10/3/16: Transferred to Libertad + General Conference

Guess who`s no longer in Portoviejo?! haha, there were transfers last night and I just arrived to my new sector in Libertad (its called esperanza, or hope) with my companion, hermana twitchell who`s from Utah and this will be her last transfer. From what I`ve seen I really like it here and it kind of reminds me of like a run down part of seattle or that place in oregon people always go to...it has shore in the name? Ah, I`m blanking on the name! But it`s just the two of us living here in the home so that`ll take some getting used to after living with 3 other girls in the other homes. 

  And..GENERAL CONFERENCE!! So great. Basically the answer to all my prayers. As everyone has been saying, all of them were super great but one I especially liked was by J. Devn Cornish. I also really apreciated all of the cool accents that were heard in the conference talks and prayers, the suit of Elder Rasband and the purple pocket squares worn by the tabernacle choir. But really, it was such a great conference weekend. One of he people that came was a new investigator we`ve taught once named Richard. We just taught him the restauration and he just GETS IT. Totally going to be baptized. Also, we may or may not have crashed a wedding before the saturday afternoon sesh...one of our investgators, Juan Carlos Pacheco got married to his wife who`s already a member and it was SO gorgeous. We were just goingt to stay for a few minutes to see the happy couple but we got there and the bride hadnt gotten there, and then right when we were about to go out the door the whole wedding party stood outside the door and maria del carmen, the bride, was walking down her little red carpet to make her grand entrance....so we snuck out right after she came in haha. 

    Also, we met a best friend named Ethan on friday where we eat lunch each friday., He`s a sassy 4 year old who starts dancing when we tell him to and gives us chocolate cake ahaha. I`m going to attach some selfies I took with him and also when he struck a pose in his little jeep. SO great. He reminds me of chancho from nacho libre. WELL, that`s a bit of my week. LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! CHAO!

I look so chubby and tired in this picture, gross. But this sister named Jessica made us bolones today! It`s with platano and onion and other things. mmm.. 

My best friend

9/19: Pants and Dessert

Hey hey ! How´s it going up there in the states? Everything here´s goin good, nothin ou of the usual. We went to the temple on tuesday in the night and it was so great, it feels like we hadn´t been to the temple in forever, ahh I didn´t want to leave. But I can´t say the same thing about the 4 hour bus ride there and back. The day after we went to the temple we had a confernce with the all the sisters and got measured for the new pants they´ll be making for us, haha. woo woo SO carlos ponce didn´t get baptized saturday because he had to have this medical thing measure his heart (super specific I know) so he couldnt get wet for 2 days, but don´t worry, he´s gettingg baptized this friday! Also, Angel Garcia si all ready for his baptism on friday, but...a few days ago he said he asked his mom to sing the paper and she said he should wait a monh or two..so if you could all say a prayer for him that´d be great! Yesterday...we made cookies with the demera family! Chocolate chip. Next up, brownies! Almost no one makes dessert here so we have to help them with that. And who´s excited for general conference? THIS GIRL. I havent been able to put downn the liahona from May, so I already know this conference is going to be amazing. Some favorie conference talks (from your favorite missionary) include : If you love me keep my commandments by Elder Hales, The laborers in the vinyard by Elder Holland, and Forget me no by Elder Uchdorf. Also, here´s a scripture to get ya hinkin- Mosiah 2:22-24. Love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!!

CHAO CHAO CHAO CHAO CHAO!

9/12: ONE YEAR!

ONE YEAR ON THE MISSION! I can´t believe we hit the one year mark this week, how the heck?! It feels so weird to have been in a foreign country for a whole year, only 6 more months of rice!.To celebrate..we went out teaching!haha. This saturday in the night, Carlos Ponce , the husband of a recent convert Juana Forty, will be getting baptized! He is so funny and sometimes falls asleep in the middle of the lessons...but he just says the funniest things sometimes- Are you excited to go to church on sunday? Yeah, if I don´t wake up dead. hahaha, oh man carlos...And then we´re teaching 17 year old Angel Garcia who is also going to be baptized , on the 24th! We got permision to baptize him this week and its so funny because when we asked him what his parents would say about him getting baptized (because they have to give their consent) he said he had already talked to them about it. He´s super excited about his baptism and igoing to have hector vasquez (the father of the vasquez mera family) baptize him. 

    Today we went to a sketchy dentist office because Hermana Parker chipped her tooth, then we went to lunch at the house of the nunez family and ate ceviche, yum! But this week has been super good.Oh yeah, did I already tell you guys how there´s a new rule where we have to wear sunglasses if it´s sunny outside? #supergringa 

    Well, today in my personal study I came across a super great scripture in James 1:22, it´s really simple but good. And also I ´ve been reading the Liahona that has all the conference talks from the past conference, and there´s one by Elder Uchtdorf that´s called He will place you on his shoulders and carry you home, go take a look at it! 

   It´s been another great week, went by super fast as usual,haha. Hope everyone is getting back into the groove of things since school and everything has started again. Love you all so so much! CHAO CHAO CHAO!

Trying to get a picture before the bus came...

One year!!

Hermana Parker chipped a tooth so we went to the dentist this morning to get it fixed!

7/25 (40): Best Week Ever

THIS WEEK!!!! The reason the subject line is filled with exclamation points is because this week was the best ever. Yesterday a family we´ve been teaching, the family Vasquez-Mero, accepted a baptism date! It´s a family of six people. Katy Mero, the mother, Hector Vasquez, the father, their three daughters, Mauly (19), Shirley (17), Helen (11) and their son Mateo (7). We were so nervous before (and while..) teaching them but they´re all so prepared. Yesterday was the first time they came to church and they loved. Their daughters love young womens and personal progress and it´s so cute to see how excited they are about it. Hermana Casana and I were pretty sure that the mother would accept to be baptized but we weren´t so sure about the husband because he was a little less enthusiastic before, but yesterday when we asked them to be baptized, they both said yes at the same time without thinking twice. The mother, Katy, started crying and said that she had been waiting for this. It felt like a dream and I´ve never felt a joy so strong in all my life! The whole family ( apart from Mateo) will be baptized August 13. mark it in your calendars! When they arrived to church they looked like they had been members all their lives. 

    I don´t know what will top the first part of this letter, but this week weeee...made friends with a cow in a part called Rosales, cut papaya from a tree (but not really), ate a tonnnn of rice (saturday night like three people after lunch gave us rice or noodles..full carbs!) and had the best night ever yesterday with the family vasquez mero. I finally tried a food here that I don´t like....someone gave us the smoothie of platano (ca-choola, I don´t know how ot spell that..) and it was so gross haha. It was like all warm and platanos shouldn´t be liquidized. We also had a few temblores, woo hoo! One happend Tuesday night at  around 8:30 and we were in ward council and it was so funny because everyone just BOLTED out of the room, buttt the fastest person was Hermano Alvares who´s like 70 years old and he´s my favorite! He´s gone with us and Mariana Nuñez (the mother of the Nuñez family who introduced us to the family vasquez mero) and he´s so sweet but can be sassy haha. He was definitely the first one to leave the room and everyone teased him for it aha. But yeah, this week´s been pretty great. Hope everyone´s doing well, LOVE YOU ALL! CHAO! 

More papaya cutting...

Someone gave us this fruit! They call it fruta de china?

A picture of the best family ever...(apart from our family) , the family
vasquez mero..one of the sisters from our ward passed by and handed them
this picture of the temple, pretty perfect right?haha.

4/18...26: Word After the Earthquake

Good morning!! I don´t even know where to start, these past few days have been so crazy! To start off, I was transfered to Jaramijo in Manta Thursday morning because the cambios this time were different, usually they happen on Sunday, so I had been in Jaramijo for like 3 days when the earthquake happend. Jaramijo is a super humble area, WAY different than Portoviejo, and our house is about two blocks away from the sea. The view from our house is (was..) so gorgeous! But anways, I´m in a trio with hermana reina and aburto and we had just left a lesson in a more humble area with houses of caña and it was such a blessing we were there and not in the center where we had planned on being in our plans in our agenda because the place where we were the houses are far apart and theres not that many  buildings so the damage wasn´t so bad. But we were walking and the ground start shaking and it was so strong we couldn´t even walk so we were holding onto to eachother in a circle and hermana aburto said a prayer. After the earthquake we walked as fast as we could to find a moto (here they dont have taxis, they just use these things where there´s a motorcycle and theres a little carriage thing to sit in) so we could get to the center of jaramijo because where we were is like 20 mins away to walk. So we finally found a moto that wasn´t taken and we got to main place of the city (I don´t really know what to call this..?) and so many of the houses were destroyed and it was such a crazy sight. We went to our house to get our emergency backpacks but part of our house was missing and the woman who owns the house locked a different door that we don´t have the key to so went to the chapel and there were already other members there . We waited awhile for the zone leaders to come and get us and then we went to the chapel in Manta with the other missionaries in our zone. We slept outside on the cobblestone for awhile because the chapel wasn´t super secure, but after awhile it started raining so we got permission to sleep in the chapel haha. Then the next day we just read our scriptures, waited for the elders to bring us food (haha) and slept for awhile. The whole day the assistants to the president were calling our zone leaders and trying to figure out how to get us to Guayaquil and we finally left at about 5:30 to get on a bus. We waited for awhile for all the missionaries in our zone to get there and we left a little after 8 and got to Guayaquil around 12 then went to the temple housing. When we arrived the president of the temple and his wife and a few other members had all this food for us and it was the best meal ever! I can´t believe an earthquake like this actually happend, it feels like a movie or something.But we´re all safe and I´m glad I can write to you!!! LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!

4/11 25: A Baptism and a Haircut

This is going to be a shorter email (than usual). Alex Bolanos's baptism was this saturday and it went great!! His family came too which was great. It was such a special moment to see him get baptized by the bishop. It was so funny at the end of the service because this one old couple kept trying to congratulate alex before the closing prayer and they got up two times and started shakimg his hand and then another person got up and it was way funnier to actually be there than what I'm writing haha. Then the next day he was confirmed and he came with a white shirt and the first counselor gave him a tie to use haha. 

    And then this morning my companion gave me a haircut! There has never been time during P-Day to get  a haircut and my hair was way too long so she cut it in like 5 minutes this morning. Pictures to come.....

    But this week has been great and we have a new convert!! Oh yeah, and there was a multizone conference in Guayaquil wednesday and thursday and we got to go to the temple and heard great messages from President and Sister Dennis. 

    Love you all so much!!! Have a great week!!

4/4: 24: General Conference

THERE´S GOING TO BE A NEW TEMPLE IN ECUADOR!! Sunday morning the stake center was packed with people and President Monson announced 4 new temples and the first one was ECUADOR! It was one of the best moments of my mission to be sitting in the chapel with all these members and how everyone did a little shout of joy and to see their reactions,haha. Alex Bolanos came to the Sunday morning session and we were surprised to see that he was with his wife and 2 kids also! His wife never wants to listen to us and her dad´s a bishop but was never baptized and so we were shocked when she walked through the door. It was so sweet to see them sit together as a family!! Every talk in conference was so great, and it was cool to be able to understand it in Spanish! Of course there´s things here and there I can´t understand but it was such a relief to understand the majority. The person who translates the talks speaks so clearly, I wish everyone Latino spoke like that haha. 

          After the afternoon session on Sunday Alex had his baptism interview and passed! He´ll be baptized this Saturday. Keep him in your prayers! We´ve really come to love Alex and his funny personality haha. He always give us something to eat and yesterday he was just sitting in his truck eating chocolate and when we came up to him he had all of this chocolate and gave us a chocolate bar, haha. It was funnier in person. But he´s going to be a strong member, we just need to help him wear a white shirt and tie!

            Everything´s going good here, everyday at lunch I think I can´t eat more rice and them I somehow do. The next transfer is in 2 weeks (this transfer´s 8 weeks) so I´m going to enjoy Portoviejo while I can!!! Hope all is well and that everyone remembers what they heard in general conference! LOVE YOU CHAO!