Chao Santa Ana

Bishop Chinchin using the stove to dry off!

It really is so gorgeous here!

My District (L-R): Montgomery, Apaza, Sanchez, Gonzalez, Cevallos, Weatherhead, Hna. Sorensen, and me!

Luis and DianaVillota.

Digna Montenegro de Cartuchie, she takes really good care of Hermana Sorensen and I.

The Flores Family- One of my favorites!

Joao!

Pink Banana´s! They seriously have all sorts of Banana!

Proof that Ecuador is going socialist- these are everywhere. In every store!

Translation: Much Better if it´s made in Ecuador!

Isn´t Ecuador beautiful?

Week 13

Practicing with Josue...I can´t believe somebody as terrible as me plays in Sacrament Meeting!

In the second largest city in Ecuador, llamas!

I know I´m not supposed to have a boyfriend right now, but I can´t help it, I love Joao! So adorable!

Jonathan Flores Montenegro!

Monica Jeanneth Villafuerte Cadena!

Hey Everybody-

As you can tell Sorensen and I had a pretty great week! Jonathan was baptized this Saturday. Not much of his family came (which is odd because they are all members), but the entire ward showed up. It was great and I, of course, cried! We were finally able to get an interview for Monica and she was baptized on Sunday. It was a great moment, especially because Edgar and Irene (her 2 children) were baptized last November, now the whole family are members. It was seriously a miracle, we hadn´t seen Monica in so long because of my ankle. Then one day we bumped into her getting off a bus. We decided that it was time for her to get baptized, because she was definitely ready. As you can see, it worked out!

Changes (transfers) are tonight and I know I will be leaving for Ibarra (about 45 miles Northeast of Quito) with my new companion Hermana Escobar. From what I can tell it is beautiful! It´s her last change in the mission and then she goes home. I guess this is when I start really learning Spanish! Apparently I need less hills for my ankle to fully recooperate! I don´t want to come home early! Sadly I´ll be leaving my companion and trainer, Sister Sorensen! I´m slightly terrified but also excited to go on to other things! Weird how transitory life on the mission is! Wish me luck!

Congratulations to my brother Matthew! He recieved his mission call to Portland, Oregon this week! He´s going to be the best Missionary!

Week 10

Carnival is coming up! That means a lot of silly string and squirt guns, just like this! Yikes.

Just a note from me!

I adopted this as my personal mission motto after I fell. Remember: "Come What May, and Love It"

Me ready to go to work!

Ecua-Facts

1. Gas prices have been at $1.48 for about 2 years without changing so much as a cent.

2. They have shopping carts for inside and outside, if you use the outside ones a bag boy comes with you and you tip him.

3. There is no tipping at restaurants

4. You eat cereal in yogurt, they even sell personal sized portions.

5. Nobody owns real silver or gold, Sorensen and I always get asked if our earrings are real.

6. Movies cost $1.50 and are all pirated.

7. The only non-fruit soda they have is cola. They have Strawberry, Pineapple, Orange, Apple, and Lime.

8. They love popcorn and put it in soup, much like we do with crackers.

9. Pineapple is white here, if it is yellow it´s Hawiian Pineapple. They also have a Mora berry, it´s a mix of a blackberry and raspberry. Kinda weird but good.

10. Almost nobody has doorbells, you either bang really loudly on their gate or whistle.

Hey Everybody!

Thanks for all the Birthday wishes from everybody! I had a great mission birthday! I was sung to in 3 different languages including: English, Spanish, and Kichwa! It was all pretty cool. Sorensen and I were able to find an ice cream cake, the very kind I loved as a kid. It was all pretty awesome. Thanks again to everybody!

Things are going really well down here in Quito! Most of all because I´m back on my feet and sans one really bulky uncomfortable cast! We are able to go out and work much more effectively. I said good-bye to my crutches on Saturday, just counting down until I can lose the ace wrap as well.

We had a great service project this week with our Ward. The Bishop wanted us to clean some stairs. Sounds weird I know, but here they are about 13 flights (seriously) and covered in weeds and garbage. Still on crutches at this point I had to hobble to the top, but we had a great time. I even got to use a machete on some of the weeds. That´s a lifelong goal I can cross of my list: I think we can all agree that machete´s are awesome! It was a great service project because we had a lot of curious by-standers. Perfect for Sorensen and I to go and contact later this week! The stairs also look awesome now!

We also have a investigator with a baptizmal date! It´s not until March but Sorensen and I are very excited for Elena Iza! She is a really great person and really has a lot of potential!

Love and miss you all! Chow

Week 9

Hey Everybody!

Ecua-facts:

1. Nobody has car seats for toddlers and infants.
2. Nor is it illegal to have an entire family on a motorcycle, including infants.
3. Sometimes on the hills that are particularly steep, natives walk them zig zag style. Like you would on a hike. I tried it once, didn’t seem to help the breathless panting much.
4. Making 10 dollars a day is a decent living.
5. This is really more of a mission fact but they have their own lingo: To machete is to lecture.
6. Garbage day is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You just leave it on the street, in some places they pick it up every day.
7. They don’t think there is any poverty at all in the United States.
8. They also think that North Americans are really racist too my companion always has to tell them that her sister is married to a black man. They are actually a lot more prejudice.
9. They aren’t big fans of flavor in anything, not just spicy. They don’t like too much of anything sweet, sour, spicy, salty. You name it! I just miss me some flavor!
10. All the pre-made Superbowl memorabilia for the Cardinals will be sold down here! Anybody want a Cardinals Champs T-shirt? Hehehehehe.

My cast is off finally! I’m am however, still on the crutches, but only until Friday, I’m very excited to get back to work! A broken ankle isn’t very much fun when you have work to do!
I’m not having any companion problems don’t worry, except I do feel bad that Sorensen is basically my glorified babysitter. That has got to be wearing on her. We still aren’t doing as much as we would like and were able to get out yesterday. There is a woman at the Cabina’s, like pay phones, and she has had a really difficult life. An abusive husband, major health problems, and her mother is dying. We taught her about a month ago but she kept standing us up after that. We had kind of given up on her as an investigator. However, the other day we were making some calls and she had her bible out and asked us what the verses were that we had shared with her. We were so excited and explained that they were in the Book of Mormon. Yesterday we were able to drop one off to her and tell her a bit more. Angel and Norma are some recent converts that are having some hard times, and we got to drop off their triples too! They were so excited! Triples down here are a little uncommon. Interesting fact for you- They don’t have the King James Bible down here so every member has a different version of the bible. The church is retranslating the Book of Mormon into Spanish right now and working on making a quad, which doesn’t exist in Spanish either. I also carried on a 3 hour conversation in Spanish with a member. My companion and I did splits so she could get some more work done. Our numbers aren’t great, it is still really hard and expensive for me to get around, I feel like I’m just blowing through money. Not really a great feeling!

We had zone conference this past week, they are so long, but always good. This one was all about how we had to have more faith in this mission so the Lord can work miracles. They also teach us how to make some sort of food every conference. I think that portion is mostly for the Elders, but we always get to sample. Cooking is hard down here because nobody has ovens, they don’t even have microwaves so we can’t live off of hot pockets! Just kidding, eww. We really do eat a lot of Raman noodles, we have some pretty creative ways of cooking them though. Then we get some training from the Assistants from Preach My Gospel. The best part is when you go to President’s class full of doctrine. Then there is always some sort of activity. Last month is was tug-o-war, this month we played red light, green light. Then they sing Happy Birthday to all the people who have Birthdays this change, I tried so hard to get out of that but I didn’t succeed. At least I got some Peanut Butter M&M’s out of it! Then a Testimony meeting, then we get to close at around 5 o’clock, it takes so long!