I've hit the wall

Things have gotten harder. I had a feeling that the honeymoon period would end and it has. I’d like to believe that everyday I’m making small steps toward learning Spanish but a lot of the time (despite many testimonies to the contrary) I doubt that I’ll ever get it. My biggest problem is that even if I am a good Spanish speaker at the end of my 6 months it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t speak it right now and it’s infuriating. I feel like I can’t be myself over here, if you know me than you know that I’m a very light hearted kid but I’ve never felt so serious because I’m always trying to pay very close attention to what everyone’s saying, and I can’t joke around, and I can’t be sarcastic, and I can’t flirt, and I can’t get deep with anyone, and I can barely be light with anyone, and I can’t discuss the heavy classes we’re taking, and I can’t laugh, oh God I haven’t laughed deeply in longer than I can remember! To top everything off I can’t even take a shit, yesterday I had to tell one of the leaders I hadn’t had a bowel movement in FOUR DAYS. So we drove to the pharmacy where I had the choice between a laxative which I was promised would be very painful and a suppository that would be more *ahem* difficult to administer, but much less painful afterwards. I went with option two which luckily for me did the trick but I still don’t have the situation under control even with my new vegan diet of oats in the morning and just fruits, vegetables and water. << Prayer Request.

I wasn't expecting to deal with these two problems to the extent I’m having too. This experience would be hard enough without these two extra hurdles to face. I’m in a spiritual boot camp over here and it’s weighing heavily on my heart, plus I’m physically exhausted from the lack of free time and work duties, I spent my afternoon building stairs on a steep path that people in a nearby area are having a difficult time climbing up (I’ll be working on it for the remainder of the week so I’ll try to get some pictures of it). I like doing practical stuff like this that will help people long after I come home but I’m in the middle of the Chilean summer over here and my SPF 50 is no match of the hole in the ozone layer above me, the back of my calves are toasted. After my work detail I get an hour of rest before I have too spend my next two in out drama class where we’re learning skits that we’ll use to minister to people on our 3 month outreach.

We have a one-on-one time with our primary leader once a week and mine is thankfully bilingual. So I was telling Estabon yesterday that if I wasn’t SO sure that God told me to take on this DTS here in Pichilemu that I’d think I’d made a mistake coming over here, and he had the perfect reply, he said: Don’t forget in the darkness what God told you in the light. And he’s right, I can’t see the whole picture from where I’m at and plus I’m not a quitter. I got a chance to talk to Mitch Anderson today who’s the director of the entire operation over here and I was asking him to pray for me and telling him how frustrated I was getting over different things and he had a metaphor that helped me. He told me that when you’re making gold you have to get 24 karat gold a lot hotter to refine it than you do for 14 karat gold, and in his past when God wants to take his faith and understanding of Him to the next level it’s usually a seriously uncomfortable experience that he’s always been able to run away from if he’s wanted to. But the times he sticks it out and let the refining happen he’s always been happy he did, because he told me it’s always been worth it.

Honestly I underestimated just how hard this was going to be over here but I finish what I start and I’m going to stick it out. I need your prayers this time around.

The following series of photos documents a Chilean farmer's market I had the pleasure of visiting last Saturday.

This huge bag killer strawberries only cost me about $1.10

Wow, I still having money left over for peanuts!

True story: I bought all this food for 5 dollars! Now if only I could digest it...

And I got this hand painted wooden Chilean necklace for 9 bucks!