#40

Hello Family! This has been a wonderfully strange week!

I started doing a thing where each day I write in my planner the name of the episode for that day to help remind me of things that happened. Like, my life is a TV show. You get me? 

So of course, Lunes the episode was named Cambios. Because I got transferred. Like you already know. I don´t really remember what I wrote y´all last week because I was reaaaallly realllly tired so I might repeat some stuff so have paciencia. But yeah. I came Monday to a sector where we have one investigator and lots of less active members that hide from us. So it´s definitely different haha. In Valencia we could meet 10 people a day and teach 7 lessons, but here we spend lots of time knocking on doors, outside, looking for people, and at the end of the day, we don´t have too much to show for our efforts. It has been a learning experience but to be honest I am having a blast. I´m in Guayaquil, which is a big big big city with tons of ciudadelas. I´m pretty sure the gringo equivalent of ciudadela would be like Summerlin and Green Valley in Las Vegas. Kinda. Maybe. I don´t know. The neighborhoods have names. And the two neighborhoods that I serve in are called Sauces 6 and Guayacanas, which are part of the zone named Orquideas. Orquideas is infamous. No one wants to go to Orquideas or Kennedy. But I don´t really understand why it gets such a bad rep. There´s not as many baptisms in this area, but I really like teaching here because the people don´t automatically take everything we say as truth. Something that was really frustrating in other places is that they all believed that if someone was talking about God, it was true. Lots of people immediately accepted our message, but it was frustrating because they also immediately accepted what everyone said. Here, the people are a bit more cynical, and I love it, because they are more likely to take our invitation to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.

Martes we had our district meeting. Beforehand, the zone leaders had asked my companion what my name was, and my comp can´t say my last name (no one can) and so everyone was a bit confused and didn´t know if a latina or a gringa was going to show up. And I was henceforth known as simply la Hermana Nueva, because they couldn´t understand what Hermana Isama was saying when she said Rust.

 

Wednesday was also fun, because I learned that I actually do know how to contact. All my mission I was pretty sure I didn´t know how to knock on a door and talk to people, but I dunno... I took control and I got it done. It was fun. I don´t really know how to make this day sound more interesting, but it was a big moment for me, okay?! We had to contact a lot that day, and I had fun doing it, and normally when we had to contact, I absolutely detested it. 

Friday, we had the weirdest lesson ever. Generally, we teach families, or we teach young adults seperately. We had contacted a 28 year old college student, and we went to teach him and his brother the Restoration, but when we showed up, he was with two other friends. I don´t know, it was weird. It was like being in a college apartment, but we weren´t watching movies or playing games or talking, we were there to preach the Gospel. I don´t know. It felt really weird to talk to a group of college student, but to talk to them as Hermana Rust and not as Natalie Rust. But we did it. Two of them were pretty receptive. 

I´m really really really enjoying my time here. I know that sounds weird, but it´s true. I feel more like a real missionary here haha. Of course I miss Valencia, but I feel like here I have had a lot of opportunities to grow and see what I´m capable of doing. I´m excited to work with the ward and see how my talents can help in this ward and what talents I´m going to develop, and what things the Lord wants me to learn here. I know that the Lord sent me here for a reason, and I´m excited to find out what that reason is. 

This week I´ll take pictures, I promise. 

I love you all!
Love, Hermana Rust