Great News! Buenas Noticias!

Buenas Tardes Buenas Tardes!

Como stai?! We are doing great!! Things are going very well. We have some good news! Lets see..not sure where to start... but here it goes!

We are currently in Concepcion. The rest of our stay in Cochrane was amazing. We helped finish up their campaign..but didn't get to go to the Memorial there. They told us they had an attendence of 50 people...which is pretty good for 14 publishers! One brother had travelled almost 6 hours...by HORSEBACK to get there. Unbelievable. The Memorial here in Concepcion...we had 216! There are 3 congregations here and they are all a good size..hence the need for a new Kingdom Hall. This is the exciting part... Jenesia, Vanessa and I came to volunteer and help with the building here. We were under the impression that we were to come as Volunteers for a Maximum of 2 weeks. Vanessa's other brother Samuel is in the Construction group. About a month ago Jenesia and I put in Applications to work on the construction down here because we have been here 3 months and hadn't heard anything back. Well.. last Wednesday we were working away and got called into the office of the Overseer (Vicente) and he told us that we are invited to stay on this build till the end! Right now we are at foundation stage...so about another month! We tried to control our excitement as he told us we are pretty much official temporary construction workers! We have the privilege of having Morning Worship, Breakfast, Lunch, Once, and family study with the grupo. Apparently because we had turned in our applications we are good to go. We are elated!

So far we have a week under our belt of working. We work Monday thru Sunday 8 to 5. Except for every other Monday we get off or have 1/2 day on Monday. Friday we have family study in the morning so we work till 6:00pm that night. A typical day consists of waking up by 6ish and we are picked up by the Fugon (work truck).. which takes us to the apartment we have all our meals at. We are there promptly by 7. We read the text together followed by special prepared comments. We also do a reading of the Yearbook. Isn't it great this year? Samoa...Yugoslavia. Prayer then Breakfast is served! We are at the site by 8 and work the morning. We have done Rebar for the foundation, painted the gate surrounding the Kingdom Hall, cleaned the cement mixer, sanded casing/trim..(thanks for training John :))... and then today consisted of pouring the concrete. Hard work! Jenesia and I both used a concrete vibrator to help with the pouring..making sure the foundation was even. I came back home covered in concrete! Construction vocabulary is its own language in itself! I've been trying to study Construction Terms...there is so much to learn though! Hopefully by the end of the project I can talk without depending purely on my gestures. Last nite I tried telling a story to a big group and I got SO nervous and embarrassed! I could not formulate the words for the life of me. My face turned beet red as I started stumbling over my words. No more stories for me. Everyone thinks I'm shy and timid...but I tell them only in Spanish! Maybe its a good thing they don't know English Stephanie. :)

Oh! and also... the Construction Team has their own hairstylist that comes and cuts the boys hair onsite. She asked if us girls wanted a haircut...and Jenesia now officially has a new look! Whether she likes it or not is up for debate. There wasn't time for me..so the stylist is going to come back and finish the rest of ours. (not doing anything drastic Charmin) Its nice because there are 4 other girls on this team too. 3 are Temporary and 1 is Permanent. She is the FIRST permanent single sister in Chile on a construction team. Pretty exciting. Plus the fact that we already know 4 of the boys on the team from working last time...3 years ago. My goal was to see/help with a project beginning to end here and its gonna happen!

Which brings up another surprise. As most of you know...we have our tickets to return April 27th..(a couple weeks). But..seeing to it that things have been going soooo well and Jehovah has been taking care of us down here...and we have the circumstances... we have decided to stay longer! The time has flown by too fast. Can't wait to see what else is in store for us in the next few months... we will have to wait and see!

The family we are staying with is wonderful! Riola, Daniel and their 3 kids...ages 13, 16, 19. They have just been absolutely great. We are so thankful too...because the internet connection here is so fast! The only thing we are lacking now is TIME. Everyday is packed...but its refreshing. We go to sleep satisfied..and wake up a little tired...but satisfied! We are truly seeing the words of Psalms 133:1 firsthand as we meet the various brothers/sisters and form new friendships while working together with the same purpose!

This Sunday we have our Special Assembly day in a different city thats about 1.5 hours away. Should be nice! Only a few of us are going.

New pictures are up as well. I'm trying to take photos of the different phases of construction too. Those to come later. Thank you for the emails as always. Saludos (greetings)from the congregations here!

Mucho Amor-

Stephanie