#18

Hello family!

Valencia. It has definitely been a week of growth. I have been thinking a lot about something that Hermana Pratt taught my first week in the CCM. She told us that our whole missions would be a cycle of Garden of Eden´s and the Lone and Dreary World. When we start our missions, we leave the Garden of Eden (home) to go out into the lone and dreary world (CCM). I started out kinda backwards, because I left dreary Moapa Valley to go to the Garden of Eden. But she told us that there isn´t progression in the Garden of Eden, and so when the CCM started to become too comfortable, it would become our Garden of Eden, and we would be cast into the lone and dreary world of the mission field. But after a time, that area would become our Garden of Eden, and we would need to progress, so once again, we get cast into a lone and dreary world so we can learn and grow and progress. I testify of this. Milagro became my garden of Eden, and I was way too comfortable there and it got to the point where I wasn´t progressing as much as I could have been, so I got cast into what is now my lone and dreary world. But I´m working on garden of eden-izing it!

Things have definitely gotten better. For starters, my Spanish has gotten better. I also got sick this week (combination of different foods and stress) and so I´ve had to talk on the phone with my colombian lider de zona a few times (usually I would have to call the president, but I´m not too keen on calling the head honcho to tell him that I vomited. So I´ve been talking to the zone leaders and they inform the presidente, but I can do it! It´s hard to talk on the phone because it´s even harder to understand, but gosh darn it I´m a Spanish speaking machine.

My first night here, I thought that there were quiet sirens going off every where, but it turns out they´re frogs. They inflate themselves, and when the deflate, they make this siren sound. It´s weird. Kinda cool. Here, it rains a ton, which means it´s not terribly hot, which is awesome. 

We don´t really have investigators right now except for Ramon. Ramon is the spouse of a member that is less active. He´s 77, and went blind two years ago. When we first started talking to him, it was obvious that he didn´t really care too much if he lived or died. But we forced him to come to church (I mean that almost literally) and now he´s so much happier! It´s presh!  We´re teaching lots of people, but no one is married, just living together which makes things VERY difficult. But we´re doing all we can, so I know that the Lord will bless us with people that are ready for the gospel in their lives. 

This week the elections for mayor and stuff finally ended. They celebrated with a concert that went until three in the morning that we could hear at our house. They do things way different. Anyway, I´ve got to go, I love you all, things are fine, we´s a progressin.
Love you all!

#17

On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Natalie Rust <natalie.rust@myldsmail.net> wrote:

New area... The new area is absolutely beautiful. The men here are much more respectful and while they do pay more attention to me than I would like, most of them don`t shout at me. I did tell a creeper that walked way too close to me and said`goodnight baby`(in English) right in my ear. And by tell off I mean that I said (in Spanish) that I speak Spanish and that I didn`t like what he said.

This has been a week of personal growth. I didn`t like how a lesson was going this week, I think it was day 2 that I was here, so I took the initiative and completely changed what was going on. Normally, I would have never had the courage to do that, I would have just followed along and prayed internally for things to get better. So that was exciting for me. I know it doesn`t sound like much, but remember, I`m speaking Spanish here and it was a big deal for me!

 I`m trying desperately to think of things to say...
Today we ate in a two story KFC in Quevedo. So that was interesting. I don`t know why anyone would need a two story KFC but they´ve got one here. It had a pool table.....

Presidente Amaya was invited by the stake president here to give a training about ward council. Isn`t it funny to think that I attend ward council now? It scares me though, I don`t like that he knows my name. He was calling on missionaries to answer his questions during the meeting yesterday and they had to stand in front of everyone with a microphone and say things and I really did not want to do that. I knew the answers, I just have this awful habit of forgetting how to pronounce words right when I`m in front of lots of people. Lots of people have complimented me on my Spanish though! I always like when that happens. The bishop´s wife in my new ward thought that I had tons of time in the mission, and she was really surprised when I told her I only had 4 months here (even though technically I have 5 months in the mission... I have four in Ecuador and that`s really all that counts. FIVE MONTHS what?).

I don`t really have anything else to say, nor new pictures, so I`ll just send you some of the pictures I couldn`t send last week.

Love you all!

Oh yeah, there`s a Noelle and Eric couple here. Seriously! The guy is super tall and gangly and has that fresh off the mission friendly vibe, and his fiancee is a bubbly thing half his size. They`re presh. 

Me and Giandry. We decided my last day to be BFFS.

#16

Hola familia!

 

The day I have been dreading has come. I left my beloved Milagro. I think I was actually pretty ready to leave Milagro, but I love Hermana Chil so stinkin much that it is going to be hard to be away from her! Now I am in an area called Valencia, and it is gorgeous. So green! This morning I traveled to Guayaquil and then from there on a four hour bus ride to Valencia, which is why I am emailing so late.

 My new compañion is from Quito and right now I do not remember her name and I feel weird asking so I´ll fill you in on that later. She`s super cute and super short and so far (the last forty minutes) we have gotten along swimmingly. In the cyber that we`re in, they`re playing music in English. The Reason by Hoobastank of all things is playing right now. Kinda funny. I thought of Brandon and Beebz and Noelle.

 

I can hardly remember this week, I feel like so much has changed in the last 18 hours that I don`t remember anything else. This Sunday was rough, because we committed five investigators to attend church, and we got up way early to pass by all of their houses because we didn`t get help from the members to bring them, and church started at 8, so we got up early and passed by for all of them... and only Kevin (the miracle investigator) came. I was kinda relieved to leave Milagro just for this reason, because they basically have to start over from scratch pretty soon.

But I am excited for this new cambio! My companion does not speak English, which is exactly what I need, even though it does make things a little difficult. I was excited because I thought that I was going to be with two elders that were here before, but I found out that they`re in the other zone here. So new zone, only Spanish, all new people. I think it`s exactly what I need.

I don`t really have much time today, just because I travelled all day and we have to leave to work very soon, so this is going to be really short, but I love you all and thanks for the prayers and support!

Tell Barbara Christensen thanks for writing me. It`s kinda impossible to send anything back to her and it`s really expensive, but tell her thanks for all the letters. Who is she?

Me with the Torres and Pasmiño families, yesterday. Hermano Torres is holding Rebecca the plant. He completely deadpan refers to this plant as Rebecca like it`s a friend or daughter and it is the funniest thing ever. So this picture is basically all the people I treasure the most here. Kevin is the one on the far right on the couch.

Hermana Chil, Hermana Yurt, yo, y Hermana Perez. We had another intercambio this week, and I was with Hermana Yurt from Paraguay. She told me my Spanish was flawless (she`s very kind).

Me and Hermana Chil. This was the night that Alex and Johanna de Pazmiño took us home the looooong way and showed us where the went to school and met and it was precious

#15

 My beloved Pazmiño family has a son, Diego, serving in California right now. Every once in a while he´ll email me and tell me a name to go find and teach of one of his friends. He gave us one name, Kevin. I went to his little brother Jerry to have him come with us to show us where he lives, but Jerry´s a little punk and told us that Kevin is never in his house and that it´s basically impossible to meet him (that excuse sounds weird in English but that´s actually a pretty common challenge. People work all day and get home at eight or eight thirty, and we have to be at home at eight thirty.)

Anywho we went along on our way, but seriously, we had no investigators, and the members weren´t giving references, so we have had to resort to contacting. So we contacted an older guy that was getting his car fixed at the house of our lider misional, and we set up an appointment to teach him and his wife. A few days later, we went to meet with the guy and teach him, but here´s the problem. The streets have names, but they don´t have signs. Lots of people don´t know what streets they live on, and 98% of the houses here don´t have house numbers. So ... it´s difficult to find houses. We stopped in front of what maybe could have been his house and called out (we don´t knock) and 7 or 8 teenaged to 25 year old boys came out. Most of them were very interested in talking to us but not for any good gospel-related reason. But we didn´t have anything else to do, so we sat down and taught them the first half of the Restoration. A very dedicated Evangelical came out and started trying to pick fights over doctrine with us though, so we didn´t teach all of the restoration, which was fine because most of the people weren´t paying attention anyway, only one person was actually asking questions about prophets and the apostasy instead of if my hair color was natural and if I wore colored contact lenses.

 So we ended the lesson, and we went up to the one focused person and asked him if we could teach him again sometime. He said that he would like that, and we set an appointment, We asked for his name and apellido, and when we wrote it down, I was thinking, "Huh, that sounds familiar". Thirty seconds later, I flip to the front of my agenda where I had written down the names that Diego wanted us to find, and sure enough, right at the top was the name we just wrote down. I asked him if he knew Diego Pazmiño and sure enough, we found the impossible to meet Kevin Perez.

We´ve taught him and his mother a few times, and Kevin is really interested and is reading all the things we gave him to read and feeling good about his decision to be baptized. They both came to church yesterday, and we had a nice normal testimony meeting (hallelujah!). His mother still has a lot of doubts and questions, but Kevin is progressing awesomely and if all goes well, he will be getting baptized on the fifteenth of February. Today Diego emailed me again and asked me if we ever found Kevin, because he really felt that he would be interested in the gospel, and it was fun emailing him and telling him about everything that has happened.

Also, Edisson, who was baptized on the 18th, is pretty much the greatest person ever. He has had so much opposition from his family members and friends about the church (his grandpa is very, very, VERY Jehovah´s witness and lots of his friends have stopped hanging out with him because he´s a Mormon now, and the ones that do hang out with him make fun of him). But he is doing amazingly. He really likes movies, so we lent him one of the Doctrine and Covenants discs with the Restoration video on it. Each disc has a ton of movies on it though, but we told him to watch the Restoration. He watched all of them, and two days ago told us all the things he learned about Oliver Cowdery and the lost pages of the Book of Mormon and the earliest missionaries in the restored church.

Yesterday, he received the Aaronic priesthood and he was just glowing! Yesterday in the afternoon, we stopped by to teach him a little bit (after baptism you reteach all the lessons and teach about the laws and ordinances of the gospel like temple work). Anyway we call into the house, and we hear a whistle (used to get attention) and we look up and he´s on the roof with his scriptures and his ¨Principios del Evangelio book reading about the nature of the Godhead. Riiiight? He also was excited to hear that there are mission prep classes, because he is so much happier since finding the church and he wants others to be happy as well. Then he told us about how one of his friends that he hadn´t seen in a while asked him "why are you so much happier now?"  and Edisson said "So I taught him the Plan of Salvation".

It was so cool! He told us that he didn´t know what to say, so he just started talking, and he told us that he was pretty sure he wasn´t using his own words, but the words of the Holy Ghost. Right after saying that, he was just like, I don´t know if that´s how the Holy Ghost works or if that´s right, that´s just what I thought. We were just smiling so big and told him he was absolutely correct. Me and Hermana Chil decided afterwards that anytime we were feeling discouraged, we were just going to go to Edisson´s house and have him teach us what he learned. We taught him too about temples and ahh it was just swell. He is just the perfect example of someone who not only needed the gospel, but was prepared by the Lord to receive the gospel. I´m pretty sure we didn´t even teach him in some innovative or particularly great way, it´s just that he did his part to receive his own conversion.

  

I don´t really have anything else to say haha. Oh yeah, I had an intercambio with the Hermana leader, Hermana Pereez, who is basically the greatest person ever. She just exemplifies all the Christlike attributes in Predicad mi Evangelio, and I learned lots of things that I need to improve haha. 

Last Monday, me and Hermana Chil bought a funky looking fruit, just cuz we were curious. 

#14

 We need more people to teach! 

We have had to knock on doors this week, just trying to stay busy, and it is the worst! We didn`t notice a few days ago when we went to knock on a door that there was a big sign on top of the house. That big sign was for an evangelical church. So we accidentally contacted a evangelical pastor who really wanted to fight it out. He started out by asking us if we were saved and we said that we have to keep doing good things the rest of our lives to be saved, and then he told us that he was already saved and that we don`t know what we`re talking about at all and we don`t know God because we don`t even know if we are saved. We ended the conversation as soon as possible. This is why we need member referrals. Knocking on doors never works haha.

  This week was a little odd though because we got contacted quite a few times. People just walked up to us in the street and asked us who we were and why we are here. We don`t really trust people that talk to us first for the most part haha. One guy gave us free chifle (fried banana chips with onion and mayo and stuff) and then we had a little mini lesson with him in the street, and in the course of our discussion Hermana Chil asked him what he wants out of life, or what is his purpose in being here. His answer was that he wants a spouse. We did not schedule an appointment to teach him more, but we invited him to church. Same thing with two other people that started the conversations with us. It`s important to note that all of the people who made initial contact with us were men. I don`t think that was coincidence.

 We did return to visit one guy who asked us why we were here (with a member). He`s a young Colombian refugee (if I understood correctly). We`ll see how that goes, but mostly we are just hoping that we get some references!

 We were out in an area called Margaritas, which is a neighborhood of casas de caña. Google it. Neighborhoods of casas de caña are more dangerous and the people are poorer than the people that live more in the city in concrete houses. Also, it`s been raining a ton all night, and most of the roads are flooded and we have walked through some of the thickest, smelliest mud ever. Anyway, because people that live in the casas de caña are generally poorer, most of them aren`t married, just living together and unwilling to make the sacrifices to get married. Also, we can`t stay out there past like 6 o clock, so we haven`t worked too much in this area. We were visiting some less active members and on our way back to the bus, we saw a guy working outside of his house, with two little kids. We were in a rush because it was getting dark, but we offered help (he refused of course) and we talked for like two minutes and went on our way. But as we left, we saw that he had a wedding ring. Anyway, we went back a few times to visit and see if we could meet his family and if they would be interested in learning more, but they were never there, until yesterday! Just the father was home again, but he saw us from his window and waved, so we stopped and he came outside and talked to us. We found out that he is legally married (rare in Ecuador in general, even rarer for people that live in caña) and that he has wondered why there are so many churches. We couldn`t sit and teach him because his wife wasn`t home, but we taught him how to pray and Hermana Chil offered to say a prayer right there with him so he could read the folleto that we left and pray about it. She asked if there was something specific that he would like her to pray for, and he said that his father had recently passed away and he wanted to know that everything was okay with him. That of course made it very easy to testify of the plan of salvation, and we told him that he was really going to like the message that we have to share, and that we know that he will see his father again. So yeah. We`re pretty excited about that. We set up an appointment to teach him and his wife and kids. Teaching families is the best, so we really hope everything works out! Plus, I like being in the casas de caña, they are way cooler (temperature wise, as well as the other way).

This weekend was stake conference, and Presidente Amaya came to speak. His talk was awesome, and he said some things I really liked, but one thing I really liked was that the Lord didn`t hasten the work by calling 80,000 missionaries, He hastened the work by calling 15 million. It was a lot more eloquent in Spanish, but you get the gist.

Yeah. That`s all I got.
Things are great, I love you all, thanks for the prayers and support!

The title of this photo is

Don`t Trust Cloudy Days in Ecuador.
It may look like dusk, but the sun is still there in all it`s fiery wrath.

It doesn`t even matter though if I put on sunscreen, I sweat it all off before I even leave the house.
I`m going to have the weirdest tan lines when I get home jaja

#13

My health is fine. I mean, it´s not great. But I think it´s what´s to be expected when eating strange things and tons of rice all day every day.  Every day I feel a bit better though, and I´m not worried. 

I´m so excited for Janessa! I can´t even imagine what the world is like over there. And I am so proud of my missionary family! That FHE sounds awesome, now go put it in practice! I absolutely second what you said about being simple and applicable. My favorite part of PME is the quote from Brigham Young about a man without eloquence bearing testimony. I can´t really remember the quote in english but I´m sure you know what I´m talking about.

Anywhoooo on to the exciting stuff!
Saturday was quite possibly the happiest I have ever been. My beloved Betty, Amy, y Génesis were baptized, and so was the escogido of all escogidos, Edisson. We had to really work hard for all of them. Betty (the fiesty mama) was getting so much opposition from her family and friends about joining ´the Mormons´and she had no support from her husband, but she just said some fiesty little remark about how she was going to get baptized anyway to all of them, and she was so happy! She had a dress from her mom that she was baptized in, and she´s so excited to be baptized for her mom in the temple soon. Someone had mentioned la obra vicaria to her in passing and she was so excited to ask us what the meant when they had said that we can do baptism for people that had already passed away. Ahh! Love it!

 Edisson is so great too, and he had every reason to not listen to us or to let people change his mind. His grandfather is a very active testigo de jehova, and his grandpa was very vocally against us visiting him. He told us that after our lessons, his grandpa would come in and tell him about how we were just liars being deceived by the devil and that we were leading him astray, but he confided in the spirit that he felt as he read and attended the church. The youth in the ward went to the temple Saturday morning, and he went with them, even though he couldn´t enter. Him and another young man that wasn´t a member stayed outside while the Torres´ explained more about the temple to them and why temples are important. In the hours between when he went to the temple and when he got baptized, we visited with him in the street and asked him how he felt on the temple grounds. His response was my favorite, he just said {PAZ!}. He said normally he would have been so bored at something like this, but he felt like he could´ve stayed on the temple grounds forever because it was so peaceful and he just felt good. And you should have seen him smile when he came out of the water after his baptism. Ahh it was awesome!

Also, fun fact. I sang at the baptism with Jerry Pazmiño. We always sing I Am A Child of God before our first lessons with people, and Betty especially loved that song, so me and Jerry Pazmiño (who´s sixteen, how many sixteen year old boys would willing do a musical number?) sang Soy Un Hijo de Dios. He sang the first verse in spanish (duh) and I sang the second verse in English (they are all really interested when I sing in english) and then we did the third verse in spanish, and I did the high harmony part. Here´s the thing though -  we did it all a capella, and Jerry just picked a note at the start and went with it because we didn´t have a piano to tell us where to start. It was the highest key possible and oh boy while he was singing that first verse I was just silently praying that I would be able to hit those high notes. But it was really good I think! Jerry has a really nice voice and I hit the notes and Betty cried (which isn´t a very Betty thing to do) so I am good. I kinda wish I had filmed it to show you guys but yeah. It was great. 

It was a great day. We´re starting from zero now, we literally have no investigators which is a scary thought, but all is well and things are swell.  I probably could buy a good camera here, but I would rather keep fussing with my junky camera and buy some clothes that don´t show all of my sweat.
Serious. I´ve forgotten what it feels like to not sweat. The second I step out of my ice cold shower, you better believe I´m a-sweatin´. 

Oh yeah, today was a swell mail day!
I got the package from Derrick and Brittney (my lips are quite luscious right now I do believe and Molly´s notes are displayed on my desk), Eric and Noelle (I kinda hoped there would be an explanation on why they sent bandaids but one look at my legs and I think I understand)

MY SHOES! I love my shoes! I´m wearing them right now. I was so distraught because they really don´t have shoes over a size 8 here, and then these shoes came and they fit perfect and they´re totes adorbs!  I also got letters slash cards from the Gates, Barbara Christensen  and Erwin Lervit.  Anyway, tell everyone thank you! It really is the best to get something in the mail. 

In this photo we got me, Hermana Pedro Pazmiño (Hermano Pedro´s father is Betty´s godfather, so she asked him to baptize her) and then Amy, Betty, Génesis, Edisson, Jerry Pazmiño (he kinda knows Edisson, and Edisson asked him to baptize him) and Hermana Chil. I look like I´m in pain because I´m smiling so hard, but I was really happy, okay!?

Betty, Amy, y Génesis with Betty´s godparents, Abuelo and Abuela Pazmiño. How cute is abuelo?! 

Me and the chicas. Yes I am wearing the same dress, but this is not the same day. I rewear my dresses way to close together, but they are much less hot so I don´t even care! 

#12

I didn´t get to watch the broadcast, I have far too much work to do! They might print it out in Spanish and give it to us tomorrow in the meetings.

OH HAPPY DAY I DIDN´T HAVE TRANSFERS!
I really really really wanted to stay in Bellavista at least two more weeks because my querida familia is going to get baptized if all goes well this Saturday!! And I think I just might be staying. There´s the slight chance that one of us will get called to train this Tuesday when the new missionaries arrive, but I am very positive that I will not be training, at least until I can understand what people are saying to me more.I don`t think Hermana Chil will be leaving to train either because she just got here. Don`t get me wrong, I can communicate myself, it´s just that they speak so fast and the accent is so muddled that it`s hard to understand what they say back to me. I hate to think how things went with Trav, because apparently Ecuadorian Spanish is nothing compared to chileno. That job sounds great for Travis, I hope he loves it.

I got packages! Right after we emailed the zone leaders called saying we had mail. Me and my compañera had a swell time opening packages from the Kims, Merciers, and you guys! Thanks to some severe stomach issues for both of us, we haven`t been able to eat the candy but we do use it as thank you gifts when member accompany us on citas.

Speaking of stomach issues.... I´ve lost weight. I´m almost willing to let whatever has been going on the last week keep going for another fifteen or so pounds though. One of the Pazmiños told my companion that she`s just getting fatter while I`m actually getting skinnier. They`re pretty open about stuff like that. But I have been adopting a diet of just white bread and these cutesy mini bananas they´ve got here and if things don`t start... getting better... soon, I might have to see a doctor. I don`t want that though, so send me some prayers! It`s been cool to see though that even though things have been not pretty, we´ve always been able to work and do what we got to do, and almost all of the times I´ve had issues with my stomach have been in the morning or at night after we`re done working.

I love love love love love the mom and daughters that we`ve been teaching, and who are getting baptized this week. It took a few weeks for me to figure it out, but she is so much like Aunt Alyssa! It took me a while to figure that out because of the whole  she-doesn´t-speak-English thing, but she has the same sassy zesty attitude that Aunt Alyssa has. I love her, and her daughters are so sweet. I also mentioned the other investigator last week. He`s progressing well, even though after every lesson his Jehovah´s Witness grandpa tells him that every thing we said was a lie. He told us that he doesn´t listen, and that he feels good about the decision he made to commit to baptism, and that he feels ready to be baptized. He went through some really difficult trials this last year, and so on new years he prayed that God would help him change his life and be happier. Three days later, he meets us! He said that normally he would have never accepted an invitation to go to another church, let alone actually attended, but he felt that we were his answer.

Cool huh!?! I just love it when someone accepts the gospel and when you can see how it really is changing and blessing their life. 

I have to keep this short, (mostly because I`m not sure what else to say) but I really hope that you take President Messer´s challenges seriously. The missionaries will absolutely love you, the people that you invite to come unto Christ will love you even more, and Heavenly Father will be so proud and happy as you accept the calling he extended to all members to be involved in the work of salvation

. 

Holly and Beebz! Don`t make this a goal that you forget about in a week! It`s too important! And it`s easier than you think. Take advantage of the opportunity you have to share the gospel in English haha. And I`m telling you, invite your friends to a family home evening, and if they accept the invitation, invite the missionaries. The noches de hogar have helped so much because they demonstrate how the huge gospel message works in small and simple ways to bless the family. Okay. I`m done preaching to you. But seriously, do it! Sharing the gospel is the best. 

Urgh okay we came to a junky cyber and it`s not wanting to read my camera or my memory card, but I only had two pictures anyways. For the noche de hogar last week, we taught them to play ninja destruction (after the lesson of course, we didn`t just play ninja). They didn`t catch on quite as well, and I definitely would have won except I was wearing a dress, and we had to leave before they finished. Actually, I don`t really think the dress would have stopped me from winning. But the pictures are kinda funny because Manuel and Victor got all sassy with their poses in the background.

Manuel es el gordo posing. I´m not being mean by the way, literally everyone calls him el gordo.  My camera doesn`t take great pictures now because the lens doesn`t move and I can`t zoom or anything, so that´s why I haven`t taken many pictures. I did break my camera out for a bit though because I thought this was going to be my last youth noche de hogar like this.