11/30 6: First Real Rain

This week Hermana Espinoza and I are officially companions! We´ve technically been companions for the past four weeks since my other companion has been sick but we got a call last night (for cambios, when they tell you if you´re staying in the same area or not) and we´ll be in Portoviejo for the next 6 weeks! Hermana Miller and Rojas went to Guayaquil Wednesday morning so it´s just been the two of us in our apartment which has been SO weird. 

     We went looking for people who haven´t been to church in awhile and we found one man, Jorge, and we taught him and he said he couldn´t see but then he lead us across the street (with lots of traffic) and introduced to some guy? I don´t know, we were confused haha. I waas just afraid he was going to walk into traffic, still not sure if he can actually see or not...

     On Saturday we had Intercambios, which is when we swtich companions for a day and so I went to an area called 12 de Marzo and it´s so crazy how different one area is that´s not even 10 minutes away. Me and Hermana Lowe got to help one of people we taught cook and it felt SO good to actually cook because we don´t have much time to prepare actual meals,haha. But the woman we taught asked us to chop this good sized bag of onions and we were definitely crying by the end,ahh. 

       Then that night we went to a baptism and we made a new friend! His name is Jesus and he is this hilarious, chubby, 9 year old Bolivian kid and he sat next to us and told us all about his magnet and his favorite animals (including imaginary ones). Too bad he lives in the Sierra so we won´t be seeing him again. 

       This week´s been good, and we had the first real RAIN! It was in the evening and while we were in a home teaching we heard the rain coming down super hard and we didn´t have umbrellas...so after our lesson we were a bit wet but we´ll make sure to remember our umbrellas next time.And when the rainy season hits here it´s even hotter so I´m crossing my fingers I don´t melt. Have a good week !

11/23 5: Happy Early Thanksgiving

Happy early Thanksgiving! It´s so strange to live somwhere where they dont celebrate Thanksgiving, I didn´t even realize that Thanksgiving was this week until someone mentioned it yesterday. Everyone here started decorating for Christmas a week or two ago so its not too different from the United States, haha. It reminds me of how places like Costco bring out their Christmas things like right after Halloween. 

            This week´s been really great for us, we have 3 new people that we´ve been teaching regularly and this biggest surprise of all...a baptism next month! We had a talent show on Thursday night in the ward with all of the missionaries in our zone and the brother of a girl we´ve been teaching who´s a member told us he wanted to be baptized this week! He´s usually always with us when we teach his sister but we´re going to teach him more in the next few weeks so that he feels more prepared. Hermana Espinoza and I couldnt stop smiling after he told us! Back to the ward talent show - they were mostly musical numbers and our zone of missionaries promised to sing a song but no one had decided what song we were going to sing, so as we were going on stage one of the district leaders told us the song that we were going to sing and no one except like 5 people knew it...and it was really awkward!so we all just kind of stood there and swayed to the music..yikes. 

           We went to a members home for lunch on Tuesday, Mary Demura, and afterwards they were asking me wht kind of food we have in the US for Christmas and they were trying to explain what raisins were in Spanish but it wasnt working...so the husband took to Google and that lead to them looking up all these random foods like peaches, almonds and eventually  a squirrell (?) and asked me how to say them in English haha.Our ward is called La Paz and theres more or less 80 people?  

           I´m becoming more acccustomed to the culture here in Ecuador, things like people walking around with dead chickens in their hand..And theres a bakery right down the street from where we live and Hermana Espinoza and I may or may not be frequest customers...if they had any, we´d defs need a frequent customer card. And to get into the Christmas spirit Hermana Espnioza and I have been singing Christmas songs while walking, well she sings in Spanish and I tell her how to sing it in English so I´ll need to learn them in Spanish soon! 

            Well everything is going well here, have a fabulous Thanksgiving and eat plenty of turkey and cranberries (like thats even a question). ¡CHAO!

11/16 4: Knocking Doors

Another week! This week´s been nice and hot, as always haha. Yesterday was great because a woman we teach (Cosuelo, think back to the birthday cake..) and her son, Jesus,came to church with us! It went really well and we´re teaching her later today. 

       In Ecuador everyone puts their garbage on the sidewalk in the evening and there are ALWAYS these scorungy dogs eating from them. But a few days ago we saw 2 cows eating from garbage bags instead...?haha, I guess it was a nice change from the usual cats and dogs. And then a man came out of his home with a stick and started waving it at the cows to shoow (shoo?) them away. 

       On Wednesday me and Hermana Espinoza worked with the two other elders (Elder Condori and Reynas) to find new people to teach so were knocking doors (well almost every home here has a giant gate in front so we have to yell "Buenas!" or do something else to get their attention) and my companion asked this man at one home for water. So he comes out with a cup of water but the water in Portoviejo is really bad, so it everyones gets those giant things of water (like the ones they uses in those water things that you press the button down on...I dont know why this is so hard to explain..?) and my compaion handed me the glass of water while she and the elders were talking with the man and told me to drink it..but I didn´t know if it was good water so I whispered "esta bien..?" pointing to the water and she shakes her head yeah. So I drink the whole glass of water (hesitantly) , then after we leave the home my companion says "I hope that water was good water.."...PURE PANIC! But I didnt get sick so I dont think it was bad. So far so good! 

       All is well in Portoviejo (except the water) and hopefully we can go to the other computer place so my photos will work....

11/9 3: Cockroaches and Taking the Bus

Hola!! The end of my third week is just around the corner! Living in a foreign country is hard, but it definitely has its perks. Like all of the hilarious/bizarre stories, which I have plenty of for this week. The first one happend a few days ago when I was standing in our kitchen eating a cracker, and then all of the sudden I feel something crawling on my hand..and there´s a giant cockroach crawling on my arm! Probably the grossest feeling ever, and I have no idea where the cockroach came from. But Hermana Espinoza took care of it with a tupperware lid  and of course we had to sing the cucharacha (spelling..?) song afterwards. 

        Yesterday we taught a woman, Consuelo (comfort in English) and there were all of these people in her home for her son´s birthday party so we taught like 10 people,haha. But they were such a sweet family and after we taught them they gave us a slice of birthday cake and wanted us to take a picture with their son while he blew out his birthday candle haha, unexpected (and a little awkward) but they were so welcoming! And me and Hermana Espinoza were on either side of the birthday boy and my companion tried showing him how to blow out the candle but ended up just blowing out the flame,haha. And yesterday was also a good day because I had ceviche for the first time! Definitley one of my favorite dishes here in Ecuador. 

         And last night we stopped by a member´s home, Barbrara, to ask for some water but we ended up talking with her family for awhile and shared the scripture Ether 12 27 (insert scripture..) and I love this scripture because we all have weaknesses but we become better through Jesus Christ and His Atonement and the reason we have struggles in this life is to learn and become better than we were before,not to be perfect at everything from the start. 

    Another fun experience from this week was taking the bus! We usually take the taxis here so the bus is a whole other ordeal. There were not seats so we had to stand and we were holding on for dear life, but I´m pretty sure our legs are strong as steel after that bus ride. 

       Lots of people here have been making these piniata statue things in their homes to sell for New Years because they fill them with fireworks and other things, which is kind of sad because they spend so much time on them! But outside one home there were about 30 dragonball Z (..?) piniatas , like an army haha.I dont know why but Dragonball Z is pretty big here...? Well this week´s been good and I´m (kind of) getting used to the heat and humidty!¡ CHAO!

11/2: Second Week in Ecuador

This week has been crazy and full of surprises,as always. Weve been teaching the Sanchez family who are all members except the father and I love teaching families.theexclamation point isnt working so ill use a ... instead. After we taught him the first lesson we were about to leave then th wife motioned us over to their table which has two giant plates of rice, green stuff insert question mark in parenthesis then a WHOLE fish, eyes and all. It was actually really good and reminded me of washington minus the part of eating a whole fish. Every P Day we go to the mall here and this is definitely the closest ive felt to being in America. They play mostly American music here at the mall, some favorites were Thriller and some Rick Astley...Things are deifinitely different here, like how a lot of bathrooms in peoples homes dont have a normal handle to flush, instead you pour a bucket of water into the toilet, and kissing every woman on the cheek when you greet them, and of course the food... At lunch last Sunday one food we had was this sponge cakey thing made only from corn and peanut butter with pieces of chicken in it. This week has been really good, Ive never been so tired in my life though... Ill have to teach my companion what a piggy back ride is in English....real dot dot dots