Fourth Week in Chile

"I find your lack of faith distrubing..."  - Darth Vader

¡Hola Familia!

CAM!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you have a beautiful day and all your wildest dreams come true. I sent your package 2 weeks ago but they said it could take about a month to get there :/ So you might be getting a belated birthday package. I love you though and am so happy for the last 12 years of my life because YOU were in them :) Now, go pass that sacrament...

This week was absolutely...weird? Crazy? I don´t know how to describe this week. I got super sick Wednesday night and have been fighting a nasty sinus infection. I´ve never had a cold this bad in my whole entire life. I thought that I would feel worse (mentally) if I just stayed home and slept so I went out and worked all day Thursday. I passed out because the sun was so hot - or so I thought. Turns out everyone was freezing and it wasn´t even hot outside.  I was sweating and had terrible chills...I finally went home at around 6 and slept for an hour or so and then was back out to teach two more lessons Thursday night. 

We have been teaching Josafat. (I can´t remember if I´ve told you about him yet). He is 24, (freaking cute....oh my gosh, he´s so cute. shhh), goes to school in La Serena, lives with his family, etc. His family was baptized four years ago. His sister is Pracilia. (The girl who dyes her hair red.) He knows a lot about the church but has a problem with Joseph Smith. (Along with everyone else here.) But he is starting to read and pray more. I just know he´s going to get baptized and serve a mission. We watched the Joseph Smith video with him on Friday night.  His sister, Jemima, had a terrible seizure. It was so scary. I am happy my mind was able to keep calm and remember all the things I learned when I was getting my CNA. I had an immediate flashback from when I worked at Noodles and Company and had to help that man who had a seizure. She is doing great - just scary.

Pracilia runs with us every morning. I am here to tell you--if Pracilia can get up and run every morning, ANYBODY can get up and run. She is one big mama but she runs the entire 25 minutes. She is losing so much weight. I can tell she is so happy with herself. I feel kind of bad though-I was pushing her really hard this week. So hard to the point that she threw up and wasn´t with us the next morning because she was still throwing up. Haha. I told her to suck it up and she continues to run with us.  :) 

Nivaldo is heaven sent. Oh my gosh. Everything we teach him, he absolutely loves. His brother is struggling and isn´t really into all of it. We taught Nivaldo about Nephi and Sam and how he can be an example to his brother. They have started to read The Book of Mormon together and are both planning on being baptized April 6th. Nivaldo can´t wait for conference. He is absolutely amazing.

On Monday, Marcia told us that she was done trying and didn´t want to give up smoking. She said she had a friend from her old church come and talk to her about "The Mormons" and that we baptize dead people. Hahahaha. That was great. We worked with her every day this week. She smoked every day this week; only one, but still, it´s hard. Last night we went over and talked to her about Conference/The Book of Mormon/Jose Smith/everything. We had a long DTR (determine the relationship) and finally decided to kneel and pray. We told her she needed to pray specifically about The Book of Mormon. What a sweet, sweet, sincere prayer. I wish I could have recorded it. She started to get really teary-eyed and afterward, we all just sat and cried and hugged each other. She said she had a really warm feeling and we explained more about The Holy Ghost. She simply said, "Well, I guess that´s my answer". We decided we are going to call her 3-times a day to check up on the smoking and for every day she doesn´t smoke, we´ll bring her a mint caramel that night. (She is obsessed with that crap.) If she can go this whole week without smoking, she can be baptized with Nivaldo and Ramon on the 6th of April.

Jeremy wrote me a letter at the beginning of my mission talking about how important it is to listen to the promptings of the spirit when we feel like there is someone specific that we need to talk to. Well, I am here to testify of that. This all leads back to Metallica boy. When we first met him, he said he was only available Saturdays and Sundays because he leaves town all week for work. For some reason, Hermana Garcia hasn´t wanted to go visit him when I suggest we go visit him. FINALLY last night I said, Hermana, we need to go follow up with him. We couldn´t find his house anywhere, we looked and looked. We normally don´t do much work where he lives so she wanted to go back the area where we could have more contact. I felt so strong that we stay in that area. Sadly enough, we couldn´t find Metallica boy, (I´ll find him though...) but we found a BEAUTIFUL family that lives on his street. Sebastian, Natali and their 4 year old daughter. Sebastian’s sister was taught by the missionaries a few years ago and the Elder  came back and married her. They currently live in Salt Lake City. AND Natali told us her mom was baptized in the church about 30 years ago. They didn´t know anything about our church but say that are looking for religion. Hi. It´s perfect!

Sebastian wasn´t there last night when we taught but Natali and her daughter were very receptive. During our lesson, Natali´s mom came over and was so excited to see the missionaries there. She hasn´t been to church in a long time but was excited to help us teach about Jose Smith and The Book of Mormon. The spirit was so strong. I am SO excited to teach them. AHhhhhahhahhahAHHHHHH! THE CHURCH IS SO COOL. Even though we didn´t get to find Metallica boy, he helped lead us to this beautiful family. Point is, it´s a freaking good thing I was super metal in Jr. High and listened to Metallica. If this familia gets baptized, I´ll dedicate the baptism to James Hetfield. : )

I felt like the language was coming. But this week was pretty rough. I feel like the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. Pray for me please. I still have all the faith in the world that the language will come....I just need patience for WHEN it will come....

It sounds like everything is crazy at home. The Norm. I really miss you guys, ya know. Mostly Scooter...but yeah. I miss you. Mom, I am so sorry to hear about your foot! Gahh. Hate snaggin´ that lil pinky toe. I´ll include your foot in my fast this week. 

Dad. Thank you for your letters. I turned your last week letter into a lesson this week for one of our less active members. It was really great. I don´t read them during my email time. I print them off, take them home and read them during personal study. I always turn them into a lesson. So thanks for helping me teach out here. :)  I am really blessed to have such an amazing second Dad in my life.

Becca. CONGRATS ON MAKING THE BYU BALLET THING!!! I am so happy for you and for Jessie. :)  Stay close with your cousins. Jessie is a great girl. I am happy I am so close with Sarah Hoer and Dete. They are my BFF/Cousins for life.

Tay, get over that bar. (Pole Vaulting) That is something I could never do....I am proud of you!

All right, time is up. You guys are great. Love you :)

Love,

Hermana P

Third Week in Chile

Okay,

MISSIONS ARE SO COOL! I think they should make them reality shows. (Especially the MTC) So much DRAMA! I love it. This week was amazing. Again, filled with many different emotions--but I am definitely adjusting. My focus is becoming more on these people than myself, which is good for everyone. Don´t get me wrong, I still cry every time I look at myself naked.  I only get to run for 20 minutes 4 times a week and can only envy the people on the streets drinking ice cold diet cokes.....but for the most part, I am one happy camper. 

I don´t know how to write this email without confusing the crap out of everyone...so bear with me....

MARCIA is the mother of JOEL. She has been an investigator for almost 5 months. She has a baptism date for March 30. Her only problem has been quitting smoking. She went from smoking 25 to 1 cigarette. She has been smoking one cigarette for weeks now and finally, we had to call the Bishop to give her a blessing this week. He gave her the blessing on Thursday night and as of this morning, she has only smoked ONE cigarette. It was so cool to see the power of the priesthood work--it´s so hard for her and my heart hurts because I know how hard beating addictions can be. I love this lady more than anything. She is really putting her faith to the test because the day after she received her blessing, she found out her mom has cancer. Life is so hard sometimes, but that´s why the atonement is so amazing. I can tell she is really learning that concept and wants to have her own conversion. She is an amazing example. LOOOVE HER.

JOEL is 18 and was baptized in December. JOEL is the ex-boyfriend of VALERIA who is the 17-years-old, has the 2 year old and is currently pregnant - the one that I talked about in my last email. (By the way, we dropped her...no longer teaching that MTV 17 and pregnant girl). JOEL has two friends; NIVALDO (16) and RAMON (15). They are brothers. We started teaching them on Monday. Their parents didn't want us teaching them in their house so we've been teaching them in Joel's house while we teach Marcia. Combined Lessons. And THEY ROCK. Ramon isn't really as interested as Nivaldo, but he'll come around, I know it. Those brothers are really dear to me because they are my FIRST in everything on the mission so far. I taught their first lesson, they will be my first baptisms (if Marcia doesn´t hold strong with the smoking). I got to ask them both if they wanted to be baptized and they both said yes! I told Nivaldo after a lesson this week, ¨You´re going to be a missionary someday. I can see it.¨ He came to be the next day, excited as can be, and said, ¨Hermana Pendleton! I read the White Bible! I am going to serve a mission!¨ Hahaha. Bless his little heart. 

This ward is absolutely amazing. I could serve my entire mission in this area and be 100% content. I love La Serena. We had a family home evening last night with Familia Paz for Nivaldo. We had Joel and another recent convert come and we watched The Joseph Smith movie. I was overwhelmed with the spirit. It made me miss Sunday nights at our home. Familia Paz´s oldest daughter was snuggling with her 12 year old brother and it made me miss CAM SO FREAKING MUCH! After the movie, we all bore our testimony on Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. Words can´t describe how I felt. You just need to know that I have one firm testimony that this church is true and I don´t think I could have gained this testimony if it weren´t for the mission. 

We had Almuerzo with Familia Rodriguez this week. Hahahahaha. They are Kim and John to a T! When I asked them how they met, Hermano Rodriguez said, ¨She simply pissed me off to the point that I couldn´t live without her.¨ Loved that! He saw me wearing my Simon and Garfunkel t-shirt early that week when we were doing service so he had the album Bookends playing on the surround system when we arrived for lunch. Then he put on Best of Cat Stevens. He kept saying, ¨You don´t have any control of the music I play in my house and don´t act like you don´t want me to play it...So just sit back, eat food and enjoy....¨ And that is exactly what I did. He said he was going to go buy me a diet coke and be offended if I didn´t drink it, but I was good and talked him out of it. 

The Spanish is definitely coming. I don´t know what happened but things just started to click this week. I can understand most of the lessons...it´s the talking part that is hard. I CAN´T ROLL MY STUPID TONGUE AND IT´S REALLY DUMB. Freak. I practice 24/7 and nothing. So, it sort of makes it hard for people to understand me. Sometimes I gurgle my uvula because I can´t roll my tongue.  People just stare at me like I am trying to do some terrible Chewbacca impersonation.  It´s always awkward. Keep praying for me that the language will come and the tongue will roll. 

I could write forever about things going on here.  But I remember reading all my friend´s emails and how boring they were because I didn´t know anyone they were talking about. So, I´ll just give you simple updates. Life is good. It really is. There are selfish times where I miss, what I call THE 4 F´s: Friends, Family, Food, Freedom. But I am learning things here that are good for me. I love the people here. I am really sick of getting close to people and then having to get ripped away every six weeks or so. I am super bummed about Hermana Garcia going home. She is such an amazing, gal. Man, I love her. 

I love you all. Hope you had a beautiful week and things weren´t too crazy on the home front. Cam, I hope you won all your basketball games. Becca, your band of the week is Ben Kweller. Tay, you need to start preparing for your mission NOW. Jer, you need to freaking write me an email or something. I miss your letters.

Mom and Dad, thanks for your emails. I love you dearly. 

Second Week in Chile

¨Put your dreams away for now. I won´t see you for some time. I am lost in my mind. I get lost in my mind. Mama once told me, you´re already home when you feel love. I am lost in my mind. I get lost in my mind.¨-The Head and the Heart

Holy crap! This was probably one of the hardest weeks of my entire life. Good Hard. Just really freaking hard. If I would have studied this much in college, I could have graduated in 2 years....¨Lots of people go to college for 8 years¨.....¨Yeah. They´re called doctors.¨ Hahah, every time I think of that quote, I think of me. I hate school. I think a lot about what I want to be when I grow up. This week I decided I want to go to hair school. (yeah, your thought process is freaking weird on the mission)...Well wait and see what I want to be at the end of this week. 

WE GOT THREE FETCHA´S THIS WEEK! 

Fetcha=Dates. I got to ask three different people if they wanted to get baptized and yup. Here we go. We have 4 progressing investigators right now. One of them, we will probably have to drop. She is 17, has a 2 year old little boy and is pregnant with her second. Her mom hates the church so she is really hard to teach. I feel bad because I know that when we teach her, she feels the spirit every time. Gah, and with her situation, she needs it more than anything. 

Andree didn´t come to church this week. Which totally sucks because of how awesome our experience was with him last week. But two of our three investigators with a fetchas, Alex and Marcia, came to Stake Conference yesterday. WAHOO. Tamara is our other investigator.

I don´t have time to explain everyone's situation...but just know that things are going really well. It is amazing how badly I want these people to get baptized. I think and pray for them all the time. It gets me pumped to work as hard as I can to learn this language.

This week was soooper hard because I WANT TO LEARN THIS LANGUAGE MORE THAN ANYTHING. Ask anyone who knows anything about Chile and the first thing they will say is how fast people talk here. It´s all slang and they cut off half of their words. So nothing ever makes sense unless I tell them to talk ultra slow (which is just annoying for them and everyone else in the room). I can tell that I understand more and more everyday....slowly but surely. I am definitely learning patience and trusting on the Lord´s timing of everything. I just really want to bear MY testimony and say the words that I want to. Not the silly memorized testimony that I learned in the MTC. It´s hard not to be able to talk to the kids in the street or buy my own groceries without help. It´ll will come though, I know it will....I am totally blessed for having Hermana Garcia. That girl is bomb. It's so much easier when you're friends with your companion. And not only friends. We bond.

I seriously think about the WEIRDEST things here. I don´t even want to begin telling you about my dreams. I keep my journal and pen at the end of my bed and every night, for the past three nights, I have gotten the pen in my sleep and written ´Monster Blanket´on my hand. I guess my subconscious self really wants to make sure that you didn´t get rid of my monster blanket. If it wasn´t so big, I would ask you to send it. I really miss that guy. Remember you bought that for me on my first day of college. DONT GET RID OF HIM!

In addition to the weird hand writing thing at night, here is an example of my weird thought process when I go into a lesson: Okay Kath, really focus on what they are saying. You will do great this lesson....hmmm...I wonder what samples they are having at Costco today....I wonder what the barometric pressure difference is from Utah to Chile....hahaha Chelsea Howard is so freaking funny.....KATH FOCUS...Okay, they said ´Podemos´I know that word....Gah, I would kill for mom´s Sunday dinner right now....I wonder if Jana Watts is related to Janis Joplin. Not that they look alike..I just wonder...KATH FOCUS....¨

...you get the point.

No one here can say ´Pendleton´when they try and say it, it sounds like this ´Pen-lay-toon´....if they even get that far in my name. Most of the time it´s just ´Pe....no say....´So, the ward gave me a new nickname. Hermana Barbie. Oh, the nicknames I will have received by the end of the mission.

Everyone here loves me because I have blonde hair and am American. Well, the men do at least...So FLIRT TO CONVERT. Just kidding.... :/ kind of. There was a boy wearing a Metallica T-shirt so I told Hermana Garcia we needed to talk to him. I told him I grew up listening to Metallica. He and his friends didn´t believe me and told me to name three albums...I named five. Then his phone starting ringing and his ring tone was an Underoath song. I told him I knew Underoath as well. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Yeah, after that, he and his friend both agreed to start reading The Book of Mormon and we get to go teach them later today! Sa-weeeet. 

Yesterday, all of our appointments canceled so Hermana Garcia and I were brainstorming on what we could do for the next 4 hours. We came up with a plan to go around to less-active members in the ward who had been married for some time and ask them to share their ´Love Story´with us; How the met, when they were baptized, their thoughts on eternal marriage and then leave them with a message on eternal families. IT WAS THE CUTEST. We would go in to a house, ask them how they met and by the end of the lesson they were either holding hands, had put their arms around each other or were touching in some way. I hope that it was a reminder to them about how important the family is--ESPECIALLY Eternal Marriage. We also talked a lot about the importance of the temple. It was just fun to see them fall back in love with each other. I think A LOT about getting married, my future family, what I want for them all the freaking time out here. I really want to get married STAT when I get home...I think.  :/   Who knows-we all know how weird I am with boyzzzz. 

Okay. My time is up. Mom and Dad, THANK YOU for the letters. I know life is so busy at home and you don´t have any extra time, so really, thank you. I love hearing the update on the family! I am sending Cam´s birthday package today so look for that. If anyone wants to write me, I suggest you send me DearElders. They are better than handwritten letters.

Thanks for all you do. I want every single one of you to go and read Ephesians 1:16 and remember this girl loves you so much.

Be Good. The Church is TRUE.

Love, Hermana Barbie

P.S. Tell Nanny and Jerry they were on my mind lots this week. 

P.P.S. Tell Mark Pugmire everyone in Chile hates my handshake because they say it´s ´too much of a man´s hand.´: )

First Week in Chile

  "I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold. 

I´ve been in my mind, it´s such a fine line that keeps me searching 

for a heart of gold. And I´m getting old..." -Neil Young 

 
Okay, Where to begin. First off, I am using a super groovy keyboard so I don´t know how to check my spelling or make smiley faces, awkward faces, etc. So....whatever. I made a list of all the things I wanted to talk about but it´s two pages long. So I´ll do my best to answer all of your questions and blah blah blah.

This week has been INSANE. So many mixed emotions. Saying goodbye to my district was the hardest thing. I miss them like crazy. SO much traveling. NO sleep. I went 4 days on 10 hours of sleep. From Provo to Dallas to Maimi to Santiago to Viña del Mar to La Serena. I am in the furthest-north part of my mission. So, it's as north as it gets. I can actually see the Antofagasta, Chile mission from my balcony. It is SO beautiful here. We live in the country but really close to the ocean. We can see the ocean from our house. The weather here is totally Newport Beach weather. Overcast in the morning, burns off around 11-12, HOT in the afternoon and then cool in the evenings. It´s perfect. The people here have the most beautiful spirits-so loving and have lots of patience with me. This is a perfect mission for me. (smiley face)

La Serena is a little of everywhere that I´ve traveled. It reminds me most of Ghana. Lots of little houses close together. BRIGHT colors. Little shops everywhere to buy soda, vegtables, bread, etc. Everyone here thinks I´m from Argentina because I am short, dye my hair blonde and have `BIG HAPPY EYES`. They always tell me I have happy eyes. It´s cute. There are more dogs here than there are people. It´s so sad because you can´t touch them. Gah, they are so cute...well, most of them. Everyone here knows who the missionaries-Mormons are. There are 3 churches in JUST our area. The church is really big here. It´s nice. We work a lot with inactive members.

Everyone here listens to American music and it´s great. Shh...Lots of Billy Joel, Elton John and Neil Young. Lots of Neil Young, and you know how much I love that.

I wish I had all the time in the world so that I could write you about everyone we´ve taught thus far. We teach about 3-5 lessons a day. Lots of studying. My favorite part of the day is bar far Almuerzo (lunch). In Chile, they eat a very small breakfast, a HUGE lunch, and then nothing for dinner. You don´t even understand when I say HUGE. So, everyday a member or investigator has us over to eat from 1:30-3:30. The doctor from the MTC called the Mission Nurse, Hermana Huggie, and told her all about my stomach problems. Then Hermana Huggie called the Relief Society President and gave her a nutritional menu for me AND THEN SHE told EVERYONE that I can only eat veggies, fruits and pocco pollo (little chicken). Hahah. It is so perfect! I feel so blessed. My stomach is still being kind of funky. I seem to always have a stomach ache still. It´s not as bad as the MTC, but I definitely am eating healthy. When I look at all the pasta, bread, weird freaking steak that everyone else has to eat, I am thankful. Especially with the fact that I probably won´t be doing much running for the next 16 months.

One of the hardest parts of the mission here is NO CAFFEINE. 
Um. Hi? When I first heard that, I DIED. 
I said "Dear President, I made President Monson`s dinner every night for almost a year and guess what he had to drink EVERY NIGHT?
DR. PEPPER!" 
So, am I allowed to drink diet coke if I can get a letter from Monson giving us the "Okay" for me to drink diet coke? (awkward face) 

Ugh! I have been 100% obedient, with a 100% headache.

My new companion is AMAZING. We are so different, but she is the ideal trainer. How blessed am I? Always. I definitely miss Hermana Smith (Hermana Garcia doesn´t always laugh at my jokes) but Hermana Garcia is simply incredible. She is from Texas, NOT latina, but speaks both English and Spanish. It´s so nice for so many different reasons. We get along really well. I am "killing her"--this is her last transfer. I wish she could be here for my full 12 weeks of training. She is ready though-she already has a wedding date.  So, I can only imagine she is ready to get home. She still works hard and pushes me. Oh man, every night I am dead because of her.

There is Spanish and then there is Chilean. I know some Spanish. I know zero Chilean. People smile at me and that´s really all I need for now.



Our next door neighbor is Angela. She is a member and comes with us to lots of our lessons. She is blind but has her own massage business. We made a promise to each other that I would teach her English if she would teach me Español. Yesterday she asked me how to say "Excuse Me"...hahaha I taught her how to say it in Tina`s funny voice...."Thcuse me, Thcuse me". I will have to make a video and send it home. She likes it when we take her on walks. I love her dearly and want to help earn the money for her to fly to America and have surgery on her eyes. That´s her dream. 

We had the most amazing lesson yesterday with Familia Aracena. Andree and Joclyn. They have been married for about 8 years. both members. except Andree stopped going to church about 3 months ago. We don´t know why but he definitely needs help. I met him yesterday for the first time and he is amazing! We get along really well. I guess I swore in our lesson so he loves me and thinks I´m hilarious. See! I told you swearing is fine (winky face). I am good about not cursing out loud anymore....in my head, yeah, that´s totally a different story. Anyway, we didn´t even teach anything we planned. I walked in there and knew he needed to watch The Mormon Message `Mountains to Climb.` (The one I told you to watch last week.) We watched that and then I had him read my missionary plaque scripture D&C 84:88. We were all in tears. We didn´t talk for almost 5 minutes. The spirit was so strong. Andree finally looked at me and said, "I know you can understand me...and I can understand your little Español. You don´t know what I am going through, but I know that you are supposed to be here. Will you come back on Saturday to help me get ready for church?"

Seriously. If that was the only spiritual experience I have while I am here for the full 18 months, I would be so content. THIS CHURCH IS SO REAL AND COOL AND AMAZING. I was so happy. I am stoked to be here. The language is so freaking hard. It really is. But I have a peaceful feeling always that it will come.

I wish I had more time to write, but I don´t. Just know that I am happy, content and have a strong testimony of this gospel. Thank you all for your love and support! Really. It´s unreal how much I love all of you.

Be happy, yo! Life is GOOD!

All my love,
Hermana Pendleton

First Day in Chile

With permission from Hermana Smith's (Katie's MTC companion's) mother, I've included a few details of their first day in Chile-complete with pictures and description from Hermana Smith. Thanks, Laura & Katelyn!

Not too bright, but certainly early, 

our missionaries bound for Chile 

left the MTC at 3:30am!

"The first day here was very busy. We drove to a lookout that overlooks Valpariso and Vina del mar. It was foggy but it was beautiful. Then we went to the Reloj de Flores and took a mission picture with the President and his wife! They are honestly incredible. I swear Predident Kahlein could be a general Authority. They are extremely strict but amazing."

"The first night here, Hermana Pendleton and I shared a room in a hotel in Viña and tried our first... a Chilean nighttime snack? ha"

"The next day we had an orientation. President speaks a lot of English, not well, but enough to get his point across. After that, we all met in the Church 4 Norte 1112 Viña del Mar for a changing meeting. A couple Elders and Hermanas bore their testimonies and then the President began to announce where everyone was assigned. The moment they call your name you have to get up and leave. So Hermana Pendleton and I never really got a goodbye.  We aren´t allowed to write other missionaries in the mission. SO could you please just let her family know, and tell her I love her and miss her a lot!!!" 

She's Arrived!

Well, after almost a week, we received word that our Katie is in Vina Del Mar safe and sound.  We figured no news was good news, but it's always comforting to know for sure.

 

Dear Bryon and Dianna Barton,

Your daughter arrived safely! After an entire day of training she is now serving with her trainer in La Serena Zone, Brillador ward (4 Sisters), one of the most beautiful places in the mission. Next week the Stake conference will be held, an area Authority is going to preside and we will be there too with her again.

Thank you for sending such a special spirit to serve the Savior in Chile.

Best Regards,

For news you can always refer to : www.misionvinablogspot.com

(Mondays is update time)

Presidente Kähnlein

Mision Chile Viña del Mar

Off to Chile

We got to talk to Katie on Monday when she was in the Miami airport waiting for her flight to Chile!!!

She sounds great and was excited to set foot in her new home, Viña del Mar.  We had a good laugh when she said that she didn't think her Nacho Libre accent was going to get her very far in Chile ~ especially after listening to so many Spanish-speaking people in the airport. It's understandable that she would be a little nervous about the language, but I don't doubt that she'll do well. She's got the Lord on her side, and well... she's Katie. : )

We haven't heard from her mission president or from Katie since she arrived on Tuesday.  We figure no news is good news at this point. I'm sure it's insane with the increased number of Elders and Sisters going into the field right now.  It certainly is a unique and wonderful time to be a missionary!  

 
Katie's new address is:

Hermana Katherine Pendleton
4 Norte 1112
Viña del Mar
CHILE