"The harder you work the happier you will be"

Wow! I cant believe I am already writing about another week! Each day feels like a week…but the weeks feel like days! Its weird! But this week was wonderful. No complaints except for the Heat. 97 degrees most of the week. Its weird for me to think its January! I sometimos forget that I am in South America. Everything has become so normal for me here. But when I first got here I was like WHERE AM I! haha like for example today my companion was changing Money at the bank. And it was a HUGE bank..pretty nice. And I look down and there is a dog that just walked right by me. He had just walked in the bank like he owned the place or somthing. I just cant Picture Things like that happening in america. Nobody even tried to get him to leave. It was weird…but i laughed to myself.

Hmm Things have been good. Every week is very similar yet there is always crazy funny things that happen everyday. But everynight my mouth hurts from smiling all day. I am so happy. I have come to realize the harder you work the happier you will be. And you may not feel it at the moment but there is nothing more satisfying than laying in bed at night thinking about a day here after we have served with everything in us. Our toilet runs all night. Iv begun to try to Picture the noise as a waterfall.
So now I fall asleep to a waterfall.
Its not bad haha.

Last night we visited and helped an old old old woman. All she pretty much said to us was… Im all alone. I kept looking at my companion and thinking is she really saying this over and over again…or Am I just Still not understanding a single Word people are saying here. Well she was really saying it. She was just very sad… We sang for her and were going to bring her to church on Sunday. She is so excited!

Food is good. The fruits ahhhh!! I love them! Still amazing. But they dont have ranch here which im starting to miss. They eat mayo with EVERYTHING! It mean i like mayo but they dip EVERYTHING in it! Blah. We have a lady do our laundry for us here. We pay her 6 mill a month which is like $12.00. OUR CLOTHES come back cleaner than when we bought them. Im not kidding. She Works on every satín one by one. She said this brings her so much happiness to be doing OUR laundry. How sweet is she!! And you want to know something even sweeter. She puts a little stich of thread on the incide. We each have a color….So on the inside of my clothes I have this little stitch of red so she knows whos laundry is whos. I swear…its the simple things in life that are wonderful. Haha

This week we did a lot of service! It was fun! But the best part of the week was when we met this little girl and her mom. The 3 year old girl had downs syndrom and her name was rosia. I fell in love with her. She stole my Heart! My companion says Im never going to be able to leave this place because the Children FLOCK to me. I dont know what it is but I literally love the kids. I just play play play all day with them. But anyways, so we were teaching this woman…and 3 year old girl rosia kept trying to get my attention. So finally she went outside and starting climbing the fence. Okay so a fence here is different than fences in the status. They are taller than the house. The are to Project your home. So she starts climbing it and I run out to get here because there is only rocks on the ground and i was so afraid of her falling. So we brought her back in and we were talking to her mom and within probably 5 seconds I look OUT the window of her house and ALL i see is this little girls FEET! She has at the top of this 10 foot fence! I RAN OUT THERE SOOO FAST! So did her mom! I have NO idea how she got up there! She was sooo strong! Anyways. It was funny..but you might have had to see it for it to be funny. He he

Oh and Iv become obsessed with ice cream. They have the best here! And so ya know how I lost my wallet …well that sure didnt keep us from anything this week. We got free staff everywhere we went! The people are wonderful always giving us drinks, fresh fresh fruit, and ice cream! I love chile!

I will say…its not easy being here. I am exausted more than I have ever been. This is a ï feel like i just ran a marathon kind of tired…everyday. BUT OH SO WORTH IT!

I love you all and miss you….
Let me know if you need anything!! Or anybody in your prayers!
Thanks for your emails!!
paige