Halloween Ecuadorian Style

This week: we tried to have a halloween party for the stake, but it was poorly planned and poorly announced so only a few families showed up. it was still fun though. i went as a cat, two elders as nerds, one as a jedi and one sister as pocohantas. dressing up while still keeping the missionary standards is challenging for sure.

our zone at the halloween party

we planned it for november 2nd which as many of you know is day of the dead. (also called dias de los difuntos here) the ward celebrates by drinking colada morada and eating gua-guas de pan. the colada morada is a super sweet fruit smoothie that is served hot and actually pretty good. the blueberry season here starts in november so its a super traditional and highly anticipated event. they also make gua guas (wah-wahs) de pan which is a bread shaped baby decorated with colored icing. they are sooooo good.

 

gua guas and colada morada!

                various relief society sisters and us

we also helped various families decorate for christmas which was quite fun. everyone always asks about thanksgiving with very confused interest.  we also had dinner yesterday with the half german half ecuadorian family that lives in the country...so thats always an interesting time.

dinner with the german family

we also attended a birthday party for one of our investigators. latinos do not mess around with birthday parties

we had two days of training (between interviews and zone conference and other stuff etc.) so we didnt get too much done, but its all in a mission.  my baptism last week was the daughter of the family we baptized the first baptism (we didnt know she existed until a few weeks later) but she is the BOMB. she totally ditched all her friends and told them she was getting baptized and needed to live a better life. but then her grandma came and stole all her clothes because she wants her to move back and not live with her mom anymore. this family never really ceases to surprise me. 

the funny story of the week: we were in a lesson with an investigator and it was going pretty well. we ask her to give the closing prayer and shes all about it. shes giving the prayer and all of the sudden the two year old who was falling asleep on her  shoulder just pukes all over her, the chair and the floor. it was a small kid but alot of throwup. we didnt really know what to do so we tried to help clean up with some babywipes we had in our bag. the lady came back in and started to finish her prayer still covered in puke, we told her she could go change first and she was like oh really? okay... it was pretty funny. but props to her to keeping the spirit through it all. 

The view out my window

thats all folks!