OTAVALO!

IM GOING TO OTAVALO!!!! i have to be at the bus station in a little bit so i dont have much time to write now, but ill try and get back on later. If not BYE and ill probably spend some more personal cash because its colder there and thats where all the indeginous people are that make sweet hand made ponchos and stuff.... sorry not sorry..

(7 hrs later)

just got to otavalo...its amazing. its totally green and a nice mix of farmland and old looking city. but with modern commodites. my new companion is named hermana aquino and shes from bolivia. she has one transfer less than me which means im comañero mayor...what is that in english? senior companion? i dont really know. anyways, our new sector is wayyy small compared to my old one. you can walk from one end to the other in like 30 minutes. apparently our ward is like half kichua half spanish so im PUMPED to learn some kichua. 

as far as the skype call is concerned, i dont know exactly what the rules are but president more or less said you have 45 minutes. if you wanna call mulitple family members go for it. but you still only have 45 minutes..... other than that the last few days have been more or less normal. it was pretty hard to leave the members and investigators but im sure i will come to love the people here in otavalo just as much. apparently its a challange to not gain weight here either so we will see how that goes.

the only memorable experience we had this week was that we had somewhat of an eternal investiagor named rosa. she wants to get baptized but isnt married to the father of their 12 year old child. they have been living together for like 14 years or so but this last month he FINALLY got  divorced and, being a long time member of the church, had his rights taken away because he wasnt divorced and living with another woman  (again, dont know what its called in english) basically one step above excommunicated.  a few months ago they changed their living situation so they could comply with the law of chastity and thus be baptized, and we called mission president to get permission to baptize her. he said yes and we were so excitied she was FINALLY going to get baptized. butttt the day before her baptism the bishop went over and basically said no you cant get baptized because you need to get married first. but he never told us that he cancelled the baptism and the morning of the baptism our mission president called us and said she wanst going to get baptized. it was basically  a giant bummer, but she didnt seem to upset about it and hopefully they can get all their papers in order so they can get baptized. definitelyh the first time a bishop has cancelled the baptism a day before...

other than transfers and the cancelled baptism there isnt much news. my camera is being alittle sketchy right now so ill send some pictures next week. 

BYEE

Editor's note: We had a nice Skype call with Kendra on Christmas Eve.  Although we had some technical difficulties it was fun to see and mostly hear her.  
Here's a link about Otavalo with some cool pictures.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otavalo_(city)

Feliz Navidad!

This week was pretty nuts. we had divisions with the hermana leaders on wednesday, then on thursday after district meeting we had to go back to quito AGAIN so the family could finish up their paper work. they have officially set their wedding date for the 23rd and we've invited the ward to come support them. 

the oña family after stalin (finally) got the preisthood

friday was the christmas dinner which was soo much fun. we met as a zone in the morning to practice for our required special musical number and had to be at the chapel close to the presidents house by 4. we played white elephant, sang christmas carols, watched videos about the nativity, had a mission slide show and ate medicore american food prepared by the presidents wife and other senior sisters. 

Merry Christmas from the zone!

Hermana Muir and I

Me and my companion, Hermana Lopez

i got a little whistle thing thats acutally a magnet from hermana muir and president gave us all study journals with our names on them (pictures next week) i also FINALLY got the covers for my scriptures, hymnal and preach my gospel. 

With the Mission President and his wife

we got done super late and went to sleep with the nurse (hermana berrett) because they have like 15 bunkbeds in their house (they call it the hotel) ... we had to wake up at 5am on saturday to leave from quito to get back to our chapel because we had "the day as a missionary" with the youth that started at 7am.

"The day as a missionary"youth activity 

it was pretty fun but made me realize how hard it is to train. we also had a nice heated discussion in the street with a jehovas witness (they are always looking to bible bash) and one of the youth just shut up down. it was pretty funny. i hope i didnt destroy their desires to serve a mission too much. i was sooo tired and slept so well that night. i also got a nice sunburn (again) yesterday and today were normal though. 

i got a package from kaylee! (thanks bud) so thats her shoutout. im working on another round of letters and packages to get sent in the next few weeks. we have to travel an hour and half to the nearest post office that i know of. we made the brownies today and they ended up alright. being so high up and in such dry climate definitely changes the consistency. it was still fun though. we have our p-day changed to tuesday so dont be worried when you dont here from me on monday. ill get on like 20 minutes early to write (so about 3:30) so we can work out technical problems then for the christmas eve skype call home.

miss yall!

Technical difficulties, no photos

SOOO this week

it was a pretty normal week. we wasted a solid two days trying to arrange the paper work so one of our investigators can get married and it turned out it was more or less a waste of time BUT hopefully we can get them hitched this week. hermana lopez fell down when we were playing capture the flag so now she has a really nice scab. we helped a nice old lady move her stuff from one apartment to another down the street...old people are pretty much all the same....anal about somethings and oblivious to others...thus accumulating alot of junk without any organazation. we helped our bishops wife assemble and decorate their christmas tree and we have the christmas dinner with president this friday. so thats pretty exciting. other than that life is more or less normal. we went caroling again on saturday and the elders decided to take a shortcut and we basically scaled a small mountain a crossed  a ravine during the night time. i thought we were going to die. then it rained really hard. we also went to the christmas devotional yesterday which was more or less exciting. our family of converts (my only baptisms so far) got robbed a few weeks back and literally have nothing so weve been working with ward council to try and get some basic supplies together. hasta lunes! 

My yoke is easy

our neighbor / investagor made us lunch on saturday, it was SOO GOOD

this week
thanksgiving was a normal thursday here, complete with zone meeting and chicken and rice for lunch (just like every day). there was a company selling satelite out of the back of a truck so i got to see a little thanksgiving football which was pretty exciting. i didnt feel too homesick though. i think because it still feels like summer here i dont realize its december.
 then on friday i had a nice spiritual experience. we had a little bit of free time so we went to go look for a reference that a member gave us but the street didnt really exist (or if it does we couldnt find it) so as we were walking back we walked past a street that an old investigator lives on. shes super evangelical and when we explained the book of mormon it kind of all went down hill from there. she said give me a few months to read the book of mormon and then come back. so i figure yeah its been a few months, lets go visit her. so we went and knocked on the door. she seemed a little confused when she opened the door and saw us but she let us in anyways. so we got to talking and she was talking about a few problems shes had lately. i pulled out matthew 11 something about "my yoke is easy and my burden is light" and she started bawling in the middle of it. turns out she was praying to recieve some help from god and she said send me anything and before she even finished praying we knocked on the door. i was like yeah look at me learning how to feel the spirit. it was pretty cool.

then on sunday after church we went caroling as a zone and we played jenga. it was the most exiciting jenga game i have ever played in my life.

then today we played capture the flag (although the latinos dont really understand it and there was a lot of cheating, im still a little bitter about it) and i got sunburned (as usual) it seems like every day we dont do anything i remember to put on sunscreen but then the days we are outside i forget. oh well. 












im exicited for the upcoming week and counting down the days until i can call on christmas! 
love you! 

hermana dozas last day...1 week a 3 days in the mission

picture time

today with our packages!  Mine was already half opened and I couldn't resist the temptation.  we got a new gringo missionary in the ward after hermana doza left and she got a package with reeses so we are going to make reeses brownies next p-day (im super stoked)