Week 5

Ecua- Facts!

1. Everybody wears yellow underwear on New Years. No idea why.
2. They also eat grapes on New Years , 12, one a minute till the New Year
3. They are confused and think flavored marshmallows are candy
4. They aren´t legally allowed to name their children more than one American name, if they even do one it´s really, super expensive
5. They don´t know how to use Drinking Fountains, they look like they are going to be attacked when they try. Most of them just use the communal cup they leave. Talk about unsanitary. They also stare at us when we use the proper way trying to figure it out.
6. My ward in Santa Ana burned our Bishop (ChinChin) for New Years.
7. I have yet to meet a Lopez or Garcia. I have met Almachi´s, Chinchin´s, and ECT.
8. They all wear masks for New Years.
9. I only saw two Tyrannies’. :(
10. They have holidays that last forever….The kids are still out of school. And their parents let them run wild, seriously I go to bed earlier I swear.

Soooo…This last couple of weeks has been pretty uneventful; nobody wants religion at Christmas unfortunately. Things are just starting to pick up again which is really nice. Since we are not allowed to contact in our sector it´s been a lot of walking to see who else we could possibly visit. We have a lot of appointments set up for this week, and I´m excited to be doing something again. We have a few new references that we will be contacting. Monica´s baptism is still on hold for now, but probably some time in January.

New Years was pretty much Awesome, although it took some convincing to wake me up. Midnight is awfully late whilst you´re serving a mission. Although I did go to bed and then they woke me up 10 minutes to midnight. It was amazing- all of Ecuador was alight with fire and fireworks. Later smoke, but that was all clear by morning time. No firework laws in Ecuador, so cool the fireworks came out. We also had a lot of fun lighting our effigy. New Years in the States just doesn´t compare to the massive party it is here in Ecuador.

We couldn´t leave on New Years day so the Mission decided it was a perfect opportunity for us to clean our apartments, we actually had a ton of fun. Sorensen, Larsen, and I decided it was time we painted our apartment finally. It looks worlds better. I had a picture for proof but I decided it was just too unflattering to post. Yuck. Now only our bedroom looks sketchy still. We have to get more paint from the offices to finish the job up. I was sore for a couple of days, painting is a long, long process.

We lost Larsen this week; she had to go back to her own sector when the assistants found her a mini-missionary to work with. Sad day, Lars cooks and is really funny.