Beautiful Otavalo and an Awesome Zone!

Hi Family and Friends!!!!

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS Luke on your mission call. I’ll have to say, it was a long long week knowing that on Monday right after I logged off, he opened his call and I had to wait until today. I think my companion and I brainstormed about every possible place that exists in the world. Every night we placed our guesses. And... California Spanish speaking was one of those guesses! Everything was Spanish speaking. That was my only hope :) Luke, I hope you know how much I love you and how beyond excited I am for you! Mission calls (and missions in general) are such an exciting time of life. 

So... today I don’t have a tooon of extra time to write, but I’ll try and say as much as I can. Today for P-day we went to Otavalo for a zone activity. Our zone is the COOLEST!  We’ve gotten really close these last two months as we’ve talked about faith and miracles and our zone has seen soo many blessings. As a little bonus, our President has given us a challenge that the zone that has the most baptisms in the month of March gets to go to the mission home for an all day feast with President and his wife. And we’re talking American food... mashed potatoes, steak, brownies, ice cream, cake. Everything. Right now our zone is tied for first so we’re really putting in all our might so we can have that day of relaxation :) I’ll let you know how it goes :) Today for our zone activity we played dodge ball in the church for a few hours. Oh it reminded me so much of when we played in our house in eagle and I loved it! I just feel super sore right now which tells me I must be really out of shape :/ Haha. More running and less ice cream for us I guess. :)

Familia Casco

This week we had a conference with President Richardson and his wife. They talked a lot about the Apostasy and Restoration and how we should highlight those two things in our teaching. It’s been so cool to me as I’ve studied about the apostasy, the time on the earth where really no one had the complete truth, how they changed doctrine, changed things in the bible, and at times it was actually not allowed for normal people to HAVE a bible... they just had to believe their church leaders and hope that what they were saying was correct. Studying about this time has really opened my eyes to how blessed we are today to have the true church of Christ on the earth. It is such a blessing and it all comes down to the love that our Heavenly Father has for us. He wants us to have this guide and happiness in our lives that came from the Restoration.

Ice cream and pizza on P-day.  There is nothing better!

This week was a lot of teaching, contacting and preparing investigators for their baptisms. We have an investigator who has been preparing and listening to the lessons for a month and a half and was really excited for her baptism that was scheduled for Saturday (the 19th). But she’s pregnant and since she doesn’t know when her baby is going to come, her parents didn't want her to do anything risky (including getting in the water for her baptism) so she chose to wait until April to be baptized. It was sad for Hermana Sanchez and I because we know how prepared she is, and were all ready for her baptismal service, but I know that the Lord will help her prepare for April.

I know I've said it before, but being in Otavalo is the absolute coolest! The culture and way of life here is a completely different world than anything we’re used to.  A few of the things I saw this week that made me smile about my sector....

-We had a family night and their "treats" were potatoes and rice :)

-There are pigs and cows walking around everywhere. It’s the normal thing.

-We ride buses everywhere we go. It’s pretty much the only transportation there is. But it’s all good because that gives us more opportunities to meet new people.

-There are these little ice cream freezers everywhere and my companion and I always reward ourselves with 25 cent ice cream bars   :)

-Our area surrounds a huge lake so it big and BEAUTIFUL. The mountains are green and there are lots of trees and sticks and huts and farms.

-It rains almost everyday here. The funny this is that everyone uses these Otavalo shoes that aren’t very much of a shoe. Their feet must be strong and used to rocks and mud.

-It’s sure peaceful and tranquillo here. Out of the world. A good way to live.

Waiting for the bus in the park in San Pablo

Well... I am officially out of time, but I hope you all know how much I love you. It’s hard to be away from you guys. Super hard. But I am happy here. Happy to serve the Lord and see all of the ways that he puts his hand in my life. Thank you for your example and prayers. 

Talk to you in a week!!

Hermana Yorgason