Sunday, December 26, 2010

Puertezuelo :)

  We made it! to Puertezuelo:) time has flewn by so quickly and we only have one more week left here! :( it has been a really upbuilding past couple of weeks! I guess i will start of by telling you where we're staying. Andrea kindly invited Jenesia and I to stay with her until she moves out of the house. She learned the truth in Mexico and went to the English congregation...but for the past couple of years she's been able to help here in Puertezuelo. So in the house it's Andrea, me, Jenesia and Barbara. Barbara just finished school and decided to move here to help the congregation. It's her first time moving from home (which is about 3 hours away)... Four girls in one house!! :D It has been a blast, i couldn't have asked for better room mates!!! (even if they don't always like my music;)
   We planned it out so that we rotate nights cooking, so we all have been getting practice. :D Since there aren't really any big grocery stores around here we go to Chian (the town close by that has seriously just about everything...even a blockbuster:D )  and do one big shopping spree for 2 weeks to cut down on having to travel there a lot. From the pictures you can see we LOVE nutella and peanut butter...and chocolate. hehe. they say I'm bad association for bringing all the unhealthy stuff... but its irresistable, so they love it anyway;)
   The congregation here has 13 publishers. (now including Andrea's studies, Pamela and Veronica:)  There are fewer publishers but at the meetings there is always at least 25. Everyone's so loving, its so easy to feel at home right away! :)
   We have been out in service almost every day since we've been here. its nice to have days off where we can relax and exercise, do laundry, clean.... and make cookies and watch movies :D.... As for laundry, we don't have any washing machines so we wash our clothes in the sink and hang them out to dry:) Anyway, back to service! Around the town everyone is super nice and willing to listen. A couple of days we got to go to the rurals and it was such a neat experience. Pamela and Andrea were able to talk to one lady that liked so much what she was learning and told them not to take their time in coming back! :) Jenesia and I were able to have a conversation with a man who was very zealous for the Bible and we were able to share some of what we've learned with him, so that was really encouraging too! :)
  Anyway, i'm sure the pictures will tell the rest. Jenesia is going home early so i haven't completely decided where i'll be the rest of my time here.. but i'll keep you posted. I miss everyone! hope everything is going well! much love,
Corinne :)

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Argentina






Before heading to Argentina to renew our visas, Jenesia and i were able to visit Bethel in Santiago, Chile! It was really neat seeing how everything works there. On tour with us were 3 other witnesses and four were bible studies. They were really impressed with everything and were asking all kinds of questions about how everything worked. There was just a new portion added on; in addition they have a new fire department which i thought was pretty cool that there are brothers and sisters that are in that department :) The tour was in Spanish so i didn't understand every detail, but Jenesia helped translate. :D  We ALMOST were too late for the last tour, but i'm so glad we made it! :)

To renew our visas Jenesia and i had to leave Chile and come back over the border- thus Argentina! Jenesia has a friend, David, she met in Puertezuelo who is from Argentina; he kindly arranged for us to have a place to stay. We ended up staying with a couple, Mariela and Pablo. they are both pioneering and just found out recently that she is four months pregnant! :) Even though we were only there for four days everyone was loving and accomodating and tried to show us as much of Argentina as they could! :D Argentina is beautiful but we were so happy to go back to Chile!:) now we're in Puertezuelo (since Tuesday) i will post soon about everything here. i LOVE it so far. i've been able to change up my presentations in service; so little by little i'm improving ;)  hope everyone is having a good day! much love, Corinne... aka Corina, Corn chowder, maiz ;D ciao!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Viña Del Mar

    So yesterday we arrived safely back to Donihue!:) It was super sad to leave Vina where i met a lot of new friends but the week was a blast. We were kindly invited to stay with a super fun couple, Daniela & Miguel. Miguel called me and Jenesia his daughters while we were there haha. They are helping in the English congregation, so it was nice they wanted us to speak English to help them practice.  The congregation has about 40 publishers; so with a smaller congregation everyone is close knit! One thing that was kindof neat about visiting was hearing all the different talks from different brothers and sisters with accents! Some from South Africa, some from New Zealand, some from Canada, and the rest was either accents like ours or Chilean accents:)
   This last week mostly consisted of being a beach bum, hanging out with friends, going out in service and the party on Saturday. One day in service we did telephone witnessing. it was a little scary for me because after i asked (in Spanish) if there were any foreign English speaking people living in the household...if they said more than no...it was hard to understand :D but it worked out. Jenesia was able to talk to someone that was interested in what she was saying. She was able to share Matt 5:3,  placed the magazine about finding contentment and he wanted someone to stop by to share more! Another time we did informal witnessing walking along the coast and were able to meet a nice lady from Poland who was only there for the day. So even though it's a little more difficult because they have to find English speaking people... those kinds of experiences make it all worth it!:)) this week was super encouraging, learning how the different ones in the congregation learned the truth in a totally different part of the world and how they ended up in Chile. :)
 anyway, this week we are back in Donihue... thursday or friday we leave for Argentina to renew our visas and after we leave for our ultimate destination Puertezuelo!:)
  Jenesia taught me how to do a slideshow, so the pics are a little more organized this time ;) i hope everyone is doing well!! much love, corn <3