beautiful Santiago Chile

Great big shout outs!

FAMILY! HOLA!!

how is it going in AZ?! well i have offically been here for 3 weeks. and its crazy how everything is going so fast but so slow!! the first two weeks were rough but everyone says those first two weeks are always hard. i seriously love chile so so so much. its beautiful here!

hmmm what to say!! im still learning a lot and my spanish is coming along...but i always wish i could speak and understand more! but compared to when i first got here i know so much! i have to stay positive! a hermana told me today that missionaries that get sent to the chile mtc usually know at least some spanish or took it in high school. which is very obvious...haha. so that was just a little frustrating to hear! but i know that i am here for a reason! and i love it! and dont worry...in 6 months ill be speaking perfect spanish! right now im at a point where im forgetting english but i dont know spanish hahaha. sooo.... #thestruggle?

i absolutely love love love my district. they are THE BEST. good old D3. the elders are so great. yes syd i am with the elders all day every day. but i love them. they are so sweet to me and my companion...& yes we are the only sisters in the district! there arent a ton of sisters from america. most of them are from somewhere else in south america. seriously there is like 8 of us. but 2 of the north american sisters came last week...and i love them so much. they are both from Utah! and they are just so cute! so they are like my sisters here in the CCM. and the elders in my district are like my brothers!

so this is what i do every single day:

wake up...personal study at 7:10

8:00 breakfast

8:20 exercise

9:00 get ready

10:00 lanuage

12:00 teaching investigators

1:00 lunch

2:00 teaching more investigators

3:00 more spanish

5:00 TALL (which is like spanish on the computer)

6:00 companion study

7:00 dinner

8:00 teaching more investigators

9:00 planning for the next day

10:00 drive back to alcantara

10:20 get ready for bed

11:00 lights out

so thats basically it...sometimes we have different classes...like read the BOM in spanish/english, or study Preach My Gospel, or whatever...

im so tired by the time i get to go to bed! and im sleeping great here! my roommates are from chile, argentina, and the dominican republic!! its awesome! none of them speak any english haha. so thats hard sometimes! but they are great!

oh, one of my teachers looked at my blog the other day on his iphone! hahaha i was showing him...it looks good! thank you! he is so funny...after we were done looking at it he was like hermana we need to take a picture together for you blog! haha

i taught a lesson in relief socitey last sunday! i taught on relying on the spirit! it was a great topic! we do a 24 hour fast every two weeks! and we also get to go to the temple every two weeks! so we got to go again yesterday! and it was so great. i love the temple so much! yesterday when i was sitting in the celestial room i had this overwhealming feeling that i was going to be alright. that i was going to learn spanish. i know i am supposed to be here in chile. and im grateful to be here.

OH! ok you NEED to look up a place called torres de paine nation park! ITS BEAUTIFUL!! and its in my mission!!!!!! i want to go there so bad!!!!!!!!!!!!! one of my teachers showed it to me when i told him i was going to osorno! hey mom and dad maybe we could go there when you pick me up? haha

well tell everyone i said hello! and that i love them! i wish i had time to write everyone! but send letters to my mission home address so i have tons of love when i get there! you are all in my prayers. the church is so true! i know it will all my heart! i love being a missionary!

con amor, hermana steele

SHOUT OUT TO HERMANA GARCES FOR GETTING HER MISSION CALL TO CHILE!!! dude your going to love it here!

shout out to hannah VL for sending me the best email ever!

shout out to grandma steele and grandma orullian for emailing me as well...i love hearing from you both. im sorry i dont have any time to write you back! hopefully i have more time in the field!

syd- all the elders always sing started from the bottom now were here...hahaha it makes me laugh and think of you. they sing it when we are talking about how bad our spanish was when we first got here...

izzy- i love your halloween costume! your the cutest! you always have the best costumes!

lily- how is school!? do you still love 1st grade?

cosy- i saw you riding the panda at the mall! that looked like so much fun! i love you so much! youre so pretty!

ps. mom i saw the picture of the sweats...they are really cute! i would love some!! 

pss. im sending a letter to you guys on friday...so be looking for it!

Keep in touch

Working hard in the MTC

Slow and steady wins the race!

Hola Familia!

so here in the mtc, my distirct and a couple others live in a house. we call it alcantara (after the street name). I love it there soooo much. its awesome. we get better food then those at the MTC haha. its just such a blessing to be able to get on a bus and drive "home". it really is more like a house...and i feel like I get a break for a while. the house is beautiful! oh my goodness its like a little cottage. i will send you pictures next week!

last tuesday we got to go to the temple! it was so amazing. the temple here is beautiful! im so grateful i got to go again. it was just as good as the first time.

ok so we pray like 22 times a day here in the mtc. its crazy. i love it!!! so all the elders in my district love singing the hymn there is sunshine in my soul today, but its more fun to sing in spanish!!! haha so my district is always singing that song. its awesome.

the picture that was sent to you is my district! we are district 3 so we all just call ourselves D3. haha the elders are so awesome. i love them all! and my companion is so so great. i love her so much. the picture was from one of my mtc teachers...hes awesome. we took that picture together because we all got 100% on our planning.

ok family...on sunday we watched this movie called finding faith in chirst. its so good. i cried through the whole movie and i felt the spirit so strong. please go watch it!

so as missionaries we have to be converted to this gospel before we can convert investigators. is the gospel in our hearts? "WE are gods greatest investigators" we need to figure out what the investigators need and then we can say "come with me". investigators are real people. "we dont teach lessons, we teach people". we dont need a license or certificate to teach this gospel. we have the lord on our side. i love the lord so much. my call is to feed his sheep forever. i cannot turn back. i will never turn my back on him. i will never be realsed from being a missionary. this is the greatest calling i can ever have. this decision will shape the rest of my life and the decisions i make. im so grateful for the opportunity i have to be here. i love chile! even though this is so hard, i know im supposed to be here. spanish is still rough...i feel like everyone is progessing so much faster than me. but compared to when i got here ive learned so much! slow and steady wins the race!! hahaha. so crazy thing...i havent even missed my phone or computer or anything!! its awesome! the lord is blessing me! 

the other day hermana durham and i went into a lesson with a plan. when we got in and started asking the investigators questions we decided to change the whole lesson. we started talking about something totally different than we were planning on. the spirit was so strong...telling us we needed to teach something different. it was so awesome. at first the investigator didn't want us to come in. but i was like no no no we are teaching this lesson. so in my horrible spanish i was like we have an important message to share with you! and he was like ok...fine. haha

i really wish we had more time to email. i dont have time to email everyone back! our pdays in the mtc are only 3 hours...so we call them p3day. so we only get an hour to email. im sure i will get faster and better at typing but for now send everyone my love and thanks!

mom- please read alma 38. it reminds me of what you were saying to me before i got on the airplane :) also, the scripture i want for my plauqe is on my blog...d&c 18:15-16.

i love you all so so much. you're in my prayers!

Hermana Steele

Loving the MTC

Hola Familia!!

holy cow so much to say so little time! i hate the computers we have at the mtc...i cannot type on them! but anyways...wow! so the mtc is so great! i love it here so much. the spirit is so so strong and im learning so much. but this is the hardest thing i have ever done. i miss you guys like crazy. thinking about you makes me tear up! but you know how homesick i get! spanish is so hard!  i feel so behind! almost all the other missionaries have had at least some spanish! my companion is great though! she took 5 years of spanish so she knows a lot. she is from SLC and went to east high! so thats cool! she reminds me a lot of aubrey. you know my personality...i want to be able to understand spanish now! i didnt think it would be so tough. but i think the lord is trying to teach me patience. weve had so many lessons on not worrying about spanish...that it will take up to 6 months to be able to understand. but sometimes i think why did i get called to a spanish speaking mission!? and sometimes on really hard days i think why am i even here! i want to go home! but then i am reminded of why i am here. my mtc teachers are so great. i will be having a hard time and the next lesson i get is so amazing and i remember that i am here because i want to help others come unto christ. i need to focus on what people need so that i can teach them the best that i can. i need to have the spirit with me always so that they can feel the spirit too..then the spirit can guide my lesson. it will no longer be my lesson, but his. i know my redeemer lives. i know he died for me. i know i am a child of god. i want the people of chile to know that too. i am a sheperd of christ, a represtative of him. It is my job to listen to people, help people, comfort people, stengthen people, and invite them to come unto christ. i will give my life to these people and love them with all my heart. i know that when im having a hard day or moment that the feelings im having are from satan. and he wants me to be discouraged and frusterated. i am here in chile for a reason. and i cannot let satan tell me otherwise.

the other day we had a lesson on being happy. D&C 31. go read it now! lift up your heart and rejoice. in everything rejoice. be happy! smile! i have learned fast here in the mtc that being negative will drive the spirit away fast. helaman 10:4 and 5. do i want to hear those words when im done with my mission? the time is now for me to decice what kind of missionary i am going to be. i dont want to come home and say i didnt do my best. i want to say i lived up to my potiential. so everyday i ask myself ¨did i do my best today?¨ the answer should always be yes. if i look for the lords help, it can be easy. but i cannot do it alone.

so even though im very discouraged about my spanish i am learning so much! i can pray in spanish and bear my testimony! so thats pretty cool! the problem in chile is that everyone talks SOOOOOO FAST! so i cannot understand natives. but i can totally understand when other americans speak spanish! there are a lot of natives here in the chile MTC! they are awesome! i love them! i cannot wait to get to osorno! the mtc is amazing but its tough. i sit for 12 hours a day and study. you just gotta love it though.

so my companion and i have already taught lessons to 2 investigators! the first one went pretty well! our teacher said we did really good but i didnt say much. i was crying before the lesson because i was so nervous! but we said a prayer before we went in and it went ok! but the second lesson was amazing...

story time!!!!!!!!!

my companion and i were trying to figure out what to teach this investigator. we were sitting there forever trying to figure it out. we were thinking we would teach about our heavenly father and his plan for us. that we are his children. but nothing was coming to mind. to either of us. so we stopped and decided we would ditch that plan and try something else. as soon as we decided to teach the atonement ideas came fast. We said a prayer and went in and taught our lesson. the spirit was so strong, guiding us! while we were teaching i felt that we needed to teach our investigator how to pray. my companion felt the same so thats what we did. she spoke of course...i couldnt say any of that in spanish!! haha but then as we ended our lesson i felt that we should ask him to say the closing prayer. so i asked him and he said yes! and he said he would come to church with us on sunday! and our first investigator said he would be baptized! so its been pretty awesome. (our investigators here in the mtc are just our teachers. but they are acting like someone real...like someone they know or taught on their missions. so we as missionaries have to teach them according to what they need). anways after our lesson our teacher said he felt the spirit so strong and that our lesson was great. of course he gave us some tips to improve on, but was a happy camper because like an hour before we went into teach i was having the hardest time!

anyways i have to go now. more studying to get to! i love you all so so so much. please pray for me! this church is true and im so grateful for it.

Love, Hermana Steele

Hermana Steele's First Letter Home

Hola Family!

Im sorry I didn´t call in Dallas. I just barely made my flight. My flight was a bit delayed and when we got there we had to wait forever! But yes there was like 7 Elders on my flight! So that was awesome! Im here in Chile now! We got the CCM at like 12 and we have just been unpacking and stuff! My CCM companion is great! I share a room with her and 2 other sisters I havent met yet. My CCM teacher is great...super funny! Dang Spanish is going to be hard. PRAY FOR ME PLZ! I dont have much time, I have to get off and I dont have my CCM address yet. My pday is on Monday next week. I will get it to you then. My first meal in Chile was Spaghetti, bread, salad, corn, jello, cake and ice cream. It was really yummy. Anyways...I love you all so much! Say hello to everyone for me. I get to email next week so have everyone send some love! 

Hermana Steele