English is so hard!

THIS WEEK

well, as a zone we were a little iniquitous (in iniquity? i dont know what it is in english) on our last p-day (listening to worldly music in the van), so the work was a little slow this week. we got macheted (in trouble? yelled at? english is so hard!) by the zone leaders in a special meeting after they got macheted by the mission president, but its all good in the hood now. 

Hermana Muir and I at the waterfalls

Last week's "iniquitous" zone activity to Mindo

Everyone already has their christmas trees up here, and they are ALL about chirstmas. they also think thanksgiving is super weird and dont understand why we eat turkey....actually now that i think about it i dont understand it either. the weather is still pretty much the same, and it hasnt rained too much lately, but every one is worried its going to come late but super heavy. 

we had an interview Wednesday and a baptism Friday, but thrusday we realized there wasnt any water in our chapel so we had to switch to the stake center. trying to plan a baptism in 12 hours is pretty hard, but we got it done. we also only started an hour late, so were making progress (we had to wait for another witness) 

everyone that got baptized and the other missionaries from our ward

i got a FABULOUS halloween card from aunt dana, uncle ken and corey and all the latinos were obsessed with it in the offices. On Saturday we did a service project with non member family we met in the street. they are so cool and hopefully we can start to teach them. the dad kind of reminds me of daddy. he just decided he wanted to build somewhat of cement igloo in the front yard and just started digging the whole without a plan. he says hes learning everything from youtube....his wife doesnt seem nearly as excited. it was pretty fun to be able to use all of my muscles, and not just walk all day. mixing concrete at noon in ecuador is one heck of way to get a farmers tan. 

Three month mark

This week:

not too many exciting things....its been raining more and more every day. some days its way cold and wet and i dont like the weather...but some days its totally sunny. i have a pretty nice farmers tan now a days...and im not in the most sunny sector. my hair is also getting blonder...i hit 3 months last thursday....so im 1/6th of the way done with my mission.. its gone by so fast. i also finished reading the book of mormon which i started when we got here to ecuador...a month and a half isnt too bad i guess. i dont know if i said this already but i started sleep talking in spanish..and lately ive been forgetting alot of words in english. adjusting back after a year and half will be tough.... i think. 

We have a really cool family that were teaching right now. the 9 year old has read all of the pamphlets and answered all of the questions with out us even asking. she also is already in chapter 10 of first nephi....shes so smart and LOVES when we come to teach. 

Today we went to a place called mindo. its about an hour and half or two hours away (although its still in my sector) and it was AWESOME. first you take this thing thats a mix of a cable car and a canopy tour across a big valley and then you hike and hike and hike and theres a bunch of waterfalls. being the rebel i am i went and stood under one of the little baby waterfalls and got totally soaked (and later really really cold) but it was so fun! my zone is really cool. then we went and ate at one of our favorite seafood restraunts.  the pictures are way better than my words but this computer place is so slow and were out of time so ill send the rest next week! 

love you bye!

also i forgot if i said this already but if anyone at church is asking what to send me tell them dry bags of brownie batter! 

If Spanish is too easy, try Kichua

the book of mormon cover in Kichua (and yours truly)

This week: well, the most interesting day this week was definitely Friday.

on the way back from a two zone training conference in iñaquito a few things happened

first: we got in a minor bus accident. nobody got hurt and only the missionaries seemed to notice. there was a little bit of broken glass but we were on our way in no time

second: one of the other sisters took the bus right before us, and by the time we got to the bus station she had gotten robbed. bummerr

third: later that night we were hanging out in our convert ana´s food shack thing. some crazy lady came up and started to throw food and spoons and embers at ana to try to distract her so the crazy lady could steal food. well little did the crazy lady know, but ana is super hood and fights like nobodies business. in about 5 seconds she had they crazy lady on the ground in somewhat of a defensive hold and the whole town came out to watch. the member who gave us the reference for her family was standing by eating a hot dog and yelling like we were on jerry springer. it was a pretty good day. 

today i hung out with the family from esmeraldas and they taught us to make empanadas de verde de queso and morrocho. theyre pretty sweet. 

hanging out in the kitchen of ana maria

my first empanada!

what else.....this week hasnt been too exciting otherwise. we found a cool family who kind of reminds me of the rassmusens. but they arent married and they work on sunday...so i wouldnt be expecting a baptism any time soon. the computers are really slow for pictures so im dedicating more time for pictures than words (my words dont really make sense anymore)

other developments this week

i started sleep talking in spanish...well sleep yelling, but whats the difference?

i also started to learn kichua. 

the phrases im learning this week..in kichua

hermana lopez served in otavalo for 8 months and has a book of mormon in kichua and a few hymns. its a sick language and makes absolutely no sense to me right now. 

Babies, baptisms, and bumps in the road

us and the oña family before their baptism at last week's "white night"

All the converts and missionaries from last week's "white night"

    THIS WEEK:

wheewwww i dont even know where to start. we had meetings pretty much all day every day (mission council, verifications, district meeting, etc) so we didnt really get too much work done. 

on tuesday we had verifications for all the greenies that came in my week. they took us *gasp* out of mission boundries! 

hermana muir, berret and i at the panecillo

we went to this big monument called panecillo. its kind of like the big jesus in rio dijenaro (i dont know how you spell that) but its an angel.  apparently a bunch of years ago in the 60s president kimball (when he was still a 12) went to this monument and dedicated the country of ecuador to missionary work. only 3 weeks later the first converts were baptized. it was pretty powerful and the view is amazing.

 

the view from the panecillo

Well later on that day we went to one of our mamitas and we started to talk and low and behold her dad was one of the first members baptized in ecuador. she was also the first sister missionary to every leave from ecuador. her story is nuts but shes so cool. she also cooks like nobodies business. her and her husband got married after only one month. He was a missionary in her ward and later on they met up again at a dance. he called her a week later and asked if she wanted to get married. they both prayed and she said yes. theyve been together for 40 something years now and are still going strong. she blows my mind . 

then saturday and sunday was general conference. this was the first time ive ever actually watched all 4 sessions. AND I TOOK NOTES. i know its a miracle. its crazy how exciting general conference was. it seemed like every talk had some profound message that i needed to write down and save for the future. the one black guy (i dont remember when he talked) was funny because all throughout the elders kept quoting the lion king. he sounded like rafiki. the put all the white missinoaries in our own room so we could watch in english there were only 6 of us,but it was pretty fun.

 

 my area  of missionaries after general conference

they spoke so much about missionary work and  a few mentions of autism and other disabilites. it seemed like it was a conformation of my educational interests. 

then sunday night after conference we hung out with a recent member and made tortillas from verde (green plantain)  they were okay, but i wasnt a huge fan. this member though is SWEET. shes hillarious and i think we are twins.

they have a pretty small house but she feeds the missionaries once a week. she has a few kids and they are freaking adorable (pictures attached.) 

the cutest baby in the whole wide world. we also had a casual dinner date, no biggie. 

 

Earlier in the week we also visited with a less active sister who recently gave birth to the tiniest premature baby girl.  she only weighed two pounds when she was born.

the moms brother showed up and hes somewhat inactive, but we talked about how he should start going back to church so he can give the baby blessing to his niece. it was so sweet. 

 her hand in mine 

seriously all of the members here are so loving and would give anything for us. my new comp is named hermana lopez and shes from colombia. shes a little taller than hermana garcia but still shorter than me. Weve only been togther a few hours, but we already went and got chifa (Chinese food) and she seems pretty chill. i hope we will get along a little bit better.

 hermana garcia and i cutting her goodbye
cake at the last zone conference

life with hermana garcia wasnt bad, but we had our differences sometimes. mission is definitely hardcore training for married life.  (Doesn't this look like a wedding photo?)  other than that ive just being going all over the mission trying to get ready for hermana garcia to leave. its weird to have her gone but hopefully this next transfer will be one for the record books.

lots of pictures attached. (like 40+) (since i missed the last few weeks) 

from your eternally sleepy and strenthening spiritual,

Hermana harlos

p.s. shoutout to kaylee for her 21st birthday on friday (picture attached!)

Kaylee - not sure which picture of the 40+ she had in mind for you, but here are my top guesses. 

Happy Birthday!- Linda

 a new pharmacy opened down the street. they were giving out free cotton candy. i was pretty stoked.

 i cut open a plantain for breakfast and it was sad at me =(

but then i ate it and i was happy #suckstosuckplantain