Wedding Week!

Hola Hola!!!

Man, sounds like such a great week. And such a great day on Saturday. Tanner and Lexi... I’m so happy for you guys. It still is all a little weird and surreal that you’re actually married, but everything looked beautiful!!! My companion and I were sure thinking about you throughout the day. We even wore your colors to celebrate, wrote you a sign and carried it with us throughout the day. (Sorry that’s all we could do:)) but thoughts were coming your way from Ecuador! All I can ask now is Luke, please don’t get married. I think I should be safe now, but we’ll see what more surprises come my way :)

This week was another good one. Being on a mission really does make me appreciate other missionaries I know, and especially the missionaries we read about in the scriptures. We had a few funny moments this week where we tried to contact someone, asked how they were, what their name was, and we just got a... why are you talking to me look and something like "I don’t want to tell you that" or "why do you want to know". First of all, it makes me realize what I DON’T want to do, and that I always want to be pleasant to people, even if I don’t know them. It also made me realize how lucky we are when we DO find people who are accepting and talk to us. I find so much strength reading about Ammon and Amulek and Aaron in the scriptures and see that they "continued in their afflictions with faith". I am sure that their mission was 10 times harder than mine (especially considering the fact that some of them were thrown in jail and not given food). I love reading about their faith.

Every Wednesday here in our ward we have a "Noche de Hogar" (family night) in the church with people from the ward. In many of the past weeks its been kind of unorganized. Not very many people come... people forget they’re in charge, or tell us when we get their that we’re in charge of a lesson, games and food. (We’ve gotten good at thinking of things fast). Little by little we’ve gotten more people to come and this last Wednesday turned out so good. The young womens’ leaders gave a little thought about agency, a few scriptures, had some great empanadas and played do you love your neighbor. Everyone that was there loved it and more than anything, it really helped strengthen the relationships of people in the ward. We also had a few investigators come and they told us later that they want to come every week. Wahoo. Like I said last week.. so grateful for great and responsible ward members.

The daughters of one of our old investigators :)

This week we got to teach a lesson in English!! One of our recent converts is learning English in school and wanted to practice with us. My companion is learning English too, so that morning in study I helped her think of a few sentences to say, we found a few scriptures, and it actually went really well! To be honest, it was a bit hard to teach about faith and repentance in English. That doesn’t mean that my Spanish is perfect either.... it just means now I don’t know WHAT language I speak. Haha, we had fun with it though.

Again this week, lots of lessons, and LOTS of walking. We have a few more people with baptismal dates and some that really have potential. A few of the people we have been teaching have shared with us how much more peace they can feel now that they are reading the scriptures and praying, and once again, it is so amazing to see how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change our lives. Sometimes I wish I could just push all these spiritual experiences into their hearts, so they could feel and understand. But this week we’ve worked a lot with looking for the needs of the people we are teaching so they can really have a testimony for themselves, not just rely on the missionaries.

We learned how to make fried bananas this week. Called Maduro. I actually didn’t like them in the CCM.. but ah now I love them. I’ll have to make you guys an Ecuadorian meal when I get back. Chicken, rice, a fried egg, avocado and a fried banana. Yum huh? Haha, I’ve learned to love it. 

Making Maduro with one of the members.  (Fried bananas!)

I was so lucky this week and received TWO packages. Shoutout to mom and grandma! Thank you guys so much!! There were lots of jealous people around me because packages on the mission are like gold. I was sure happy to eat some American candy again! Grandma (and all the girl cousins)… Thank you thank you for all the bags and toys for kids here in Ecuador. I’ve already given some to kids that we’re teaching and have seen many smiles :) It really is so humbling to see some of the families here, and you guys are really helping to make a difference. Love and miss you all!!

This week I read a lot in the war chapters in the Book of Mormon. It made me think a lot about preparation. If only we could all prepare ourselves like Moroni prepared his armies.. I think we’d be set :) Obviously we aren’t in a war right now with weapons and armor, but I think our "battles" are may be just as hard, because they’re disguised and against the adversary. I know without a doubt that our test in our day is to PREPARE ourselves for these wars by reading the scriptures and praying. Again, so grateful that there is ALWAYS something that we can apply to our day from the scriptures. 

Love love love you guys! Thank you to everyone who writes me. Have a fantastic week!!

Hermana Yorgason