Hey friends and family!
Choclo is corn on the cob in Spanish. I have taken so much corn off the cob this week like the Ecuadorians, I could almost be from Otavalo now! We helped people de-cob a ton of choclo and they also gave us tons of choclo to eat.
Right as I get here, we have an amonita (house inspection by the hermana leaders). It was super fun because Hna. Mortera is my hermana leader! :) Afterwards, we ate lunch with the bishop and so begins the mountains of rice. Here in Otavalo, the normal plate contains a giant mountain of rice with giant boulders of potatoes. I don´t mind the potatoes but sometimes the rice becomes a little too much. We hopped on a bus (our bus trips are a minimum of 20 minutes) and visited a lady named Rosa. She went on a rant about how her son in law is LDS and mistreats her daughter. We tried to explain that everyone has their agency but she did not want to listen.
We went and did visits with our recent convert Mauricio. We hike up and down a few mountains here and there and let me just tell you, I am exhausted... Our sector is out in the middle of nowhere! With giant mountains! It is actually quite pretty. When I have batteries again, I will take pictures. We got to little dirt villages that are probably about a mile apart. Also, can I just say, elders ain´t got nothing on us hermanas. We hike mountains... in a skirt!
We did visits with our ward mission leader, Geovanni, a recently returned missionary from Mexico. It was super funny because no one was home. Also, we got a reference for a less active family and at first she said no to us visiting and then as we started to walk away, she yelled that she would let us visit. They stopped coming to church because they had been offended. It is really sad some of the reasons why people stop coming to church. We talked to the family and they accepted another visit, so that is good. Also, I have learned that the Otavalians are really good at holding grudges so don´t cross one if you know what is good for you! We visited another less active family named Family Cabascango! It was so cool because I just had reactivated the daughter, Hilda, back in Quito! It is a small Otavalian world after all!
I went from a zone of almost all gringos to a zone of almost all Latinos! I actually really like my zone. They are all awesome. One of my zone leaders is El. Copa! (He was in my district in the CCM!) We talked about how we really have to listen to the people that we are teaching to help them. In our zone meeting, we talked about how we need to have faith that we are going to see miracles. It is so very true! After the meeting, we went and did a visit with our district leaders when we took corn of the cob. We kept saying how we were turning white from corn exploding on us and one of the elders handed me a super white corn of cob because I am so white, it would help me become whiter. Hahaha it was a super funny visit. Then we waited forever on top of the mountain to go home.
We found a less active who said that this is what she had been missing. She thought that the members had forgotten her but we were able to help her feel the spirit. It was an awesome experience. We tried visiting a few people but they were not home and ended up at the Fam. Potosi´s house. They have been inactive for 6 years and have a Book of Mormon from 1991! It is so cool to see how much the tools for learning the gospel have improved!
I am in a indigenous ward where it is a mixture of Kechwa and Spanish. My brain is so tired from trying to understand Kechwa and Spanish that I all want to do is take a nap in Relief Society. We had an hermana bring a friend to church! It was so cool and we have an appointment with her for this next week! Member power! We had a ward noche de hogar and it was super fun! We played games and ate food in a recently reactivated hermana´s home. We got home to our neighbors above fighting (probably very drunk). This morning we learned that our other neighbors had called the cops on them twice in the night! Crazy! Thankfully, Heavenly Father protects his servants and they did not come crashing through the ceiling!
That is pretty much it for this week! I am loving Otavalo! An hermano made me read a scripture out of the Bible in Kechwa and he says I pronounce things very well! He is going to get me a Bible in Kechwa this week so that I can start practicing and is helping me translate my testimony from Spanish to Kechwa so that I can share it on Sunday! Yay! Kechwa is super cool to listen too!
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