Hellogoodbye

familia chuñir, minus Javier.

All 11 of us stayed in that little apartment. It was...cozy.

Airport...dropping off the missionaries who were heading home.

Chau, Glanzy! I miss you like crazy.

I look disgusting in this picture, but i am posting it so you can see my cute companion in her cute Otavalan clothes.

This is how I look after 4 days of no sleep in sweaty guayaquil weather.

Why do I always sit down at the computer and have a complete mental block?! I think of really inspirational things to say during the week, and then I sit down and can`t think of a single word. Bleh. Okay. Here we go.

Remember how I said I am training? Yes. That is real. My 4th change in the mission and I am suddenly supposed to teach someone else how it`s done. I barely know what is going on myself, so it has been an interesting journey. Mostly it has been full of a lot of praying and pleading that I will know what the freak I should do here. We started the week without many investigators because those who we have been teaching have pretty much all gotten baptized. So that means we had to work like crazy to look for new people to teach. Also we are now working just the two of us in our ward (instead of 4 hermanas) so we have to ride the bus EVERYWHERE. Every once in a while I get this overwhelming feeling of inadequacy and confusion and stress. But I am learning how to take a deep breath and not freak out about everything. I am taking life a day at a time and trying to find bliss along the way. I haven`t like had a heart attack or anything yet, so I think it is working pretty well. 

So my companion. Her name is Hermana Cando. She is from Otavalo, Ecuador. I am a giant next to her. She speaks Kichua (and I pretend to speak it sometimes too. Except all I know so far is how to say "I want my food."). She eats rice every meal of the day, and deserves a big trophy for somehow managing to eat a ton of it and not be obese. It is still a mystery to me. She loves to tell me stories about her life and her experience at the MTC in Peru and her family. Before the mission she traveled around a ton selling clothes with different family members. She lived in Colombia for several years, Chile for a while, and visited Argentina. We come from entirely different backgrounds, lives, family situations (she has 11 brothers and sisters!), countries, and everything. We grew up speaking different languages and wearing different clothes. We see the world from such different perspectives. But we are united in the fact that everything we do is because we know that God lives. We know that He loves His children enought to give us a map as to how we can make it back to our heavenly home. And we know that joy comes through following the map and sharing it with others. So even though we are about as opposite as we can get, we still have a fun time together and get along great. 

On Tuesday I said goodbye to one companion and hello to the next. I am definitely not a fan of goodbyes. I am reminded of that fact every time they come around (which happens often in the mission), and this one was no different. I miss Hermana Glanzer like crazy. It is never easy to be left behind, but I am glad she is home with her family and on to the next chapter of life. Eleven hermanas spent the night at an apartment in Guayaquil (and I was reminded of how grateful I am to be in the lovely Cuencan climate instead of the heat of Guayaquil) and mostly the hermanas who were leaving spent the night reminiscing with old companions, repacking their suitcases, and stuff. I mostly just sat there and sweated. Ha. But it was fun. Not so fun when we had to wake up at 3:30am to take them to the airport, but whatever. We sat around at the airport for a while, and then the dreaded moment came. Glanz hugged us goodbye and walked through the doors of airport security. And that was that. Bleh. Maybe I cried. And maybe I cried more in the taxi on the way back to the apartment. It`s rough when you get along with someone so well and then suddenly you realize they won`t be there anymore. But all is well.

Later that afternoon we (the hermanas who are training the new girls this change) went to the stake center in Guayaquil to meet our new companions, fresh from the factory. They landed at midday and came straight there for an orientation and lunch with President. I remember sitting there nervously awaiting their arrival. I tried to pretend like I wasn`t freaking out inside, but I don`t think it worked very well. Butterflies were purely swarming my body, not just my stomach. 

Then suddenly the bus pulled up in front of the stake center. As the new missionaries piled out I was immediately taken back to how I felt when I was in their shoes. Freaked out, excited, nervous, anxious, giddy, everything. The unexpected always has that affect on me. Five new hermanas came to the mission, 4 americans and 1 latina. We ate lunch together (elders too) and then had an orientation meeting with president and the office elders. Suddenly in the middle of the orientation president decided to start speaking 100% in english because all of the new missionaries were American except for my companion. That meant I had to translate EVERYTHING for her. I have no idea how I even managed to do it. He didn`t take any pauses or anything, just talked straight through. By some miracle Spanish came in one ear and out of my mouth. It was so weird for me to realize that I can communicate in this language. 

Wednesday we headed back to Cuenca. We woke up early and met everyone at the bus terminal so that everyone could head out at the same time to their assigned sectors. One of the office secretaries bought our tickets and we went up to where the bus leaves. Except bad news. We didn`t have the ticket we needed to get on the bus. Some member from Guayaquil popped out of nowhere and said she would watch our luggage while we ran down 3 flights of stairs to track down the elder and get our tickets. When we got down there the elders had disappeared. The guy at the ticket counter luckily remembered us and wrote up a ticket for us and didnt make us buy a new one. Then we ran back up the stairs because the bus was about to leave, and the lady was still there with our luggage. It was a pure miracle that everything worked out in that fiasco. I just felt bad that Hermana Cando had to deal with all of that her first day in the mission. But I guess it is better to just dive in...ha.

Life is lovely in Cuenca, as always. It was so good to get back. I feel at home here (which I guess makes sense since I have been living here since November). It`s comfortable and I love it. 

Thursday we ate lunch at familia Cevillano`s house. The mom`s brother just got back from the mission on Wednesday, as did the son of another member in the ward. So we had a big lunch feast with all of them. It was fun to talk to the newly returned missionaries. I hope I am not as shell-shocked as they were when I go home. They were so anxious to ask us about the work in the ward and investigators and everything. I think they were a little lost. But it was fun. 

Thursday night we went with the elders in a different ward to visit Maria Yunga, who moved to their ward boundaries. We had to show them where the house was. It was a major bummer that it would be the last time I would visit that family. I adore them. They are so excited about the gospel and accept everything instantly. So solid. 

Friday I learned a very important lesson. Do not eat half a watermelon for breakfast as a missionary unless you carry a portapotty with you everywhere you go. Sometimes bathrooms are very hard to come by, and watermelon automatically always makes me have to go every 5 seconds. It is really distracting to try teaching lessons with a full bladder. 

Aside from that...we visited a family we are teaching (familia Vasquez) and they served us sardine pasta. My fave. Yikes. Luckily we had a really good lesson to make up for the not so tasty food. Also we heard about the earthquake in Japan. My heart broke for all those people who lost their lives and families and everything they own. It reminded me yet again how precious life is, and how it can change in an instant. Sometimes I forget to be grateful for the things I have and how my life is right now. 

On Saturday we had one of the best lessons of my mission. We went to visit the husband of a lady in our ward. They got married about a month ago and he isn`t a member. Miguel Loja is his name. They let us in their house and after chatting a bit we shared the message of the Plan of Salvation with him. He had so many amazing questions for us and had this crazy sincere desire to find the truth. He told us how he was desperately seeking truth in his life, but didn`t know where to find it. He thought he was incapable of having faith. He said he had felt so empty in his life and thought he just had to be content with that. We asked him how he felt while we were sharing with him, and immediately he said it was like nothing he has ever felt before. The spirit was insanely strong. I realized how much everyone needs the gospel...not just poor people or rich people or hypocrates or midgets or comedians or bank robbers. Everyone. I realized so powerfully how absolutely vital the gospel is to find real lasting happiness in our lives. And that is what I love about missionary work. For some reason the Lord is blessing me with this opportunity to share this perfect treasure with His children. I am so imperfect and teach so imperfectly, but the Spirit drives the message to our investigator`s hearts and leads them to happiness if they choose to accept it. 

Today we didn`t really have a lot of stuff planned, so we ended up playing basketball with some of the elders in the zone and eating Mexican food. Then we had some extra time this afternoon so we wandered into the main cathedral here in Cuenca because I have wanted to go look inside since I arrived here. The architecture was beautiful and the adornments blew me away. I sat there and listened to this group of women chant these beautiful prayers that echoed off the vaulted ceilings and decorated walls. It was incredible. I had this crazy moment where everything just made sense...my purpose here on the mission, and our purpose here on earth. So many people think worshipping has to be some grandiose thing. It has to involve burning candles, memorizing prayers and chants, praying to every saint who has ever lived, going to confessionals, shouting hallelujahs and amens in church, bringing sacrifices of flowers and food, and so many other elaborate things. 

But the gospel of Christ is simple. It is a simple prayer of thanks in your heart for the random member who watches your bags at the busy Guayaquil bus terminal. It is eating a little piece of bread and drinking a tiny bit of water to remember the atonement every week. It is opening a book of scripture and reading what is on the page and applying it in your life. It is following the Savior in the best way you know how. 

I was so impressed by all the people who had gone to that cathedral to worship today. They were dedicated to their faith and desired to follow the Savior, but they`re missing something. They`re missing the knowledge that the Lord still communicates with His children today. They`re missing the simplicity and joy of the gospel. And then I was overwhelmed by the fact that I have been called here to help people find that happiness. I`m not here to change people and force them to be entirely different. Everyone already has goodness within them. Those women who were chanting such beautiful prayers have good hearts, they just don`t know the truth yet. The gospel is meant to take that goodness and build off of it. 

Now I am just rambling. So I will leave you all to go do whatever it is you do...play in the snow, eat chocolate covered strawberries, or watch soccer on TV. Whatever. I hope you all look for ways to increase your happiness every day of your life. We`re not here to be bored or miserable. 

I love you all more than I love listening to church music every day.

We found this rad restaurant called Monday Blue our last week here. I will be frequenting it.

Blanca and Camila Samaniego, plus their two little neighbor kids (remember the kid I wrote about that was dancing and lip syncing to daddy yankee? that is him.)

If it looks like we are in an enchanted wonderland, it is because we are.

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Juan Pablo and family. JP is the guy in the tan jacket next to me. Right before we took this picture he grabbed this statue of the virgen and asked if he could hold it in the picture. I almost died of laughter.