INTERVIEW

Interview

Linda Westermeyer was born Linda Jeanette Meier on March 19, 1948 in Irand Junetion Colorado, the United States. Her parents were Otto Meier and Imas Minnie Byernum (Meier). She married Leonardo A. Westermeyer on June 8, 1969.

They have four children: Martha Condori (adopted) born September 13, 1975. Kristofor Otto was born October 11, 1975. Hans Daniel was born April 19, 1978. Rilla Ann was born April 30, 1984.

She studied grades 1 – 10 at Intermountain Junior Academy. Grades 11 – 12 at Campion Academy.

She got her under graduate degree at Union College in Lincoln Nebraska.

She and her husband worked at Lodi Academy in Lodi Ca for one and half years before answering a call to Bolivia.

She lived in Bolivia from 1972 until 1986 working in the academy in different jobs.
In 1986 they answered a call to CEALA where they worked for 5 years before coming to the Chile Adventist University.


How many countries have you lived in?

Only in three, the United States, Bolivia and now in Chile.


How was your experience living in Bolivia?

I lived in Bolivia for 14 years in the city of Cochabamba. My experience was so hard because I didn’t speak much Spanish, but I had to teach Chemistry and Mathematics classes from the very first. When I arrived it was frustrating because I understood enough Spanish. I understood the conversation but when I wanted to say something it took me too long to decide how to say it.

With time I learned the language. One day when I was in my house, suddenly I heard a group of children playing in a tree outside my window and I knew what they were saying without having to concentrate. I felt so happy because it was the first time that I understood without having to pay attention.

Bolivian people are stoic. They don’t express what they are feeling, so is hard to know if they are happy or sad.


Do your miss your country?

I miss my children, because they live so far away and I can’t see them as often as I would like. When you live outside the country for long as I have, you become accustomed to the country where you live.

I talk to my brother and his wife every Sunday. We talk on skype in the afternoon, we exchange information about what we are doing and what our children are doing.

I read the news every day online, I always know what is happening there.

How do you feel working in this University?

It’s a challenging place to work. There are students from different places. There are many kinds of teaching. For instance, I teach English and I teach Biochemistry.

It’s fun to see people learn some ways a long and tiring

Do you have hobbies?

I like to sew, I have made clothes for myself, for my husband and for my children.

I enjoy to garden, I like flowers blooming in all seasons of the year. My favorite flowers are roses, iris, lilacs, camellias. I like flowering bushes like snowball bushes and many others.

I like to cook so much, because I like to eat. I like to make cinnamon rolls. My husband likes to eat any thing sweet, but his favorite are oat meal cookies.

Is there somebody that you admire?

In sixth grade teacher Joyce Morse. She was a very good teacher. She was enthusiastic for every subject. She did the mathematic fun. She really liked English. She taught us grammar, she made it fun and challenging. She believed that when you work you should work hard and when you play, you should play hard.

Do you remember your childhood? What was the most important in it?

I had a good childhood. I suppose the most influence was when my father died. He was suffering a very bad illness. My little brother was only seven years old and I was ten. My mother worked very hard. So my brother and I learned to help with all the work.
My mother believed in the Christian Education, so insisted that we should go to the church school.

With the goal to pay the bill, we both my brother and I worked while we studied. Some weeks, junior and senior years of high school, I worked 14 hours per week.
When I was a child I was very sick. I didn’t get very good grades. From about the time, my health improved and I began to get very good grade.

With the time I wanted to be a biblical teacher, but I took the ACT test (is like PSU in Chile) the score was very high in science. When I talked with my advisor from Collage, he told me you must study science because high schools need very good teachers of science. I decided to study a major in chemistry and a minor in mathematics. After that I thought “probably the high school didn’t have enough money for three teacher of science” and I decided to study Biology.

Have you thought about what you will do when you retire?

We thought about it, but we don’t have definite plans. For now I am happy doing what I am doing. I don’t have any desire to retire early. I want to be active as long as I can.

I always said, “I want to live until I die”. In other words, I want to take care of my health. So I can continue to have full life.

When we think about retirement, we hope to find a place where we can continue to be useful maybe as volunteers.

We have thought it would be nice to live close to our children, but they don’t live all together. So, sometimes as a joke I say “we should buy a mobile house and then we will trip all the time to different places, but is a joke because I don’t want to live like that.

Do you have any experiences that show God’s guiding your life?

When I was six years old, my father was stacking hey. It was mid morning and they had finished the jobs and my father was stacking man and I was playing on a ladder that was laying on the ground. Suddenly my father began to run very fast. He grasped me and continued running and immediately behind him a large part of hey stack fell down overlying the ladder where I had been. When they asked my father why he ran, he didn’t know. I guess an angel told him. I don’t know! but I do know, I am alive.

Another time when I was in high school, I was helping my mother with the milking. When a cow switched her tail and knocked my contact lens out of my eye. It fell in the dusty floor of the barn. My mother and I looked for it, but we couldn’t find it. This was a very serious problem, because we didn’t have money to buy a new one. My mother finished the milking. So we prayed about it and went to bed. In the morning my mother was doing the milking when she saw something in the dust. She picked it up and it was my lens contact. It was not scraped. Several cows had entered, but my lens had been protected by God.

Do you have a message for your students?

They should take advantage of the opportunity to study and apply themselves and get the best grade possible because they won’t realize how valuable this opportunity was. They should study for themselves and not depend on others to do the work for them, because their success in their future jobs will depend on them, and what they have learned. They should remember that God cares for them and will give them the help they need if they will only ask.