We. love. rice...

Hi friends and family!!!

We made it another week. Man, I am just so happy to be with Hermana Israelsen! We have gone through sooo much together! I think the theme of this week was HAPPINESS IS OUR CHOICE. We talked a lot about how we as humans spend so much time waiting for more. For the weekend. For one more investigator. To be a little skinnier or be done with a big trial. But as we live life like that.. we miss some of the sweetest moments. That was our theme because it has been very easy to be wishing away the week until P-day... but I don’t want to do that. We had to embrace ALL of the weird, hard and crazy.

The way we get through everything is laughing. I have never laughed so hard. Literally... our lives right now are so comical because I never thought that so much could just seem to not be on our side. I actually feel sore because we are laughing probably more than half of the day. We want to make a comedy film of life in Imbaya when we get back.

Amidst the rejection and sore legs, we really ARE loving being in Otavalo and enjoying the culture here. I was sitting in sacrament meeting yesterday behind a group of people all wearing braids and I thought to myself... "I am going to MISS this". The people here are so humble. The men wear white pants and ponchos, braids and white shoes. We can’t understand church because it’s all in Kichwa... so we just try and listen and nod and pretend like all is well and dandy. We’re lucky because every now and then they add a word of Spanish in there. I wish I could take a picture in Relief Society and send it to you. All the women are wearing their Otavalo outfits, dirty faces, long braids, babies tied to their backs... but just lots of attention and love and humility. The members are so good to us and they’re patient as we’re trying to learn Kichwa. (I forgot how hard learning a language is!!) 

We’ve kind of accepted the fact now that our food will be lots of carbs and little flavor. But.. its ok because the members are so kind to give us all they’ve got. We had many days this week laughing through mouthfuls of rice trying to shove it in and make room in our stomachs… while listening to another language and being surrounded by dogs and chickens.

This week we found a new part of our sector. We thought we knew where we were... nope. I’m not kidding you guys... I live in a girl’s camp campsite. We walked up to one of our lessons this week.... And I felt like I was on a 20 miler. I’ll send some pictures of our feet and how the dirt was up to our ankles. We are absolutely FILTHY when we get home at night... but it’s gotten to be normal because then we go out to do it again the next day. We’ve found some pretty cool things though. Very humble homes, llamas tied to houses, cliffs and people washing their clothes in the river, etc. I love it.

I had SUCH a tender mercy this week. On Tuesday we did intercambios with the Hermanas in San Pablo, so I got to go back to my old sector. And guess who I got to see??? Familia Casco! Man, I really think it was one of the best moments of my mission. We all just ran up to each other and were SOO happy to see each other again. What makes it even better is that they are so strong in the church. They go every week, they are reading their scriptures, fasting, and preparing to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. As I was able to share a message about patriarchal blessings with them, I felt the spirit so strongly and just a complete and pure love for this family. They literally are shining. I needed that day :)

My familia Casco!!

We had another cool moment as we were walking up to their house. The hermana I was with and I saw a family outside playing so we decided to go contact them. Long story short, we were able to share a lesson with them and the mom started crying because she said that she’s been having a really hard time and was praying for a tender mercy. We found out at the end of the lesson that it was the sister of the dad in familia Casco, and she wants to learn more because she’s seen such a change in her brother. Soo cool :)

This week I was listening to a talk from Elder Holland about troubles and happiness. He said something that really stuck with me. Troubles and discouragement are not related. Discouragement comes from another germ. As I listened to those words, I realized that so many times in my life, I have almost given myself permission to be discouraged because my circumstances are hard. But how crazy a thought. I know that no trial is too hard that it FORCES discouragement to come. As we truly focus our lives on Christ and his hope, he can chase away any doubt or fear or sadness. Although we know that we will always have trials, we can alway know that our future is as bright as our faith.

Love you all!!

Hermana Yorgason

Adventures crossing rivers!