1/18 13: New Hermanas

Portoviejo is wonderful as always this week! Pretty sure this city has the best sunsets ever because we were walking on the street one evening and the sun was perfectly aligned between the buildings on each side of the street and was this gorgeous pink and orange color (okay this is how every sunset is, haha). Also we{ve recieved our fair share of food this week... One day we visited the Loor family and the mother, Nelida Loor, came out with all this food, which included an empanada with queso (sprinkled with sugar), papaya and then a small plate of mani (its like peanut butter but not..) with this white cheese everyone makes here that makes a squeaky noise when you chew it. Then for lunch yesterday we were given not one but TWO pieces of cake from the Lozano family, and weve gotten mangos from 3 different people this week so we have been well fed this week. 

      Two new hermanas arrived this week to live here in La Paz with us, one is Hermana Pugh (Logan,Utah) and the other is Hermana Mancuso (Miami,Florida) and its been so great having them here with us! Because both of them are new here in this area weve been showing them around and introducing them to the members of the ward. One night all of us went to home of the Sanchez family and while we were teaching one of their chickens was just circling my legs,ahh..But this week has been great and one of our investigators (Francisco) is also doing great and always come to church, even when he comes alone with his crutches. Love all of you! CHAO!

12: Staying in Portoviejo

Oh yeah, so I guess all of Portoviejo will be without water for a whole week sometime soon...so that ´ll be interesting! But this week has been good, we´ve been given plenty of food from the members...last sunday the family we ate with insisted that we have two pieces of cake after the meal, or we´ll teach a lesson at house after we´ve eaten lunch somewhere else and they´ll come out with a bowl of ceviche (which is fine with me because I can always go for some ceviche). Hope everything´s going good at home! Love you!! 

This week has gone by so fast! There are "cambios" every 6 weeks in the mission where you´ll get a call telling you´re going to a different sector and you have to pakçck all your things and go to mission in Guayaquil, or you don´t get a call which means you´re staying in the same place. So yesterday was the day was the day of cambios....and Hermana Espinoza and I don´t have any!! So we´ll be staying here in Portoviejo for another 6 weeks which is great because we can continue teaching the awesome people here. Yesterday Abraham Laniz, who was baptized last month, blessed the sacrament for the first time. It was such a great moment and Hermana Espinoza and I felt like proud mothers,haha. And a woman we´ve been teaching, Edicta Vera, has been coming to church every week and is officially an active member of the church again. She is so cute and is like our abuela! She always has a different dress when we visit and is so sweet. 

1/4 11: Happy New Year

Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!! This week again we were with the other four missionaries again im 12 de Marzo for a few days during new years eve! For New Years Eve we got to stay up until 12 and watch fireworks! We went up to the rooftop of their apartment and watched fireworks with hot cocoa and freaked out about 2016!! on the 31st there were a ton of those statues they make for the new years and my favorite was the giant Captain America in front of the bakery on our street. People light these statues on fire and its actually kind of anticlimatic,haha. They kind of just sit there and watch the statue burn and sometimes it fizzles out and they have to relight it. And of course there was plenty of good Latino music throughout the day playing in the streets and in the night. 

       Weve been teaching this couple, Carmen and Francisco Vasquez, and they came to church with us yesterday! They both have so much faith and are such great people. Francisco recentlly had half of his left foot amputated so he cant walk without crutches and wasnt able to make it to church because of this for the past few weeks. But last Friday he was able to get a wheelchair from a foundation here so he can make it to church now! Theyre so cute and theyre like our grandparents who give us mangos when we visit! Were excited to keep teaching them this week. 

       Hope everyone has some good new years resolutions, love you all! CHAO!

12/28 10: Christmas

This week was Christmas!!!! The best part was definitley skyping with everyone and getting to speak in ENGLISH! Before skype my companion and I were so stressed because the cyber we were going to skype at didnt have cameras, so then we ran over to the other cyber nearby and thankfully they had everything for Skype, a Christmas miracle,haha!After skyping we went to dinner at one of the counselors of our stake and had a delcious meal with their cute family and ALL of the missionaries in our zone in Portoviejo. The dinner included rice, chicken, salad (were not supposed to eat lettuce but most of the missonaries did anyways.,..oops!) and then of course cake! They had christmas programs from the Mormon Tabernacle choir on their tv and it was so festive and great! Then we went to the house of the missonaries in 12 de Marzo to spend Christmas with them since we couldnt leave the house til the 26th. For lunch on Christmas day we had food that a member brought us (rice and turkey ) along with food from Hermana Mancuso (from florida) like stuffing, grazy and cranberry sauce so it was a multicultural Christmas lunch,haha. This week weve been teaching a m,an named ANgel Tobias who is the husband of a member in our ward. Hes this spry (spelling)87 year old, always wears these white suit pants and green button up shirts with the sweetest oxfords haha and he wasalso an engluish teacher so he like to use his english phrases when we visit. This weeks been good and I cant believe its goong to be 2016!!

12/21 9: Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad! This week has been great, we went to Guayaquil to go to the temple there and then after there was a "verificacion" for the new missionaries and oh yeah, we had our first baptism!! Our first baptism was on December 19th at 8 pm and it was such a special experience. The person who was baptized was Abraham Laniz, he{s 16 years old and he loves trying to speak to me in English,haha. He was baptized by his cousin, Brian Rezebela, and the next day was confirmed a member of the church by his other cousin, David. Abraham has so much faith and he{s such a great example to those around him. During the baptismal service we made sure to sing plenty of Christmas hymns since Christmas is this week!

. This week we{ve been sharing the christmas message of the church with everyone we possibly can! A lot of people here dont like christmas because of how commercial it is and because there are a lot ofpeople here who cant afford to buy presents so it{s so nice to talk with them and remind them that this holiday isnt about all of these material things but about remembering our Savior and all the things he{s done for us. The people here who have christmas trees go ALL OUT and the tree is covered in tulle and other giant deocrations, you can barely see the tree, haha. Speaking of Christmas..Tuesday after our zone conference I got the two packages from Mom and Dad then Reesa and Dayna!!! I was like a little kid carrying my two packages out of the building (and then into a taxi..a bit of a struggle,haha) 

Also, shoutout to Bart and Lori Tirrell on their anniversary on the 19th! 

Everythings been really great here,weve been doing the usual like eating meals that could feed a family, singing Christmas songs and preaching the gospel! Feliz Navidad!!

12/14 8: Stake Conference

This is really bad but I dont think I´ll have time to write a actual email for everyone today....but this week was really good, and I extended my first baptismal invitation!haha. To a woman named Celina Llanos who hasthese 4 crazy kids and its so funny because shes so monotone so halfway through saying the baptismal invitation she just says si, like oh of course with no expression haha. And the district leader and his companion and a member and there was another hermana with us  so it was so nerve racking to say the baptismal invite in front of 6 other people! And we had stake conference this weekend and on the taxi ride there there was this reddish purplish liquid on one of the seats and i didnt see it when i put my hand on the seat so it was on my hand and i wanted to throw up haha, but the taxi driver said there wasa lady with a cake before us so i hope thats what it was...gross. And we returned to teaching the sanchez family and now they have a chicken and it was just wondering around around when we taught them...i think its for christmas. And they gave us this tyhing called leche de solla (soya)...i dont know, but its delcious! LOVE YOU ALL!

12/7 7: Happy December

First off, I can´t believe it´s already December! This week has been nice and busy, filled with many hilarious moments. One being when there was a bee flying around on our ceiling so Hermana Espinoza tried throwing her flip flop to kill it but it just ended up hitting me in the face...oops! Or when we went to a member´s home to share a message and her and her friend were moving things in their home to the upper level of their house so we joined in! We totes carried a mattress up a flight of stairs as well as a wooden bedframe. It´s been raining here almost everyday and the rain is either really light or pouring, and the first time it pured we used our umbrellas and when we passed by a group of people I heard one of them say ¨theyre not from around here..¨, but in Spanish obviously... And we had a noche de hogar )family home evening) with the Loor family in our ward and it was so great! We got there and there were two plates of food for us! Which was perfect because earlier that mornign we had  to leave our house at 2 30 am to travel to guayaquil for something for h espinozas visa, so we had 8 hours on the bus that day haha. But the dinner the Loor family made us was so delicous, it was rice ) do i even need to writethat) and mani ( this peanut buttery stuff, sometimes it has fish in it..) the message we shared with them was the Christmas message of the church Ha Nacido Un Salvador and its a video that everyone should watch! (attach video aqui hehe) Hope everyone is having a wonderful day, CHAO!!