11/21/16: Another Week of Esperanza!

This week, this week....on wednesday we went to guayaquil for a conference for my companion since she`s one of the leaders and so we got back thursday night, and the rest of the week went by super fast. We`ve mainly been teaching Azucena (we found out her name means white lily in english, good to know) and Lisette and Herlinda, the mother of a convert here. Azucena..oh azaucena, that girl needs to go to church! She hasn`t gone to church the past few weeks so she`ll be getting baptized later than planned but that`s alright. She gave us a little bit of ceviche yesterday before we taught her, always good. She`s always so nervous to pray and one time this week we came to her house to teach her and her door was open and she was taking notes from the pamphlets we`ve given her and writing a prayer out, so cute ! And then there`s Lisette, she wants to get baptized but she`s still not so sure about the book of mormon, SO we`ve been helping her with that and if all goes well she`ll be baptized this saturday or a little bit later. And Herlinda! She`s the mother of a convert named Alexandra and she wants to get baptized! She`s like 60 years old and always gives us bread and is so sweet. 

    And then today, we cleaned the house, went and ate some bolones and smoothies for lunch then walked here to the cyber to write! And on the way we met a dog! As pictured in the photos I sent. There are SO many dogs and cats here, it`s kind of ridiculous. One time hermana twitchell and a different companion counted all the dogs here they saw in one day and they counted 223. Yeah. Well, I hope everything is well and that everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving filled with turkey and cranberry sauce! haha. CHAOOOOOO love you guys!

11/7/16: First Real Tourist Attraction- La Chocolatera

WOW! I have like 2 minutes to write this email But hey, I sent like 20 photos so that`s worth like 20,000 words, right? This week we went to our first real tourist attraction here! It`s called La Chocolatera and it was super gorgoeus! And really windy. We went with the bishop and his wife and daughter and the wife of the patriarch and we of course went in the bishop`s taxi! We also went to this little museum they have there, snapped a ton of photos and went to other look out points and even saw some seals. Other than that, we`re getting emily mite to be baptized this saturday and e viisted a member who`s mom the missionaries had been teaching in the past and she said she had a dream and wants to be baptized, so there`s that! Her name`s Asusana valverde and she gave us a mango aftter teaching her. 

   Before going, here are a few options for recuerdos (ahh, my mind is blanking on the word for this in english) , so you can all tell me which thing you would most like and I`ll see what I can do! There are hammocks, futbol jerseys, bags, bracelets, keychains. Yeah. ç

  Well, hope all is well with you guys!! Have a fantastic week!! CHAO LOVE YOU!

Here`s the first of the many photos from our visit to the Chocolatera 

10/31/16: Hall-o-whatttt? Halloween.

First off, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  I`m sure everyone`s gotten their costumes ready and has already eaten too much candy,haha. They don`t really celebrate halloween here, but they do celebrate el dia de los muertos which is november 1 and 2 , something like that,who knows. But what they do here is they drink a lot of something that`s called colada morada and it`s this purple drink with  a bunch of different fruits and it`s super sweet, look it up! We`ve already had 3 giant glasses from the members this week. They also eat this special bread that they usually make it to look like a little doll with braids, it`s called wagwa or something? it`s a name in kichwa and I don`t speak kichwa. They also do that thing where they cook all the favorite foods of their ancestors that have died and then they say that the spriits come and eat it but really anyone who comes to their house just come andeat it..

   This week we had a conference with Elder Montoya in Guayaquil and it was awesome! He and his wife both spoke and mostly spoke on missionary work (obviously) and the importance of prominsing blessings to the people we teach and also to the members.

    And, lisette barreto, the wife of a less active that we`re teaching, accepted a baptism date! She and her little fam are so cute. She`ll be getting baptized the 19th of november. Then the week after that-primary program. Nuff said. We all know how awesome those are. Should be interesting with all the crazy energetic latin children too haha. 

   Well, I hope everyone`s halloween is wonderful! Love you all so much!!! 

P-day AKA pie day

Funny story...last monday we had to call the patriarch and his wife and the bishop also showed up, to install a fire alarm that the mission said everyone has to have. Look at them go!

selfie with emily mite, getting baptized the 12th!

 Picture with a dead chancho, so great. 

10/24/16: Photos from Michelle's Baptism

10/17/16: Dinner with the Bishop's Family

Libertad week 2! I finally thought of the name this place reminds me of....the San Juan Islands! It`s so pretty! I`m slowly learning the sector and all of the people in it! The people here are officially the best and love bringing us food. Three of the members brought us each a meal of ribs, potatos and salad from some awesome restaurant here wednesday night, then the bishop`s family invited us over for lasagna last night, and friday night the dueño (I think that`s like the land owner in english, i^m blanking ..) and his wife brought us colada morada which is a traditional drink they make here in october-november, it had berries,pineapple,strawberries, deliciousness. Oh, and hermana twitchell`s birthday is coming up friday (she`s turning 22!cue the t swift song..) so we already know we`ll be eating cake with like 10 differesnt families. oh man. 

    We just got back from going to guayaquil ( a2 and a half horu bus ride there then we came right back) to go renew my visa,woo. I just had to sign a few papers and a take a photo but now I`m legal again. 

    Everyone here keeps asking us what we think about the elections...better to just say nothing! I think I`ll just stay here after I finish the mish because.....But November 8th will be an interesting day. We`re going to have a baptism of a girl named michelle, who the others sisters were teaching for a few months, but she couldnt get baptized the first 2 times they interviewed her because she had some problems with her testimony, but now she`s going to get baptized this saturday! She`s 22 and her boyfriend`s a member and the other day she was showing us rings she likes haha, and we may or may not have given her the address for pinterest....but it`s for her temple wedding! But yeah, everything`s going well here. Love you all, chao!

10/10/16: First Week in Esperanza

This week went by so fast! This new area is so gorgeous, and I love it because it`s been pretty cold here, it feels like Washington! But really, it`s been freezing when we`ve woken up each morning and I love it. I`ve met like a 100 new people this week so hopefully I`ll start remembering all of their names...

  Saturday there was a bapitsm for a 15 year old kid named Edgar de la Cruz and he was so so SO happy. I hadn`t met him til his baptism (kind of funny haha) and he was bearing his testimony at the end of his baptism and then just personally welcomed me to the ward in the middle of it. Also, if anyone knows a good way to say our last name with a spanish accent, talk to me. I`ve heard various nicknames for it this week like Hma Tinkerbell, tigre, all sorts of things. 

  Yesterday night we opened up the 2 packages that got here and it was such a hoot. WE LOVE HOT CHOCOLATE! I think we`re going to bring hot choclate packets with us to the house of members and make them hot chocolate because we got a good supply. It`d also be fun to watch them try the tim tam slam.... ;) The members here are all super super nice and just want to feed us! As you can probably tell from all the photos and my chubby little face. But they`re so kind and the children are hilarious. They just come running at you and LOVE you, so cute. They`ll just run up and hug you even if they don`t know who you are..

  Well, hope it`s been a good week for everyone! Oh yeah, Happy Colombus Day! haha. CHAO CHAO!

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