Birthday Week

Well this has been an eventful few weeks! I have lots to tell so I hope you stay with me and read till the end :) If you have any other questions please email me! The address I´m using is: laura.millyard@hotmail.co.uk

For my birthday we all went (apart from Matt) to a Marco Barrientos gig in Temuco. Marco Barrientos is a Latin American worship leader who is well known by most of the young people I have come across so far in Chile, so it was exciting to actually go and see him live. the gig was held in a school gym, which was a bit like an American basketball court, and we were in the stalls. Leo (the pastor´s nephew) came with us which was good cause we really wouldn´t have known the way otherwise! Once we were sat in the audience I started to feel less like an English tourist and more like a Chilean, which was great :) Everyone really enjoyed the evening, mostly because it was just so different to anything we´ve done so far in Chile, and it was so good to experience something of the Christian youth culture.

On the day of my birthday I was woken by Anna who was dressed like a birthday candle, which was odd...and the breakfast table was covered in gifts from the tacky present shop in Temuco. There were plastic flowers, millions of sweets, a pink pony complete with hairbrush, a family of squeaky hippos and a "te quiero" bear. I also had some clothes from Mum and Dad, which I really needed after living for 5 weeks with the same few clothes! It´s tradition in Chile to have a big cake, and then the birthday boy/girl has to take a big bite out of it, and as they do they get their head pushed in...so of course I had to inkeep with tradition! At church in the evening I had to stand at the front whilst everyone sung "Happy Birthday"...that was embarrasing.

Me and Sally made a campfire in the back garden on Saturday evening, which we were very pleased about, mostly because we did it without any help of the boys :)

On Wednesday evening we finally had a delivery of bricks to the building site!! We are just waiting for a man to come and check that the work we´ve done so far is safe (haha) before we start the brick laying work.

Yesterday (Thursday) I stayed in bed for most of the day as I hit my head on the edge of a table and made a dent in it! It was quite funny admittedly- I can´t believe how a knock on the head could make me feel so unwell, but it did. Ok, I´m exagerrating slightly with the dent....but it really hurts!

This evening the church are throwing a joint birthday party for Abner (Pastor´s son), Claire and me, so most people have gone into Temuco to buy things for it. Me and Antoine have stayed home to get a bit of peace and quiet...it´s nice living with lots of people my age, but sometimes I really crave alone time, so I´m glad I´ve got some today.

Ok, I feel I´ve written enough now! Please stay in touch. If you´d like to write (I love getting letters!) the address is :

C/O Ruth Gardener
Quetru 1044
Millaray
Temuco
Chile