Week 30

Pedro and Tamara from my Ward in Latacunga. They were finally able to adopt a baby! They named her Kaylee after my trainer, Hermana Sorensen.
Isn´t it pretty here?


I love you Dad!

Everybody-

Ecuafact: People have no problem answering their cell phones in the middle of sacrament meeting, IN THE CHAPEL. Not just church either, in meetings, or other important occasions. It´s the weirdest thing.

Well, I feel as though I´m losing my sense of humor and nobody is commenting on my blog, sad. So I thought I would spice it up a bit!

Things I never dreamed I´d learn on my mission:

1. I can smell beer from pretty far away and know when to cross the street.
2. Prostitutes do not look like Julia Roberts.


Have you seen...

1. A volcano exploding, in person, live? ´Cause I have.
2. A 12 year old working construction? ´Cause, unfortuantely, I have.


Now before I worry my mother, the volcano was no Mt. Helena, just a trifle. It was still pretty cool to see an erupting volcano. Ecuador is full of active volcano´s.

Another good week for Team Tanner and Mérida. We have a whole bunch of new investigators! All in places we don´t know so we´ll be searching out a lot of them this week. I miss people having solid addresses like they do in the States. It´s a lot harder to find people down here. I often find myself looking for a "Casa celeste con una puerta blanco" (light blue house with a white door). You´d be surprised at just how many of those there are.

We were finally able to get ahold of Carlos and Miriam again. They just had their baby, Charli David (Dah-vid). They still can´t come to church because of the baby and Carlos is having a hard time getting work off to come! We´re working on it though.

Maria still can´t get baptized because her divorce papers haven´t arrived yet. She needs those to get married. Ironic no? Anyway we are hoping for 2 weeks from now.

Angelita and Jennifer are making some progress, they didn´t come to church yesterday, but when we met with them they really enjoyed it. So we are hoping for next week. We taught the law of Chastity to Jennifer (yeah I know) and she told us that was exactly what the Catholics teach. Still pretty catholic! I don´t know why the Catholics are so determined to stay Catholic? Almost all of the ones I have met don´t even go to church! It´s crazy. It´s always a fun challenge though.

We had Stake conference this Sunday, it wasn´t too great. It was via satellite but they had a horrible translator for President Packer so nobody ended up understanding his talk. As you can imagine it was the most important. The others were pretty good though. It was definitely different having Stake conference directly from Salt Lake City. Only a handful of people showed up. We filled the chapel, I guess that Stake conference means vacation here too...

Pictures Please

Sonia´s Baptism!

I told you my sector was huge! This is me and my mountain, and all that is below it also...all mine! Welcome to Ambato.

My companion, Hna. Mérida, and I.

My companion and I with President Sloan.

Week 29

Zona Sur!


Everybody-

Ecua-fact: Everybody has plastic lawn furniture, but nobody has a lawn. They use it as regular furniture. It´s a very common sight in homes and restaurants.

I´m doing great! I realized this week that I really love my sector! I haven´t felt like I really loved a place since Ibarra! It´s a great place, some area´s even resemble the United States! It´s so clean in Ambato (mind you I´m still in a 3rd world country). I even drank the tap water! Yeah, I know, I won´t do it again. It´s hard to be afraid of vechos (parasites) when you´ve yet to have them though. I´ve been here a whole 7 months without incident. I´m sure it will come.

We had Zone conference this week which means low numbers but high spirits. I love to hear and talk to President Sloan, he is such an amazing teacher. I learn so much from him. He talked a lot about Gratitude and how we missionaries need to show more of it. He works so hard for us and I really appreciate all that he does for the missionaries in this mission!

We were also challenged to make more baptismal challenges! Later that day my companion and I challenged somebody we contacted that day to baptism and she accepted! I guess they know what they are talking about. Angelica is going to be baptized July 5th, and probably 3 of her children also, Joselin, Cyntia, and David. She has another little girl but she´s only 5!

Our new investigators Carlos and Miriam stood us up this week! Turns out they had good reason- they are the proud parents of a brand new baby boy! I think they are the first couple I´ve taught that is married...but I´m not one hundred percent on that. We won´t be able to visit them for a couple of weeks but hopefully soon because they are great!

Elder Katzenbach is going home! My first assistant and the first missionary I saw in Ecuador!

Tradition!



Love,

Hermana Tanner

Week 28

Ecua fact- The firemen, or Bombero´s wear camo, but it´s pink and purple!

Another really bad week for the food department. Pig skin again, this time I didn´t even try to eat it. I just really couldn´t stomach it one more time. Shrimp, I know lots of you like it but I´m just not a fan, hate the texture and the flavor. I also was served the famous Cebollado of Ecuador. It´s a tomatoe based soup with onions, fish, and yuca (a type of potatoe). Heavy on the onions and heavy on the fish. You also eat it with popcorn and chifles ( like potatoe chips but made with a type of banana, not sweet, they are good though). Not my favorite, but what freaked me out more was that I didn´t hate the onion fish soup...

Sonia was baptized! After about 25 years as a dry member (mission slang: somebody who assists with out being baptized!), although the baptism was basically a nightmare (but still great!). Sonia is terrified of water- petrified, horrified, you name it and she´s it. The worst part was the the water heater didn´t work and the water was freezing. We also don´t have Baptismal clothing either so we really had to search to find a dress- which didn´t zip up all the way! She then said she didn´t think she wanted to get baptized. We said a prayer with her and it calmed her nerves. Nobody from the ward showed up either- the Relief society President with the cake, the member with the assigned talk, nobody. We were lucky enough to have Elder Gutierrez and Elder Rivas there to give talks and act as the witnesses to the baptism, and also to run out quickly and buy some cookies in place of a cake! Maybe it´s all the more rewarding that it was really difficult...?

Maria didn´t end up getting married this week so no baptism on her end. Shooting for next week, but it´s a bit tricky because we have Zone Conference this week. We´re going to try anyway!

We have some really great new investigators because of our contacting activity last week! Most of them really far away. In particular though we have Jorge Tintin, he lives in Quisapincha (Kis-a-peencha). Which is really far also, but worth the trip because it´s beautiful. He lives in an adobe house, which is pretty unusual because Ambato was flattened in the 50´s because of an earthquake and adobe isn´t very sturdy. He´s pretty poor but he´s one of my favorites to visit. He always peppers us with questions and is always willing to meet with us, never too busy. We just need him to come to church now, but he´s reading the Book of Mormon! He´s 21 and pretty much takes care of his mom by himself, he has a sister who lives in Cuba but she is coming home soon. Keep him (and Maria) in your prayers for me, please! He really is special.

Picture´s next week! Sorry!

Week 27

Hey guys,

I know I´ve been totally lame for the past two weeks so hopefully today will make up for it!

Ecua-fact: Spanish has 200,000 more words than English.

This week was definitely great! With the minor exception of the food this week...I had to eat piel de chancho otra vez, or Pig skin again, it was horrible and chewy. I also got stuck eating Hígado de res or Liver of cow. It was pretty gross, but I´ve gotten used to masking spitting into a napkin. Although I have to say that my dad majorly exaggerated just how bad it was. True I didn´t finish, but it was swallowable. No more rice.

José Vasquez recieved the Priesthood yesterday, we were going to have him baptize his wife, Sonnia, but she doesn´t really want him to. He is really tall and she is scared of the water! But she´s getting baptized on Saturday. We are really excited about it! The Recreo (my sector-ward) in Ambato is really amazing we have so much help from the members, which is such a nice change!


This is Sonnia with her daughters, Alexandra in the middle and Sonnia on the other side.


This is José and Sonnia at José´s baptism!

Speaking of baptisms! Maria Llango (Yango) is also getting baptized this week, Friday is the date! She´s been investigating the church for 2 years now and she is one of my favorites. She is also getting married this week. She is in our sector in Latacunga so we will be doing a lot of traveling this week! Our sector is huge regardless, so I´ve become pretty accustomed to the travel!

We also had the opportunity to hear from Elder Rafael Pino this week, he´s a Seventy. We don´t get that opportunity very often so we were all really excited. I understood it all in spanish, so I was super excited! Only some of you can imagine how nice it is to understand all that people say! Of course, I still have my moments!

We also had a pretty fun district activity this week. We set up tables in the park and contacted for a couple of hours. It was pretty fun and we have a bunch of new people to visit this coming week. I really like contacting, I think it´s good life experience getting used to the word no, although it usually appears as "Yo soy catolica" or "I´m Catholic". Jehova´s Witnesses are harder though...they don´t celebrate birthdays, or Christmas- Why would you want that?

Week 26

Hey Everybody-

We had a baptism this Friday! It was a good one too, José Vasquez! His wife (they also had to get married this week too) confessed that she isn´t actually a member and she wants to be baptized as well! She´s been telling people she´s a member for about 25 years now! We are planning her Baptism for this weekend, hopefully José will have the Priesthood by then and he will be able to be the one to Baptize her. I don´t know if he´s quite ready this week, but probably the next. I´ll have to post some pictures of them next week. Internet is sketchy here.

He has a great testimony. He ended up bearing his testimony in Sacrament meeting (the Bishop told him he could pasar or pass after he was confirmed, the Bishop meant with his family but he passed the microphone instead. It was actually a pretty great mix-up.

I didn´t get to much this week because of my ankle, but I did go out and work. I still have to meet quite a few of our investigators. I also have to go to Quito this week to meet with the mission doctor! Should be fun, but I´m not too worried.

Sorry, I didn´t have much time this week to write you all. I love you all so much and think of you often.