Well. Awesome. I am sitting here on this computer and I can barely remember what happened five minutes ago, let alone this entire week. I do remember, however,that it has been pure madness. Seriously. Longest and craziest week of my mission thus far.
(Sidenote. Major apologies if all my words run together. I have to pound this spacebar to make it work and I am getting tired of doing so. Forgive me?)
So. Wednesday night at almost 10:30pm our phone rang. The caller id said it was the assistants. They never call us, so it was kind of weird. We answered and they asked to talk to my companion. She talked for a second and then burst into tears. I knew without her even telling me what happened. Emergency changes. She would be leaving me in the morning. She went to another sector in Cuenca, and one of the hermanas there would be joining me in Alamos. It came as quite a shock. But I guess that´s how the Lord works sometimes. The minute we finally learn what we need to learn from a situation He lets us move on. And even though change is hard, it is really a process of God bringing us closer and closer to the promised land. My testimony of how we are here in this mega refining process has grown like crazy this week. Sometimes it´s hard to recognize, but He really is leading us by the hand. He lets us suffer hard things because He wants us to be better.
And so now I officially have my 2nd companion in Ecuador. Hermana Borja from Guatemala. She is an absolute doll. I adore her. She has already taught me a thousand million things, and I can´t wait to learn even more from her.
Unfortunately for her she has to learn the sector from me. My New Years resolution is to learn every sector I am sent to in my first couple weeks. It was pretty easy for me to just follow Hermana Castillo around and let her do all the navigating and planning because she had served in this area for a long time. And so now it´s time for me to step up to the plate. Even though it has been one of the most stressful, frightening things of my life, I am learning a lot and the Lord is giving me the strength to do it because I sure as heck couldn´t do it on my own. So I´m teaching a sector. Ha. Seriously. So weird.
Also I think getting a new companion is sort of like going on a first date. Sometimes you really hit it off and could laugh and talk for hours without getting sick of each other. Other times you sit there wracking your brain for something to say, but you just completely draw a blank. And sometimes it´s pretty decent, minus the occasional awkward silence because you feel like you dont have anytihng else tosay. Except the only difference is you can´t pretend like your sick so your date will take you home early if it doesn´t go well. You are attached to your companions hip until they´re changed. So. I am very lucky to have Hermana Borja as a companion. She is purely fantastic.
Speaking of New Years...we spent another 24 hours in the house. This time 2 other hermanas in Cuenca joined us. 6 of us in total. We partied the way missionaries do...I studied for a zillion hours (have I ever mentioned how I have become obsessed with studying here? I could spend 5hours a day doing it. Truly.), we made the most delicious tacosof all time - homemade tortillas and all, played games, and sat around and laughed at each other. It was impossible to sleep because the neighbors were having a giant dance party in the street.
Fun Ecuador Trivia of the Day: The tradition here (and many other Latin American countries, for that matter) is to burn paper mache dolls on New Years. It symbolizes getting rid of the bad stuff that happened that year and starting fresh. We were going to make a doll, but ran out of time. I guess we spent too muchtime taking a thousand pictures of ourselves making the ugliest faces we possibly could muster up. There´s always next year I suppose. Also the entire week leading up to New Years they sell masks to make the dolls. They are purely hilarious. I will maybe remember to send some pictures next week.
Also Hermana Haggard gave me a haircut. And then when she was done she informedme that I would becutting her hair too. Um. Yep. I pretendedto know what I was doing as I snipped away. I think that is a skill I have been developing on my mission. I might be an expert at the end of this thing. I think it´s a pretty good skill to have. I will make a career of it. Professional pretender. Anyway, I think I have a future in hairstyling because her haircut turned out great, if I do say so myself.
Pretty exciting New Year, eh? I hope you all had half as much fun as we did.
The big news of the week: WE MOVED!! We have a new house in a new neighborhood with a new vanilla-scented chinchilla pet. Okay, I lied. No pet chinchilla.
We adore our new house, and we´re even happier that we don´t have to deal with all the logistics of trying to change anymore.
My brain is basically fried at the moment because we spent the entire morning packing, loading the truck, moving, unloading the truck, cleaning, and rearranging. There is still a lot that needs to be done, but we needed a sanity break for a second so here I am at the computer. We are very lucky to have the best elders in Ecuador in our zone who came and helped us move everything. However, I will take full credit for loading and unloading the fridge. All those pushups I´ve been doing are paying off.
Annnnnnnd...that´s about all I can think of at the moment. Except that also I have a growing obsession with dandelions. Don´t judge me for loving a weed.
Hope you all have the best first week of the year ever. Make goals and plans and dream big. 2011 will be the best year of your life. Guaranteed.
Woof. I just realized I will spend the entire year of 2011 in Ecuador. Deep breaths. So crazy.
Okay. Ciao.
(pictures to come later in the week...sorry!)
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