End of My First Transfer!

Familia!!!

Thank you, thank you for the letters and pictures. Looks like things are going great! Dallas and KC.. ah, love your apartment! Tanner and Lexi! Looks like you guys are doing great also! Ah, so crazy for me to think that you’re getting married, but so excited for you guys. Luke. Wow, Luke and Mirae, you guys looked AMAZING for the dance! How was it? Chad, ah it makes me so happy that you’re loving football and Mckay too. Mckay, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I thought about you a lot on Saturday. Wow, can’t believe you’re 14!! And Sydney, let me know how tryouts are! I love seeing pictures of you in your plays. Can only imagine how great you are up there on stage :) So so glad that you guys had a great week!

We love finding ice cream on P-days!

I also had a great week here in Ecuador! Lots of fun moments with Hermana Mortera, lots of walking and hard work, very tired, but also many lessons where I could feel the Spirit so strongly. Something that I know, is that this is the work of the Lord. I felt that many times this week and am grateful to know that it was never easy for Him, but oh so worth it. This week I really came to love my sector and the people here! I’m probably just biased, but I feel like I started out in a top notch place, and I’m glad to know that I’ll be here at least six more weeks. Our sector is great because there’s a little downtown city area, stores, a place to buy hamburgers and ice cream!!!, but we also have campo... fields, dirt floors, roaming animals. We’re also really lucky here in this sector because the work seems to be really good. I guess I don’t have much to compare it to, but we always have more people to teach than we can get to, and the majority of the people are so willing to have us come to their house to share our message. I even feel bad sometimes BECAUSE we have so many people and we can’t visit them all. I know that is definitely a blessing! The hard part isn’t finding people to teach, but helping them make commitments (especially coming to church), and helping them realize why they need this gospel in their lives. But we have four people with a baptismal date and we’re working hard to help them feel the Spirit in our lessons, at church, and on their own.

Helping one of our recent converts carry beans to her house.  This area is a lot like Guatemala!

One of my favorite parts of this week was verification that we had with President and Sister Richardson. It was for all of the missionaries who came with my group, to see where we’re at. They took us up on a hill in Quito where we could see all of the city and told us the story of when the church was brought to Ecuador. Every time I am with them I really feel the Spirit so strongly and so grateful to be in this mission "mejor del mundo". We even have a mission song that we sing at every meeting and ha, I absolutely love it! This is a weird comparison, but it reminds me a lot of when we sing the school song at Sky View. I feel so much unity. With all of the missionaries in this mission.

At this verification, President gave us all the talk, "The Fourth Missionary" and boy, I think I have an all time favorite talk. It honestly changed my view of missionary work and not only what our purpose is here, but in life. That our purpose really is to become like Christ. A part that I REALLY loved from the talk...

"Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation and every opposition happens for one purpose only to give you opportunity to respond by applying in your life the teachings of Jesus. As you do so you are changed to become more like Him."

Wow. Wow wow, I love that, and it was so so good for me to hear. For me, I think for a lot of us, it’s really easy to look at our trials and hardships and just wish they were over. But I had to stop and ask myself.. Since I am going to have trials, do I just want to endure, or do I want to grow and use this as a chance to become more like Christ?  It’s something I’ve really tried to think about this week. Every time I am so tired at night, every time my companion turns to me in the lesson and waits until I can say something in Spanish, every time I’m hungry, or miss free time, I try and think of this quote, and really, my week has been good. Good because through the hard and through the fantastic, I know that I’m given these things to grow.

My two moms, Sis. Ettinger and Sis. Mortera

Well... the big news of the week I guess. This was the end of six weeks so I’m done with my first transfer. Woot woot.! Hermana Mortera and I were sure that she’d be staying because we’re in the middle of our training, but we got a call last night....  she’s leaving to another sector and I’m staying. We did NOT expect that! That means that now, I’m the one who knows the area, the people, the appointments and I get to teach all of that to my new companion. This morning we all met at the bus station to get our new companions... Its sad to see Hermana Mortera go, but I can already tell my new companion is going to be fantastic! Her name is Hermana Ettinger from Washington. I got a gringo!!! Ah that’s going to be such a fun change. We still are going to make a goal to speak mostly Spanish, but I’m excited to be with her, at least for six weeks!

Family and any friends that read this... I am honestly so so grateful for you. Thank you for your support and thank you for encouraging me to work hard and give it all I’ve got. I love you all!!

Hermana Yorgason

Well, I got to eat cuy (guinea pig) this week.  These were in the back of our investigator's house....

...and later that day we were eating them with rice and potatoes :(  That made me sad.  But it was actually tasty, I guess.