Week 74/76 Repentance Each Day Keeps The Wild Dogs Away

Hey guys, tanto tiempo! 

These 3 days in collao have been actually very uneventful, but it's crazy to be walking the same streets a year later. 

My new companion is hermana Ortiz, she's from Mexico, hates cats, loves spicy food, has 9 months in the mission, and is already one of my best friends! 

We still haven't been able to contact hardly any of the amigos that the hermanas were teaching before so poco a poco! 

But we got a call from our friend Andre our second day here. He's from Jamaica, speaks english, and even though hes lived here for a while, does not speak spanish. It was a struggle to try to communicate in english while my companion sat there probably very confused and a little bit helpless. 

Then at the same moment that he realized we weren't the other hermanas the signal cut out and the call ended. Weird. We haven't gotten a response since. 

All of our lunch appointments have been with families who live far away from the city and we have to take a bus. This was especially loco on Saturday when we started the day with a blitz in chiguayante and had to take one bus, for an hour and a half, to get to conce and then another bus, for thirty minutes, from conce to the countryside. 

After almost 2 hours on a bus we made it to lunch. The hermana is from Venezuela and we ate cachapas. Basically you grind up corn into a paste, add only salt and sugar(??), then fry it up like a pancake, top it with butter and grated cheese, fold it in half and enjoy! These corn-based cheese-filled pancakes were very delicious. 

Then I ate an apple that had a worm in it which was less delicious. 

Sunday was loco! What a crazy first day back in the ward. There were so many people, including the whole stake presidency, and then some, on the stand. Turns out the bishop was being released! Obispo Eade was my favorite, but the new Obispo Fernández is a great guy too!

There were way more members that remembered me than I thought there would be. 

I heard a rumor that after sacrament the stake presidency and bishopric were talking about me. Apparently the stake president is a big P. P. Pratt fan, and wanted a picture with one of his descendants! 

One day we decided to try some doors at the end of a street, we turn the corner and start walking towards the end of the street. We notice a dog sitting in the grass. Dog 1 stands up from the grass, dog 2 comes out from a house into the street. We decide it's a bad idea and we turn to walk away. We stopped to knock one door further down the street, turned back and saw that dog 2 had gone to tell his friends. Now dog 3 was in the street. We abandon the door we were knocking and as we cross the street to leave, dog 4 enters the street. Now keep in mind these are big dogs. At least one German Shepherd and one that looked like the mean dog from Up. Dog 4 sizes us up a bit, we are frozen in the street, they are a good 35 feet away, but suddenly dog 4 takes off charging at us, and the other 3 aren't slow to follow. Pure adrenaline and spirit move my feet into a sprint and we book it around the corner. We ran half a block before turning back to see if we were still being pursued. Then we breathlessly tried to make street contacts on the way back to our apartment. 

Coincidently I read this verse this week: "And behold, instead of gathering you, except ye will repent, behold, he shall scatter you forth that ye shall become meat for dogs and wild beasts." 

I don't think God was sending dogs to eat us down because we aren't repenting, but I do think it was a good, un poco extreme, reminder to apply the scriptures in our lives, and repent every day, even for the little things. 

There is great power that comes with daily repentance. President Nelson invites us to "experience the strengthening power of daily repentance—of doing and being a little better each day. When we choose to repent, we choose to change! We choose to become more like Jesus Christ!" 

Don't choose to be dog food! Choose repentance, and choose Christ!! 

- Hermana Pratt