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!

3/28 23: Cake in the Face and Women's Conference

This past week was Semana Santa andddd it was kind of like every other week, haha. On Friday though there was almost no one on the streets because everyone on this day is in their homes with their families. They also don´t eat meat on this day and the people that are super catholic don´t eat meat this whole week and sometimes longer depending on the family and their traditions. They also have processions of  people and there´s one person with a giant cross and depending on the procession they have costumes and what not...we saw one but the group wasn`t very big and there was just one person carrying a cross... And on Tuesday at the zone meeting they surprised me with  a cake! They sang happy birthday in English and then in Spanish and after they said it was tradition to lick a bit of frosting off the cake and me not suspecting anything did just that and a second later my face was in the cake thanks to Hermana Quispe and Reyna haha. Pictures to come... 

           And Alex will be baptized the 9th of April because he took a bit of alcohol but it´s not a big problem for him and he´s learned his lesson..aha, but he´s progressed so much and he´s practically already a member. I can totally see him being the bishop one day! 

             And Saturday was the women´s conference and it was great! We got there a little late...like 20 minutes late...haha, but it was still really good! We were teaching  a lesson before and the woman gave us crackers so we couldn´t just leave to go to the conference. But every talk was about service and having charity for others and all the videos were great! And it was nice to hear the songs from the choir in English!! They had the words for the people watching to sing in English, but nobody in the stake center sang (because they dont speak english..) but it´´s such a blessing we havet to hear the Prophet and everyone else speak and not to have to hear the translators. I never though about that before my misson. But it´s been another good week and soon it´ll be April!! LOVE YOU AND CHAO!

3/21 22: Birthday Week

this week went by so fast and then on Saturday it was my birthday ! After I woke up, Hermana mancuso and velez knocked on our door and sang happy birthday and gave me a cupcake, yum! Then Hermana Quispe made breakfast (We almost always eat a grilled cheese for breakfast with tea, haha. It´s normal here) Then we went out to preach the gospel! This day was SO hot, probably one of the hottest days of my mission aha. Theen we went to the bishop´s house for lunch and the bishop´s family would randomly start singing feliz cumpleanos haha, and thebishop did a little dance and song haha. Then we taught a woman, Maria Jesus, and the place where she lives is GORGEOUS, and we always say we´re going to bring oru cameras and we finally did this day so enjoy all the photos from this place! The day before when we were at her house we helped her iron and fold clothes because her job is to wash clothes and her house is FULL of piles of clothes..it´s crazy. Then the night of my birthday we went to teach Karol laniz and she had a surprise for me, a doll! A gringa doll,haha,I don´t know how I´ll carry it with me from area to area but I´ll find away. This week was good and hot! This Saturday Alex bolanos is getting baptized at 5 pm, pray that all goes well! love you all so much!! CHAO CHAO!

3/14 21: Six Month Mark

This week.....I completed 6 months in the mission!!!! Tried polaca and morocho for the first time and saw the biggest butterfly ever. I was standing with one of the hermanas in our apartment and this thing flew in through the window and touched my hand and we thought it was a bat because it was HUGE and thick and gross but it turns out it was a butterfly, happy surprise!Then in the middle of the week my companion was sick with a fever and kind of lost her voice (it´s some kind of virus) so we were home for a day then it was my turn! But the funniest árt was our voices...we sounded like  frogs and we still taught lessons and everyone was so concerned for us because our voices haha. But we´re all better now!! We´re also teaching a man named Alex Bolanos who will be baptized the 26th of this month! This week´s been good, thanks for all the birthday wishes!!! CHAO! LOVE YOU!! 3 nephi 13:21-22, 31-33