we walk by there fences, they ALWAYS go loco..barking and growling and running in circles and jumping and peeing in a general direction and foaming at the mouth..its quite the adventure to say the least. And it always reminds me of the movie "Sandlot" with the dog `the beast´ haha...classic.

-Sidenotes:
---Dad, count your blessings that you are only bishop. In our ward, the bishop is bishop (obviously), his wife is primary president, and their son is young men´s president and early-morning seminary teacher! Crazy, huh?
---In the Book of Mormon, Nephi always says "my soul delighteth in plainess"...and then he goes on an Isaiah rampage. What up with that? Talk about awkwardly ironic.
---This week I have had the longings to have homemade cookies (warm from the oven); to watch Ella Enchanted, Surf Ninjas, and all the princess Disney movies; and to watch the boys play Fifa together (never thought I would miss that).
---Spanish......yep.............it´s comin along.....sorta. Let´s just say, I´ve had my better trials.
---2 Nephi 9: totally about the plan of salvation. Where has this chapter been all my life?? After coming across it in my personal study the other day, I´ve dubbed it one of my new favorite chapters.
---Mom, for your portuguese, have Dad ONLY talk to you in Portuguese for a certain amount of time daily. It´ll stink and at times you´ll hate it, but it´ll help you more than anything else. Trust me.

I am so sad to hear about Andrew Page. I saw him tons in the MTC and he always brightened my day. He was so kind and happy all the time, and I was so grateful for him to be there with me in the MTC...he literally shined as a missionary (and only a select few of us actually do that). I bet the Lord needed his brightness as a missionary on the other side...like Emma and Grandma. It´s so heart-breaking but it´s all part of the Lord´s plan for Andrew. We now have to trust the Savior and guide us and help us walk each step for the next little while in this hard time.Tell his family that I am so sorry for them and that I can honestly say that their son was a great missionary..because I saw it first hand!

So one last thing before I go, this week in my personal study, I came across another section of scripture that I now love. In 2 Nephi 4:30-35...it´s a prayer of Nephi. I don´t know why but reading it really hit home with me (in the ´ole corazon). I decided that I wanted to have the same experience with prayer that Nephi had in these verses. That night, when I said my bedtime prayer, I did. I can´t even explain the experience that I had, but I in all honesty, there have been few experiences when I have felt closer to my Father in Heaven then I did that night. I felt comfort and love and support and every feeling that I needed to feel from Him.
...All I have to say is, prayer is real, and I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves us enough to NEVER never ever leave us helpless in our moments of joy and in our moments of sorrow.
Christ lives. I know this with all my heart.


I have to go now cause my short time is up..(I could email y´all day if I could)..so until next time, I love you all with all my heart and soul and God be with you siempre.
Love always and always,
Hermana Abigail Page

A night with my boys...

Never a dull moment with Tory around...well maybe a few :) but he will be missed next year when he is gone.

A day with Claire...

I got to rediscover the world around me again this week. I have done this many, many, times many, many, years ago with one of my children when they were little, but it has been awhile. It was a wonderful place to be taken back to, discovery, and play through the eyes of an eighteen month old. Claire is such a sweet little girl, always smiling and with the most pleasant of dispositions. We pulled out a few of the old toys, doll houses and farm animals. Claire made a best friend in Smores. He loved her! Being a great Aunt is almost as good as being a parent, or a grandmother someday! Look forward to another day with Claire Bear!

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"...

So who else thought that this General Conference was one of the best ever? Anyone? Anyone? I know President Monson agrees cause he said it like 3 times! I totally second P. Monson! I´m not sure why my soul hungered for the good word of God so much leading up to this conference, but I literally was CRAVING conference. And like always, the good Lord delivered :) (This was the first conference that at no point did I dose off! I was so happy!) Anywho, I could go on forever about each talk and how much I loved it and what I learned, but I won´t cause I only have a teeeeeny bit of time to email y´all, entonces (so)... I´ll do a quick once-over..
Conference answered so many prayers that I had (and ones that I wasn´t aware that I had also). I felt the love of God touch my heart multiple times while servants of the Lord addressed us. Goodness, I don´t even know how to describe the peace and spirit I felt during Conference! It was wonderful, happy, perfect.. I am so grateful for living prophets and apostles and all those of and called of God to guide His people. What a blessing it is that God speaks, not spoke. I love Conference! It is my favorite semi-annual time of the year! There are very few ways to be more edified than watching conference.. Seriously. (ps-when it comes out, please send me a copy of the conference ensign!)
Qué mas...
Oh, Dad, you´ll be happy about this: apparently when I talk I have been using a portuguese/brasilian accent on certain words. Like father like daughter, huh? I guess it´s a sign I need to be in Brasil!
Yesterday, mi compañera told me that people here think that Americans are stiff and not loving because we don´t greet people with a kiss.. Personally, I think the kissy thing is really nice and all cause it makes me feel like we are already close, but I like how we do it in the US also cause in the US, it´s kinda like we earn our greetings, ya know? Like when you first meet someone, its a shake of the hand or a wave, then you work your way to a hug and so on and so forth...ya get me? So yeah, that´s my thoughts on that...I don´t like that people have been saying that right in front of me knowing I can´t understand.....(to quote Stephanie Tanner from Full House) "how rude."
I have finally convinced Hermana Barros to let us sing one Christmas song a week! Yaaayy, Christmas! I´m so excited for Christmas...but it´s gonna be weird that it´ll be warm here. What happened to "White Christmas"??
On the micro (bus), occasionally American music will play. I love it when this happens cause it´s usually really retro stuff like Journey or the Beatles. People always give me weird looks when I start singing along like "you understand this stuff??" Makes me smile every time :)
The other day while tracting, Hermana Barros and I encountered a Book of Mormon basher. He chased us down on his bike. I of course didn´t understand what was going on cause I don´t understand spanish, so I was just standing there thinking "lalalalala..wow this guy is reeeeaallly excited about the gospel...lalala". Only after we awkwardly ran away did Hermana Barros tell me that he had been hatin´ on us. Oooooh....so he doesn´t want to know more and be taught? ..Oops. Not understanding 87% of what goes on around me is part of my daily life here, so I´m used to it by now haha.


So this is the last time I will change it I pinky promise! My address is:
Hermana Abigail Page
4 Norte 1112 Casilla 631
Viña del Mar, Valparaiso
Chile
(I´m sure anything like this will eventually find it´s way to me either way so it´s all good hopefully) Like I said last week, I only get my mail once a transfer during zone meeting..so no mail yet :p I want my mail so bad! After all the stuff you guys have sent, I´ll probably have a mountain! :D wahooo for mountain mail. But I´ll let ya know when that actually happens. Today I sent a package and some letters. (apparently packages take about a week and letters take about a month to get to the USA..) I´ll be sending letters sparaticly throughout my p-days though, so keep your eyes pealed for ´em!


Next time you get a chance, could y´all maybe send me some Rodney Yee morning yoga dvds? just one disc with a few of the morning ones would be nice! I just miss my yoga (with Daddy) and it helps keep me healthy and optimistic...soo yep.


One last thing that happened this week that I want to share is when we were following up with a contact for a second visit, another man came to the door and straight said "oh, hola Hermanas!" Confused, we asked him if he had talked with missionaries before. Turns out that he is a less active that we didn´t know about (which actually happens a lot out here). He even served a mission and everything! So we went in and talked to him about faith and enduring to the end, and then at the end of the lesson we asked him to pray. At first, like always, he resisted but eventually he said yes. That was one is the most heart changing prayers that I have ever heard, and he almost started cying. This experience just reminded me of how important it is to keep the fire burning always. Just because you served a mission or just because you watched conference doesn´t mean you´re safe. You need more. You need constant and sincere scripture study and prayer. You need to feel the spirit consistently. You need conversion in yourself first. And that´s everyone´s course of life I think, is to seek conversion in ourselves. If we are always doing this, I think the Lord will be proud of our service when we see Him again and say, "Lord, I´m converted".


Let us all seek to be a little better, and try a little harder, and reach a little further this week.
I love you all. Thank you a million times over for your prayers on my behalf. I draw so much strength from them.
God speed until I see you again.
Love always and always,
Hermana Abigail Page

Sister Holman leaves us...

Sister Holman dropped by today to say goodbye! She is heading off to open a new area in the mission, not sure where she is going, but I do know that she will do a fantastic job! She will be missed by us as well as the whole ward. Best to you Sister Holman, keep in touch! Love you!

little Sydney Page..

Went to Greensboro yesterday to visit Dad and to also visit with Katie. But the real treat was meeting up with Savannah to meet little Sydney Page. She is simply adorable! It was so fun holding her, and seeing a little bit of her personality. Thanks so much Savannah for bring her to meet me. We shall have to do it again.
Had an unusual visit with Dad, he did not want to go out. He was too tired. We chatted with him for about an hour and he was ready for a nap. Hope that is not the case next time we come to see him. Love you Dad.