Group hiking at the waterfalls in Peguche :)
Sister Duff & Sister Cruz
Being the daredevil that she can...
Sister Duff handing onto Sister Cruz for her life!
Monday, September 26, 2016
Week 63: The dog, the drunk, and the salchipapas
Hey friends and family!
Normally I do not include stories of encounters with drunks but this one was a pretty funny one so I had to include it...
Tuesday
We visited an investigator named Rosa and talked about the Book of Mormon. The difficult thing about teaching Rosa is that she is always running in and out of the lesson because she has a store. The crazy thing is that she can walk out in the middle of a thought and come back perfectly fluid in her thought. We talked about the BOM and she happily accepted the challenge to read it. I love celebrating birthdays here in the mission because it is so much fun. We celebrated the birthday of Raquel, a girl from a family of recent converts. I had to sing her happy birthday in English because she wanted me to. We talked about the importance of reading the scriptures and some of the funny things that are in the Bible.
Digna came to do visits with us. We visited a few people until we got to one family. They have received their answer that the church is true, they are just afraid to act upon it. One of the sons we left a talk the other week about doubts and questions and it says in the talk that we usually want to do things our way instead of in Heavenly Father's way. It is so very true and is probably one of the hardest things to give up. On our way to the bus stop, Digna bought us salchipapas (french fries and a hotdog) and caught her bus to go home. While we were waiting for our bus to head home, there was a dog that would not stop barking at us because he wanted our food. Before we could do or say anything, an extremely drunk man came over and started talking to the dog. "Don't worry. She still loves you (referring to me) but she has to go now. Don't worry, she will come back to you, you just have to be patient. Don't cry, everything will be alright." Hna. Cruz and I almost died laughing because the bus came and as we were taking our seats, one of the other men that was waiting for the bus with us said that that man was super drunk... It was a pretty funny night.
"Our works will be tried by fire" (1 Cor. 3:13). I was reading that today in my studies and it made sense. Heavenly Father tries us with what we are doing to see if we really have a testimony. Do we have a testimony to keep going? Do we have a testimony to not only to endure to the end but actually persevere to the end? Heavenly Father wants us to not only believe but really know that what we are doing in our callings and in the gospel is true. He wants us to have a conviction because without this conviction, we really are just members that sit on the benches on Sundays, keeping them warm. What kind of member do I want to be?
Our mamita told us that her mom wants us to visit her so that she can get baptized. She told us how other missionaries had visited once but never returned. I told her that we would be happy to visit, just name the day. This week, we spent a lot of our visits talking about the Atonement and the power within. One of our new less actives that we started visiting, Joselyn, has cancer and said that some days, it gets really dark with the worries of what will happen. We talked about the comfort that comes from the sacrifice of Christ and how he can really help us through everything. I know that the power of the Atonement is real because I have to rely on it everyday to get me through the day. Heavenly Father really has created a perfect plan, we just have to learn how to follow it. Later in the evening, Hna. Cruz took her Mod. 20 exam and passed! We have the goal for this week to take her final exam! Pilas!
We visited a lady from the coast named Marleyny. She was funny because she did not think that we were going to come back to visit her (some days get crazy and our schedule does not go according to plan). She is amazingly receptive and though not married, knows and wants with all her heart to get married to her boyfriend that she is living with. When we left, we said that we would come back the next day but she said that she did not want us to name a day, just in case that we didn't come. So we left saying, "We will not be coming tomorrow morning".
Marleyny was shocked to see us. We had a quick lesson with her then walked from Huaycopungo to San Pablo (a twenty minute walk). We met up with an hermana, Cecilia, to do some visits. In this time with this hermana, I learned the importance of visiting teaching. I always knew that it was important to do but I never knew the impact of a visit. The hermana that accompanied us, was the one that should have been receiving visits from our less active, Maria. Cecilia talked about how she wanted so bad a visit from someone to talk to about what she was going through and Maria could see that they actually had a lot in common with their situations. I know that sometimes it seems simpleminded to do our assignments for visiting or home teaching but really, it can make all the difference for someone. Also, we never know what someone else is going through until we ask them. Later in the night, we went to the women's session of general conference and it was awesome (even though we got there really late, it was worth it). Pres. Uchtdorf talked about the importance of faith and really putting forth effort to strengthen our faith. His talked really helped to open my eyes to the importance of faith and makes me want to continually strenthen my faith.
Appointments and mamitas fell but hey, we reactivated Maria! YAY! She is doing super awesome. We have a few families that we will be reactivating next month! Estela was super funny tonight. She told us how in a few weeks, she and her family will be killing their pig and that we are invited. Even if there is not a birthday or holiday, the is a pig to kill and the family to gather, she told us. She is really funny. We talked about the word of wisdom and she said that she is ready to drop coffee! Wooo!
Today, we went to the waterfalls in Peguche because Hna. Cruz had never been before. We went with the F. Tituaña. It was a super fun time. Hope you all have an awesome week and guess what!!! Conference is this weekend!!! Who's excited? ME!! Enjoy conference!
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Week 62 I think I lost about half of my hair...
Hey friends and family!
My hair took quite the abuse this week from a 6 & 7 year old... But I still love them all the same.
Hna. Cruz and I had to give a training in our district meeting and it went over fairly well. We talked about how we need to find new investigators in different ways because if we keep looking in the same way, we will end up missing people who are ready to receive the gospel. We went to the famous Huaycopungo, a part of our sector where there is a huge Evangelica church. A lot of my less actives from Imbaya attended there. Everyone in Huaycopungo gave us dirty looks... They do not really like the missionaries... We found a lady contacting while looking for a family that we had talked to the other week. She was super cute and her baby even cuter. It started to rain like crazy when we left to go give Estela a tour of the church. She came with a friend from work and they both loved the church. After the tour, Estela told us about how after we left her house the night before, her daughter, a five year old, said, "Mom, we have to pray before going to bed!". It was so cute and she gave the most sincerest prayer.
We visited an hermana and while we chatted, she promised to teach me how to crochet this really cool hat. I am pretty darn excited to learn. We visited Estela later in the evening and the poor thing was super sick but still happily received us. She is progressing, little by little. We visited the F. de la Cruz and Mae, the 7 year old, braided my hair in a very interesting way... It hurt so bad to take it out...
We went hunting to find our mamita's house today. She told us that she lived next to the school (in reality, she lived a couple houses down from it) and we spent a half hour trying to find it. I then spent an awkward lunch with her granddaughter, a six year old, staring at me. We visited a family of less actives and recent converts. They are super excited to come to church on Sunday. We had been doing visits with Digna, an hermana in the ward, and she missed the bus. We ended up waiting with her for almost an hour until the next bus came so that she did not have to wait alone.
Our mamita changed her number so we could not call her. We ended up making lunch for $1.50! I was pretty proud of it (hahaha). We visited a few converts and less actives then visited an investigator named Tania. She had questions about why we do not pray to the virgen Mary. We explained but she said that she did not want to stop praying to her because it is part of her customs. After her, we visited the F. de la Cruz. Naomi, the 6 year old, decided to do my hair and made it a giant ball of snarls... Her mom looked like she was going to cry as I tried to brush out the giant mess of my hair. She told Naomi that she is not allowed to touch my hair ever again. I thought it was funny that she wanted to braid my hair like her sister, even though it hurt.
We visited a lady who recently had a miscarriage and talk about the plan of salvation. She seemed so at peace after we explained that she could see her little girl some day. We went looking for one of our less active's, Pablo, house, and it is pretty sweet. He is a painter and his paintings are amazing! When he started to come to church again a couple of weeks ago, he started painting some of the church art. I want one so bad!
After church, we ate lunch with a few recent converts. Members are always so surprised to listen to what our schedule is like and how we are actually happy to follow it. We visited Pablo and his family. They are doing super awesome and we are now trying to get them excited to be sealed as a family soon. The funny thing that happened today is that we took the same bus from church to lunch, from lunch to San Pablo, and from San Pablo to home. The helper looked at us funny.
Hope you have an awesome week!
Monday, September 12, 2016
Week 61 Happy Birthday... in your face?...
Happy Birthday
It is tradition to put the birthday girl's face in her cake.
I guess that everyone gets this special treatment on his/her birthday!
Beautiful traditional clothing worn by the Sister Missionaries
A really fun place to visit.
Cool sign.
Week 61 I will be the eyes, you be the ears,...
Hey friends and family!
The joke with Hna. Cruz is that I can't hear too well, so she always has our phone. She cannot see too well, so I am always looking to see what bus we will take. It is pretty funny when we explain that to people.
We went to a part of our sector named Cochaloma and visited a girl named Astrid. She is an awesome 17 year old with an awesome testimony. The only sad part is that she is the only member and did not feel support from the ward so she went inactive. We talked to her and she said that she will not come to our ward but now that she will be leaving for college, she will be more than happy to attend down in the south part of Quito. We told her that we would send her information down there for the missionaries to find her. Later in the evening, we celebrated one of our less active´s girl´s birthday. It is pretty funny because they always smash the birthday person´s face in the cake. Naomi was pretty excited that the missionaries came to her little family party.
We had a little meeting with the bishop to talk about how we were doing and what we needed. He was funny because we recently changed mamitas and he is not one of them but he told us that whenever we do not have lunch to "just call up hermano Pedro" and he will give us lunch. We went to our less active family´s home and the husband, who is not a member but has been listening to us, listened really attentively. He was really excited when we explained what the Book of Mormon was and that he was ready to start reading. He told us that he likes church but still thinks that the Sabbath day is on Saturday and not Sunday... He has a ton of questions but keeps progressing little by little.
There were a lot of changes made in the mission. We now only have an hour to write on Mondays. We have the option to change our Pday to any day of the week on special occaisions. We can have as many district/zone activities as we want. AND a bunch of the meetings were cut so that we have more time to go out and to work. It is pretty sweet. Later in the afternoon, I started feeling really sick but we kept on going with our appointments. By the end of the night, we were visiting the F. de la Cruz and I puked. I guess I gave myself heat exhaustion and the bad thing was that after all this happened, they tried to make me eat. I felt so embarassed haha. I said no and we left. As soon as we got home, we quickly planned and I fell asleep.
We went contacting old investigators and we found one of my rescues from Imbaya visiting her mother-in-law. It was so fun to see her and she said, "Now I know where to come looking for you since this use to be my ward". We promised that we were going to start visiting her mother-in-law to help her out. Later, we had a very direct conversation with a family of investigators that had not been progressing for months. At first, they did not like what I was saying but then could see afterwards what I was trying to help them with. They promised to start putting forth more effort in looking for an answer. The husband of F. de la Cruz says that he is almost ready to be baptized but still is missing something.
Saturdays are a little rough here in Otavalo because everyone goes to sell their trinkets and things. All of our plans fell but we were still able to get some stuff done. One of our converts was going to go to the young single adults activity but got lost. We ran into him later and he showed us the video he made of him saying that he will probably die lost in Gualabi (literally 10 minutes walking from his house). We had a good laugh.
We put on anaco! I have come to realize that I like my anaco more than the centro, even though it is a little more painful in the anaco. El. Calderon came to our ward and talked about the family and importance of respect in the home. He talked about how when he was first called to be a general authority, his wife corrected him a ton to help him with his talks. We had lunch with Cleber and Isaura. It was pretty hilarious and we ended talking about missionary work. In the middle of our thought, Cleber got up and ran out the door to stop the bus for us (the buses do not pass as frequent on Sundays and we did not have time to wait for the next bus). We had a noche de hogar with F. de la Cruz and the ward. It was fun as always.
Hope you all have a great week!
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Week 60 Pictures
Souvenirs Nativity Scene
Maybe a hat for a little kid with an Imbaya face on it?
Beautiful Blanket
Hand puppets for future storytelling to kids
Traditional Shoes
New companion Sister Cruz
Good friends!
Awe... very sweet!
San Pablo...
Really rough being in such a beautiful area.
More favorite friends!Week 60 I Traded My Anaco for a Centro
Hey friends and family!
This week was a fun week but exhausting as always. I bought a centro (the traditional skirt from Cayambe and it takes a ton of fabric to make). I also had the blessing of getting to go back to work in Imbaya for a day to help out the hermanas that are now there.
Tuesday
I got a call Monday night saying that we would be having divisions and that I would be going to Imbaya to help show the sector. Let's just say that I was super excited to go and did not really sleep all night... We went to the terminal and split up. We got back to the house (it felt like I was coming home after vacations...) and Hna. Israelsen had two postit notes full of questions about the sector, area book, and house. We took the time to go through everything and then headed off to work. It was so much fun to see the members after only a week of being gone. We joked saying that it was a joke that I was in San Pablo. They asked how the members were treating me and what they thought of me. I said they thought I was an angel. The wife of the bishop said that it was because they had not quite gotten to know me yet... ;) I showed Hna. Israelsen about half of the sector and I was exhausted because of all the walking we did. We set up a bunch of appointments for them and she met some more of the people that we were working with before. I got to see one of my less actives, Patricia, who just had her baby and one of the recent converts, Jessy. It made me really miss all of them.
We did visits with Hna. Digna, an hermana who is preparing for the mission and visited Dayana and her brother Jordan. Dayana has a baptismal date for November. We then went to San Pablo and visited a few people there. Later in the evening, we visited one of my favorites, Estela, an investigator we found the other week who claims to not believe in God. She never really wanted to pray with us and always put up a fight. Last night, we called to say that we were not going to make it to the appointment with her but that we wanted to see how she was doing. She told us that she prayed!! (That is a huge deal for her) We then went to her house and she told us how she felt so much peace that it was weird. We read in the Book of Mormon with her and she told us that she really wants to believe in God but is afraid to put her trust in him. Preach My Gospel says that the people who do not believe in God need to feel the spirit as much as possible. The ways to do that is by reading, testifying, and praying. She kept telling us that she felt very different when we were around! I am so excited that she is progressing!
Today was the fastest that we have ever eaten lunch. Our mamita had to run and we got there a little late because of meetings but we left after 10 minutes of being there. We showed LDS.org to some of our less actives and they would not get off the website afterwards. We left them to visit one of our new less actives, Pablo. His mother-in-law, a long-time member, asked me if they give us giraffe milk in the states. When I asked why, she said that it was because everyone from the United States are so tall. I almost died of laughter. We went back to the family of less actives to visit the dad, who is an investigator, and they were still exploring the church's website. We had a quick lesson before going home.
We set up an appointment for a tour of the church with our investigator, Tania. She is progressing really well but her mom does not seem to like us too much... On our way to Casco, the bus helper who takes the money happened to be an hermano from Cotama. It was fun to see him. A few other members got on the bus and everyone else was looking at us weird because we were talking to so many people. Yes, the missionaries are popular people and yes, more people should talk to us to see why we are so popular ;) We visited a few people that Hna. Cruz with Hna. Yorganson contacted. They were super cool and we were able to set up more appointments with them. We got a call from Estela saying that she could do a tour today but that we could visit her a little later. We went contacting with Digna and I got a centro! It take about1.5 meters of fabric and 8 days to make one (says the store owner)! Later, we went to visit Estela and she told us how excited she was to come to church on Sunday! She said yes or yes she will be coming! Yay! She talked about how she did not want to know if this church was true for merely curiousity but has a real desire to know! Ahhh! It is always amazing to see progress like this!
A bunch of our appointments fell but thankfully we were able to adjust our schedule to visit some people. We have a less active named Hector who always wore an earring. I mentioned that he should not have one and he has not put it in since! We should him the church music for youth and he put that on his speakers for a while. Estela was feeling sick and said that we could not visit her but that she would come to church.
It was a crazy morning. Hna. Cruz and I put on centros for church. We were running around trying to figure everything out. Estela went to the wrong chapel and it took a half hour to get her back (I am still trying to find the simplest way to explain how to get to our chapel because there are so many here in Utavalo). Estela brought her little girl, Jazmin, and within 2 minutes of being there in the church, she already had a little gang of friends and they ran off to primary. After church, Estela escaped before we could see how everything went and we could not call her because our phone battery was out of juice! We took pictures with the members because they get oh so excited to see us dressed up in the traditional clothing. The hermanas from Cayambe were super excited but the hermanas from Otavalo said that we needed to wear anaco so we promised that next week we will put on anaco. We visited a recent convert and she is doing awesome. She and her husband are so excited for when she completes a year so that they can be sealed in the temple (she only just got baptized in August).
I hope you all have a great week! Let me know how everything is going!
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