1/30/17: Rain Poncho Fashion Show

It`s been rainy like crazy this week! It rains every 2 or 3 days but when it rains it pours the whole day. On friday we went to go visit maria mendoza and luz clara cedeño in an area called eloy alfaro, and to get to this area you have to climb a giant hill, so we got to their house then right as we got there it started POURING, and the roof of their house is tin so we could barely even hear what they were saying and we were there for like an hour and a half because we were trying to explain everything but the rain just kept on goin. Then when we went to leave all the streets were like rivers...because all the roads are dirt and so it was all flooded in some parts and we tried to find a place to leave that wasn´t covered in water but...we could not. SO, we just walked through one of the little rivers and it came up to our calves! And we were also with a member who`s like 60 years old, her name`s Blanca....hopefully she`ll go with us to another lesson after that,haha....

 Update, so it`s still raining here in good old Jaramijo, and Jaramijo is kind of isolated from the main city,Manta, so the signal`s already not so great...and the signal`s even worse today with all the rain, so the internet is super slow and a minute ago the power went out for a minute...but my email was saved as a draft so it`s okay. everyone in the cyber shouted ´nooooo!´ ,haha. One way or another we`ll write our emails today. anywho....

   Other things that happend this week- we had stake confernce and elder ardila from the seventy came and spoke! He spoke mostly about the youth and how parents need to teach their children and basically how the leaders of the church can`t teach their children everything. After the conference he said hola hermanas! to me and my companion but my companion wasn`t looking and there were a million people there and I had to run after my compaion so I just said hola as I was running away,umm... 

    So maria mendoza accepted a baptism date for the 18th of february but...she didn´t go to church on sunday! ahhh...I was so pained. Is that a phrase? I was so sad her and her daughter luz clara didn`t come to church, we called them but they still haven`t answered, so we`re going to visit them tomorrow. Pray that they go to church this sunday! Maria castro and her daughter kenia did go to church and to go to the stake conference in manta we all hopped on a giant bus and off we went! 

   Other things...today it was raining and we didn`t want to leave the house so we just made lunch in house and i made no bake cookies! Without a measuring cup. I just used a real cup and guessed...but they turned out pretty good! They didn`t really set up ( i think it might be for the humidity) so we put them in the fridge and now they`re great, just in case you were worried. 

   So we watched a missionary broadcast on wednesday morning and they announced some changes! They`re not SO extreme, we`re just planning in the morning instead of at night and pday we have an hour and a half more, whaddup. Also, the key indicators have changed,I`m sure you were alldying to know that. 

   My companion now has 5 weeks on the mish! So far so good. She teached me her peruvian lengo and  I teach her words in english! ´´oh my gosh´´ Anything funny I should teach her in english? well, I`m going to send this before the power goes out again or something crazy happens. HAVE A FANTASTIC WEEK! read your scriptures. CHAO CHAO!

Sorry for the lame photos today...me and my poncho? who could say no to you when you`re dressed like this.

1/23/17: Skirt on Fire in Jaramijo

This week...it rained super hard on friday and it rained ALL DAY and we left in ponchos and rain jackets and looked kind of funky. I thought everyone was going to let us in more than usual because it was raining but everyone just kind of looked at us and said ...mañana. haha, and then on monday we were teaching Maria Castro and we were sitting on her sofa across from her and in the middle of the lesson she asked me if my skirt was burning and I was like what? what is she talking about? and I looked down and below me on the ground was this little bowl with this coil thing of incense they use to repel the mosquitos and it had burnt a little hole in my skirt, uhh.....

      THEN, on tuesday we were contacting in an area called ELOY ALFARO and we were walking and I was just trying to think of WHERE we should go...and so then we went down this one street and talked to this one lady who didn`t want anything, then we walked down further and there was a woman sweeping outside and all I said was ´oh you´re sweeping!¨ and she called out to her daughter who was isnide and said ´cynthia, le buscan! ´´ and her daughter cynthia came out and they pulled out two chairs. I was so confused! Because there are a ton of people here who are less active so I thought maybe that was it..? but we asked them if they were members and they said no, but that they has always liked the mormon church and we went back the next day and taught them the restauration with a member, gloria chinga, and it was honestly one of the coolest lessons ever, because they payed so much attention and were so excited to go to church! One of the daughters of cynthia who`s 7 came in at the end of the lesson and was like what`s going on? and maria mendoza (who is the mother of cynthia and was the eoman who was sweeping) and cynthia and the other daughter of maria, luz clara who`s 19, were all like we`re gpoing to their church and it`s going to be better and you`re going to have new friends! SO great. Only cynthia ended up going to churc yesterday with her daugter, natasha, and we didn`t think they were going to show up but they did right as it started! Best moment ever. Well, this week the goal is to get all of them to church! Pray for them!!!

 BUENO; gotta go, CHAO! love you all 

Took some quick snaps in front of the wall that says JARAMIJO. Totes ofish. (totally official abriviation plus a fish pun in favor of jaramijo.)

1/16/17: Flight Plans!

AHH!! I can`t even concentrate because I just read the official flight plan for my return home. WHAT. I feel like there`s still so much time left and last night it hit me  that  there`s only NINE MORE WEEKS. That`s  insane. We`ve been contacting and walking like crazy people this week trying to find someone to bring to church! We`re still visiting maria castro and she wants to learn more she just has trouble understanding, but we`ll work with her on that.. We`re  visiting her in like an hour so pray that everything goes good! She has 4 children, and all their names begin with K, Kevin, Kerlie, Kenya and Karla. We also taught a woman named MAriana Anchundia a few times and she`s way great, hopefully she`ll go to  church this sunday! 

  Hmm, what else..everything`s going good here, Hermana mayo is in her third week of training! She`s a quirky little thing her. Always talking about her  food from peru and these words they only use in Peru,haha. Here it`s been SUPER hot , but you already knew that. This sector is HUGE and we`re slowly but surely knowing more and more of it! We made appointments to viisit a handful of the members this week and I`m making no bake cookies to bring them to try to win over their hearts,uhhh.....WELL, next week I`ll write a more quality email, I`m sure I say that every week....but next week it`ll be true. LOVE YOU ALL!! CHAO CHAO!

1/9/17: Montecristi Museum

Time is going by way too fast. We`ve already been here for like 2 weeks! Yesterday we brought one lady to church, her name is Maria Castro, she has 4 children and she`s seperated from her husband. We found her contacting and in the first visit she was like yeah I`d like to go to church....okay yeah! Then we passed by a secnd time on Saturday to teach herr and she was in a blow up swimming pool with like 4 of her children so that was an interesting lesson? More to come on Maria...Also I spoke yesterday in sacrament meeting on you guessed it- missionary work. I`ve never had to give a talk before yesterday haha, almost got away with it my whole mission...

   Then today for p-day we made lunch in the house, hermana Roylance and I made arepas and the macaroni and cheese from the chirstmas package and a fried egg to go with the arepa. Then we left with a member, Hermana Laris, to go to montecristi. There we went to a muesum and took a ton of photos and then looked at some of the shops. And now we`re here writing. The branch here is pretty small, Yesterday there were like 60 people at church and there were like 15 sisters in relief society. Time to make this branch a ward!

     Well, those are probably the most interesting things thave have happend this week, CHAO LOVE YOU!!

we went to some museum today in montecristi, enjoy!

 

1/2/17: First Week in Jaramijo

I´M IN JARAMIJO!!! Me and Hermana Mancuso went to Guayaquil in the early morning to go to a little capacitation and then to meet our new companions! My new companion is....Hermana MAYO! She´s from Lima, Peru and comes from a big family of like 11 people, ahaha. But we got to our new sector here in Jaramijo Wednesday night and started contacting! We´ve found a few people who are interested like JAcinto Bolivar and a woman named Elsa Mero. Woop woop. Oh yeah, to travel from the terminal to our new sector I lugged around my 2 giant suitcases, my pillowcase AND the 2 packages that arrived in the office, whaddup!

    We´re also here with 2 other sisters, Hermana Roylance from Utah and Hermana Torres from Peru. 2 gringas and 2 peruvians! It´s a branch here and yesterday there were literally like 40 people at church haha, but it was news years so there´s going to be more people next week. We live like 1 block from the beach, it´s so beautiful but so tempting! 

    Well, I´ll give more updates next week. CHAO CHAO!! 

Pictures with Miguel Ortega, aka Miguelito! He´s getting baptized the 7th of January!

 Selfie from today in Jaramijo. With Hermana Mayo, Roylance and Torres. 

Some pictures with my ¨hija´´ , Hermana Mayo de Peru.