A New Year!

Happy New Year!  I can´t beleive that it´s already 2015.  It´s kinda weird to think that I´ll be spending the next whole year in Chile but I´m super excited that I get to have this experience.

I´m not sure what to write this week.  It was a little slow because a lot of people had gone to Temuco to visit family for the New Year.  That or they had visitors so our investigators would cancel their appointments.  

For New Years Eve, we stayed in our house for the night.  We didn´t have any citas (appointments) for dinner so Hermana Rimmasch and I decided that we would try our hand at making sopiapillas (which are pretty much dough that you fry.)  Our first batch was terrible!  They were as hard a rocks but we kneaded the second batch of dough more and they turned out fine.  We like to eat sopaipillas with mustard and hot sauce or manjar (dulce de leche). After, we stayed up reading Jesus the Christ until midnight.  When 12:00am struck, the town´s fire alarm blasted for a whole minute and the people living downstairs broke out in a patriotic song. Hermana Rimmasch and I wished each other Happy New Year and promptly went to sleep. #missionarylife 

They whole New Years Day was a P-day. We made pankekes for the Elders at the capilla (chapel) and they taught me how to play ping pong.  It was a nice, relaxing day.

God led us to a 21 year old girl this week named Viviana.  She is super amazing!  She´s Catholic but has a lot of doubts about it.  She has an amazing knowledge of the Bible.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and she loves it because she says it helps her clarify teachings in the Bible. She had a lot of questions about baptizing children too. (and why we wait until 8 years old to baptize)

Today, we went to a little town called Collipulli (pronouced Co-je-pu-je) for a zone activity.  The main attraction for this little town is this huge yellow bridge.  It´s super high and super long!  Really cool! After taking pictures and walking across it, the Elders from the area took us to some caves. It was so beautiful!  It kinda reminded me of Webster´s Falls in Dundas, ON !   The first cave was super cool because the roof was held up by three pillars.  It kinda looked like someone had built and formed them but it's totally natural!  The rock here is a little different.  It´s not solid bedrock like we have at home.  The cliff and cave faces look like a bunch of round rocks mortered together.  It would be super awesome to go rock climbing!.  There was a cascada between two of the caves. I have a bunch of pictures of that.

I´m not sure what else to tell you...the weather here is a little wonky.  We´re finally getting into the warm part of summer.  It´s about 28 degrees here right now and I´m loving it!.  At night it can get really cold.  New Years Eve was about 12 degrees and super damp!  

Love you all!  Thank you for all of your support!

Hermana Jakob XOXO

(Mom's note - Whooot!  She got a new upload cable for her phone this week.  So as promised, lots of photos!!!)

Christmas with Hermana Rimmasch in their house.

Looks like packages and letters from home!

Now that's a way to make completos! (hot dogs)

These are the "successful" sopaipillas

The long yellow bridge @ Collipulli with the elders from her zone

The name tag's there somewhere under all that hair!

Trekking towards the caves

Inside the caves @ Collipulli

Enjoying the beautiful Chilean greenery

Inside the caves with interesting rock formations

A little bit of history from Wikipedia...

SOPAIPILLAS

In Chile, sopaipillas (or sopaipas) are known to have been eaten at least since 1726. Although Traditional Chilean sopaipillas (made in the central part of Chile) include zapallo (pumpkin) in their dough, it wasn't typically used in the South of Chile. Depending if they are served as a pastry or bread Chilean sopaipillas are traditionally served with either pebre (a sauce of onion, tomato, garlic, and herbs) or chancaca sauce (and then they are called sopaipillas pasadas). They are also served with mustard, ketchup, hot butter, guacamole, cheese or manjar. In Chile sopaipillas are traditionally made and eaten during days of heavy rain. Chilean sopaipillas are round and made flat by holes, usually made by forks.

CHILEAN SOPAIPILLAS

INGREDIENTS

9 oz zapallo- can use sweet potato, sugar pumpkin, or any orange squash (you want ≈1 1/4 C when mashed)
4 C flour
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs sugar
½ C butter

Cut squash into ½” cubes and boil over med-high heat until soft and easily pierced with a fork, ≈15-20 min. Drain (reserve liquid) and mash with butter. Mix flour, soda, baking powder, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir in squash mixture and knead dough on lightly floured surface. (add flour or reserved liquid as needed) Cover with a towel and let rest 10 min. Roll dough to 1/8-1/4” and cut into circles with a glass. Poke each one a few times with a fork. Heat vegetable oil in a skillet over med-high heat, cook until browned on both sides, 3-4 min. drain on paper towels.
*to decrease fat simply add less butter to the dough

In Chile they eat sopaipillas with ketchup and mustard, but they also serve them sweet dipped in spiced syrup- it's quite good if you want to try it:

SPICED SYRUP

1 C brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks
3/4 C water
1 teaspoon cloves
1 whole orange, sliced in 4
Bring all ingredients to a boil in a saucepan, simmer 5 minutes. Strain syrup and keep warm. After draining sopaipillas on paper towels dip them in the warm syrup and serve hot with extra syrup on the side.

http://www.just-cook-already.com/2010/12/chilean-sopapillas.html