#46

* Written Sept 15th

Hello Familia! Well, what can I tell yáll this week. I´ve officially been out a year. I don´t like that. I still feel pretty new in the mission, so on thursday morning when they referred to me as an old lady in the mission I wasn´t pleased, but I guess it´s almost true now!

This week was fun, because it was really different. Our stake had a family history fair, and it was a big deal. Like, they went all out. I wish I would have taken pictures of the actual activity but I was busy welcoming people and doing stuff so I only took a few funny pictures and that´s it. But I really love my zone! We have lots of (appropriate, mostly dignified) fun together. Also, I´m really excited to be able to do family history work! Are they putting as big of an emphasis in family history over there as they are here? Every week we hear a ton about family history work, and I am stoked to go do some ordinances for my ancestors after the mission! They did a play where all the people were dressed in white looking for whoever had their name and there was one hermana that they still hadn´t found her name and she was an amazing actress, so she was weeping and talking about how she´d been waiting for her work to be done for so long. It was really dramatic, and lots of people afterwards were tearing up. But it´s important! I´ve got a laptop, I feel so silly for all the time I wasted on things that don´t matter! I´ll send a couple pictures from the activity. 

On Thursday, I got woken up by the other hermanas holding a cake, a bottle of Polaca (a drink made of oats, sugar, milk and vanilla that is highly addictive and ridiculously delicious) and a happy birthday banner. We didn´t take pictures though, because I´m not too keen on pictures at 6:30 in the morning. 

Also, this week I had an intercambio with the same hermana that was my hermana leader 6 months ago, which was really fun because she was able to notice how much I´ve progressed and it was fun for me to see the difference between my intercambio with her six months ago and the intercambio we had this week. Sometimes I feel like I´ve really changed a lot! I´ve definitely learned a lot.

.

Well, this week wasn´t too busy either. We´re working, but still not getting the results that we´re wanting. I guess the Lord really wants me to learn patience and long suffering haha, but we´re alright. We don´t get too down on ourselves because we know that we´re working, and if the numbers don´t show our efforts, at least the Lord knows what we´ve been doing with His time. So now we´re just waiting for the fruits of our efforts! 

It´s starting to heat up again! We had about two months where in the night time I´d have to sleep with one or two sheets, and it was just lovely to be able to cuddle up a bit, but now we´re back to drenching ourselves before laying down because it´s just too hot and having a fan on you doesn´t cut it. Today is nice though, the sun didn´t come out and it´s kinda misty. Still a little hot, but every once in a while you will feel a TINY TIIIINY raindrop.  

Oh yeah, my ward mission leader added you on facebook Momma. His family reminds me of the Bolton´s, because the parents are amazing, but there´s one kid that is ridiculously adorable but he´s got a little bit of Tasmanian devil in him. But Hermano Oswaldo (I think on facebook it´s Stanly) thinks it´s hilarious that I openly love food which is why he may be posting lots of pictures of me eating. But just let it be known that the green mayonnaise sauce here is DELICIOUS and garlicky, and I take full advantage of delicious garlicky goodness at every available opportunity. I´m starting to get chubby again (they´ve told me so). But it´s worth it I figure, because when am I going to have another opportunity to eat Ecuadorian food?

Anyway, that was my week! I love you all! Thanks for everything!

Story behind this photo: We asked the Elders to clean the baptismal font because it smelled a little funky. So naturally, instead of emptying it out and cleaning with bleach, they dyed the water blue. So we took a photo in front of the blue font,.  

You can´t really see the water in the blue font, but it was BRIGHT BLUE. Like, the blue hawaiian punch color. Or the exact color of blue raspberry jolly ranchers. 

Another older photo of us on the bus. I really love living with 4 hermanas. We have a ton of fun. This was Hermana Deforests first PDay in the mission, about 4 weeks ago.

 This is my zone with the BonIce man. Bon Ice is a brand of 15 cent frozen yogurts and popsicle type things. They´re delicious. I´m not really sure why we took this picture. This is actually an old picture, but I´m borrowing Hermana Deforests camera right now and sending the pictures that I want to keep.