9 February 2015

Wow!  This week was a full and super fast week!   Monday was p-day and we hung out with the elders, went to the mall and ate some ‘mexican’ food..not that good...Tuesday started so early!  We got a text from our querido obisbo (Bishop?) at 5:38am --we had somehow forgotten to put the phone on silent so it was a loud ring that startled us awake,  I tried to read it and couldn’t get my eyes to focus, but after a few attempts I got it-- but neither of us could make sense of it, so we went back to bed for the last hour.  When we got up, we reread the text and this time understood….Hna Vero, that had cancer, passed away Monday night and would we please basically coordinate everything!!   So, at 6:33am we called the elders and they were quite shocked to get a call from us so early!  But, we told them what was going on and they said to keep them posted with what they could do to help.  So, at 7 we went downstairs to talk to Anita and Milton, but they weren’t there, so we went back down at 7:30  (we were thinking of the funerals in the states and were thinking like, yeah, we will have the funeral on Thursday no big deal we have time to plan and get everything figured out....NOT the funeral is the same day and they told us that it was going to be at 11!! WHAT!!)  

We called the RS president to see if she knew what was going on and she was on her way to Quito when we called and gave us a list of stuff we needed to do before the funeral for the funeral.  So we ran upstairs and changed, called the elders to see if they could help us clean the chapel while we went to buy flowers and get a picture of her printed and framed and all that jazz. The elders are amazing!  So, they of course headed over and got that set up and cleaned and then we met them there once we had the flowers, they came back with us to the house to pick up the frame and then we were going to go back to the church to get their stuff they had left and then we were going to lunch and then back to the church to meet the family and open the church.. well it was us and our DL and his companion, --the other elders don’t have a phone so we had no way to get a hold of them- and it was the weirdest thing!!!  Honestly, they don’t make the body look very good- her mouth was still open and she had dried blood in both nostrils and her make up was crappy!  She and her sisters are members, but her parents are not, they are some indigenous people which means that the whole family and friends that came were as well and they don’t smell all that good.. and the mom was like sobbing/chanting/singing ...it was so weird and people kept giving her money...idk fue ful raro!!!  We were there all day, when the normal LDS part of the funeral started, the four of us sang Nearer, My God to Thee, it sounded kinda good...really good for here!  We left at 9:15 PM and went home.  

Wednesday we had a study in Ambato with all the hnas in the zone, with our Hna leaders, it was fun but we didn’t get home from that until 3:00, so went straight from the terminal to the church because they think they need to have more than one day to see the body- the mom wanted until Saturday...! But they settled on Wednesday afternoon, so we went, sang a different song, then finally they all left when they took the casket to the cemetery.   We stayed got everything cleaned up and then finally we were good to go.   We went to lunch with the elders and then to our lessons that we had for that night, we visited Hipatia, a part active and got her to commit to coming to church again on Sunday, and Maribel, she has fecha to get married and we just need to work with her husband to let her come to church, because if she can’t there is no point in baptizing her…

Thursday we had a mini-conference in Ambato and then came back and had lunch, then went to a reference from Joel and she couldn’t meet with us so he showed us the house of a different one and they weren’t home so we went to visit a ex obisbo and happened to be able to talk to him, then had our correlation mtg.   Friday we went and did a fecal test for my comp and found out she has an intestinal infection.. poor thing!   Then had a few citas. Saturday we had a district study and made pancakes and talked then went to the bishop’s moms house and did service for 3 1/2 hrs!  Moving a mountain of dirt from the main street level to the third floor...we all hurt so bad yesterday because we had to take and carry bags of little rocks mixed with dirt by the shovel full!!!  The elders only could carry so many and us too, so it was a slow process in which the bishop and his family did nothing to help except offer us soda and ask if we were tired...what kind of question is that?!!!!  I just carried like 50 lbs., at least, of dirt up the stairs --how many times?!!! and you are asking if I’m tired?!!! Sorry, it was just annoying!  Then we went to lunch and did visits. We visited the familia Hidalgo and found out that Lisseth is pregnant and her mom hates her and blah blah blah..that family needs to come to church!!  They need the help that only living the gospel can bring!!  

Then Sunday after church, we had consejo and it was the best one I have ever had!  Guess why...the stake president was there!  Then we had lunch and talked with the elders for a bit hoping they would get the call to know the cambios, but we ended up going home after a bit and then they called us and asked us if we wanted to find out over the phone or in person.. in person of course!!!  So they came over and first played a mean joke on my comp. telling her that she was going to be an hermana leader and she doesn’t want to be and almost started crying and then they told her that she was staying and training and I was leaving to Rio Bamba and going to be comp. mayor (senior companion)! and here we are, we went last night to say goodbye to the familia Hidalgo and hna Encalada..you have pictures.   It was so sad!, but I am hoping that this change goes just as fast as the last one and that I can learn a lot and my Spanish will improve! 

Well, that was my week!

In the last sector they cooked for us, but we will see what is going to happen with this sector.. I am assuming it will be the same, but we shall see.  Hope you know how much I love all of you!! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!  I LOVE YOU ALLLL SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!

Have an amazing week and know you are loved from all the way down here in Ecuador!!

Love always and forever

Karlee Jo

February 2nd 2015

Wow! How fast this time has gone! I can’t believe this Sunday we find out what is going to happen with this cambio!!  I feel like we were just made companions last week!!

It has been kind of cool here this last week, but nothing too cold!  I can only picture the cute little flowers poking up and brightening the world! -leaving you with a smile on your face!

I love you soooo much and am so grateful for this opportunity to share the gospel and it is getting easier and easier to teach and express myself, which is a good thing!!  Love you!!

So, last week was our zone activity, Tuesday we did divisions with the Hermana leaders and that was interesting...my comp got to be with her trainer which was super cool since she goes home next week! My experience wasn’t quite as happy. I still learned a lot from her (hna. gonzales), but she was just a little weird! Wut there is always something to learn from everyone! Wednesday, we met back up in Ambato and I was so happy to be back with my companion!!!! That afternoon after we got back and ate lunch, we went to visit a reference of a member....haha he was just a little crazy! He told us that the devil was more powerful than God!...um no....no, no!!  Then we were trying to explain to him why he should come to church, why he needed to come to church, and he told us multiple times that in order to receive the blessings and help he wanted from God he had to go to church..so we asked him if he would come with us and he shook his little finger at us and told us no..he had to work...weirdo!

After that, we had a noche de hogar with a convert and her husband who is not a member and her daughter who is not a member and it was a great lesson-- apart from the fact that neither of them want anything to do with the church…

Thursday we had a lesson with Maria Vasquez and we were hoping that she would come to church with us, but she said she had to go to Quito to help her daughter with something...and that has been the way is was for the last two weeks:( but we did get to meet with Maribel again..it has been a long time! and she accepted fecha for the 28^th, but we will see what happens because her "husband" keeps changing the date of their marriage!  Ugh!-- but all in due time, it will happen when it is meant to happen!!  We had our interviews with the president, and that went good, other than we were finishing our studies since they told us to be there at 12:30 and we got a call at 20 to 11 and our hair wasn’t as nice as we wanted it to be, and they wanted us there at the church at 11, annoying, those elders that didn’t’ let us know what time! But, overall, they went really well!!

Friday we had our district meeting and a lesson with Maribel and Carmen! They were good! Saturday we did service for the bishop’s mom and we were moving dirt...not sure how to describe it otherwise...then my companion was working on a list of the converts of the last two years so we could organize it by organization (we worked on it all morning with the members that live downstairs just to get the information about the people since when the bishop handed us the list and it had no addresses and no phone numbers), so after we did what we could to find all of that, she typed it up on an excel sheet so we could present it to the bishop.  So, I did divisions with one of the sisters in the ward and we met the husband of Martha and have a cita fija with him tonight! so that will be great!! Yesterday was good, we had a lesson with one of the members in the ward and had some goodish lessons at church… nowhere near as good as yours, I’m sure! But that was our week!  The worst part of my week was divisions and the best was getting to be back with my comp and meeting the husband of Martha!

Then today we went to the mall and did a little bit of shopping and then met up with the elders for lunch--we went to a Mexican place and it wasn’t all that great, but other than that it has been a pretty good week!!  Anyway, I love you all  soooooooooo much!!!!

happy week

Karlee Jo!

Karlee and her companion Sister Castillo

Three posts in one :)

January 26

So, this week, on Monday, like I said, we played sports and ate tacos provided by Elder Ramos de El Salvador, and it was awesome!! Tuesday was a day like any other, except that we got to work with Joel all day--well, after 3:00 we did! He is a great teacher, so we visited a family and taught the dad and the two brothers that were there and he halfway accepted fecha(?), but we haven’t been able to meet with him since then, --we had set a time up, but he said we needed to call and confirm that he was going to be there and when we did he had turned his phone off.., BUT we have plans to continue working with him!  We also visited the great-grandma of Joe—Maria, she is 84, but is awesome!  This last week we have taught her twice, but the lessons are a little bit different because she is so old we have to make everything super basic and it is like teaching a child, but almost harder!  She accepted fecha for the 14th of Feb.!!   Estamos Bien Animado!! Wednesday, we had a full day after our day of contacting with Hno. Fausto, we visited a less active with Fausto, hoping that he could help him progress, but I don’t think he's going to. We taught Pamela and she told us that she is in the process of getting all of her papers and stuff ready with her "husband" so that he can get divorced and then they can get married!!  It will still be about 3 months to a year before they can get married, but at least they are starting the process!!  We visited one of Hno Faustos’ cousins named Elba; she is great and accepted baptism-- just not the fecha, so that will be a work in progress to get her there!  The familia Ortiz..-the husband is a lot more open to the idea than the wife which makes it hard because then we have to have someone there with us, but Fausto always wants to visit them-- but we'll see what is going to happen with them.  All in all, it was a good day and to start the day off my comp made crepes and we had some strawberries!! Mmmmm!! They were sooo good! Thurday, we have this investigator named Maria and we met the first time with her and her husband off of a reference from their daughter that lives in Quito, but the first time he was way more open and accepting of the message than she was, the other few times we've passed by he was at work and she was in their local that is in front of their house, and it was really cool the first time we were just going to pass by after lunch and say hi, because we didn't know if she was going to let us in to talk to her without her husband, but she invited us right in and we had an amazing lesson with her!  The next visit, we talked to her a little bit more about baptism and she accepted fecha for the 14th but she wants to do it with her husband, so we will have to talk to him as well...but neither one of them came to church on Sunday so that will move their fecha to the 21st...but they are great!!  Friday we worked with Joel again and visited his great-grandma Maria and she is just as cute as ever! Then, we had an interesting visit with the new wife of Joel's dad..so his step-mom, and her son..Darina and Andreis, but they are super cool!! and have fecha for the 21st!  It was an interesting lesson, but it was great!! Saturday, we visited a less active and tried to help her see that getting married would be the best thing she could do for her daughter and she said that they hopefully have plans for getting married in Feb, but we'll see.. 

Sunday, we had a great little visit with a converso named Marta, she is so cute and absolutely loved my last companion Hna Colvin, and on Tuesday I got a stack of letters from her to give to people and families, so we delivered that and talked for a few minutes and she seriously has such a strong testimony and wants her family to all get to the temple to be sealed!!   It was such a great visit!

Then, today was our zone activity and as always it started with all the elders playing soccer and the other four hermanas made brownies and my comp and I played catch with the football..then at the end we played kickball for like, maybe 15 minutes but it was so much fun!!  At least the end was, when we all got to play together and not just watch the elders play, but that still was kind of fun to watch them all try and show off to one another.

Wow!  I cant’ believe how fast time has gone! I still feel like one of the newbies, but in all reality there are 3 newer groups of missionaries after me! CRAZY!!

There is always an answer to our questions or struggles in the scriptures, just like the picture of Christ at the door, they are just waiting for us to open them up so they can be found!

It is so true- we have been given so many special gifts and such grand potential that I think we forget about a lot of times! I was reading my patriarchal blessing the other day and at the end it says that these are SOME of the gifts.. and just think of how incredible that is, we were given so many magnificent gifts and promises in that blessing and that is only a part a fraction of what our Heavenly Father has for us!! 

We have another week together we will find out cambios on the 8th...not sure what’s going to happen this time!

I love you all soo much and am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary at this time!   I love the work and the people!!

Love you all soo much! 

karlee jo

Jan 19

This week has been great! Monday was p-day and we played volleyball and it was super fun, did our normal pizza lunch with the elders...or two of the four.  Tuesday, we left here (Latacunga) at 7:45 to head to Quito, we had to go to Quito to renew my comp’s visa, but it was super fun...although, my comp passed out on the bus after hitting her foot super hard on the bottom of the chair in front of her- I guess it just hurt so bad that she basically went into shock and got hot and irritated and switched sides of the bus...we were like two of 5 people on the bus.  Then we had to get out of the sun and then she was like, I’m gonna pass out… I cant hear you, what are you saying to me, I can’t see you, you are all fuzzy..so I went to the seat behind me because we each had our own two seats because no one was on the bus and caught her as she passed out.  After she woke up, not very long after, we got her calmed down and continued on our trip to Quitumbe, which is the bus terminal in the south of Quito, and from there we had to take the Equvia, it is kind of like the Trax, but a MILLION times more packed with people- for another hour before we got up close to the church offices in Quito.   We didn’t get back "home" until 7 and got a lesson in with our new RS pres. and that was our Tuesday..it was quite the day!   Wednesday was a normal day, except that we were especially tired after our full day of traveling Thursday, we went to Ambato again for our district meeting and a little zone meeting, and we only went because we brought the pouch back with us for the zone.  Friday was just a normal day, we studied outside on the roof in the sun, it felt sooo good!!   Saturday was kind of crazy-- we somehow let ourselves get double booked for lunch, because we couldn’t say no to one of the new converts in the ward- nor did we want to miss out on lunch with our favorite mamita and lunch with the elders, always a fun day!  So, we were absolutely stuffed when we left our second lunch!   Then we had a normal lesson or two, went to visit a less active family named the Zambranos and there she gave us a full cup of hot milk with rice and raisins in it…kind of a rice pudding...kind of… and a giant slice of cake...now, I don’t think I told you, but my comp is lactos intolerant...so we were thrilled to get this to eat besides the fact that we were still stuffed from lunch!!  Then, we went to visit another newer convert and she gave us tea and a roll....we barely could make ourselves eat it...we were soooo full!!   THEN, on the way out, and it is dark where she lives and there are a lot of dogs...so we were leaving and there was a black dog of all colors, that was chasing cars and then kept walking towards us and barking and growling at us as we tried to pass it...so eventually we found a piece of candy in one of our bags and threw it and the dog went to eat it and we sped walked away until we could stop to get a taxi to get home!  It was a crazy week!  On Sunday, it was the day that the missionaries talk, every whatever week this is- the obra misional week..anyway, so my comp talked on the atonement, Elder Ramos, who is from El Salvador, talked on how we need to get rid of the things that are holding us back from progressing and reaching our maximum potential, then they had a missionary that returned from his mission on Tuesday from the Guyaquil north mission, talked on how we need to use our time that we have because it is not our time, it is time that has been given to us by our loving Heavenly Father, and how we all need to be grateful for all that we have and all need to do missionary work!  It was such a great meeting!!   My comp had also previously volunteered to teach the RS lesson and that means that is was the best lesson we will get, our teachers aren’t all that great!  So, it was an awesome Sunday and then we eat lunch on Sundays with the family of the returned missionary and it was crazy-- he talked to us said hi and then wanted to know what day he could come out and work with us, his sisters said that he is having a very hard time not having something to do all the time…so we shall see what happens when it is my turn:) 

We have been working with a lot of less actives this last week or two, and yesterday we had a less active and her "husband" in church, we have been working with them to get them married, since like November, and we heard that their goal is for February!!   That will be exciting because that means that he can be baptized and she can start the process of coming back to the church! 

 Well, we have one investigator named Maria and we have been working with both she and her husband but he hasn’t been there for the last couple lessons, but she came to church yesterday and she was so cute she asked us if we have the sacrament meeting every Sunday, she could only stay for the first hour, and we were like yup! and she was like wow, I’m gonna come every Sunday!   It was soo cool!   She hasn’t accepted fecha yet.. :( but she will soon!)  We have a couple others that could have fecha except that they are not married and two of them have to get divorced before they can get married again and from what we have heard it takes at least a year to get all of that done…so it wont be happening this change!:)  They will at least be prepared for the missionaries that will be working with them when they get all of that figured out!  

that have one down here...

We haven’t tried any new foods that I can think of, but we eat a mountain of rice at every meal!  Promise me no more rice when I get home!!!!  

Most of our contacts are street and referrals-- we do close to zero door contacting here!  But sometimes we do!!

LOVE YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!! i hope you all have such an amazing week!!!

Always and forever!!

karlee jo

Jan 12

So, what do you think of the hair cut? I love it...and miss my long hair, but it will grow and it turned out really cute! I curled it for church on Sunday and it was so cute!!

This week has been kind of fun- we found a couple of menos activos that are great!  We are trying to help the one come back so he can go on a mission and the others are a set of three siblings that are 13,12,10 and were baptized by some elders a year or so ago, but when he left they stopped coming... we were finally able to talk to one of our conversos that had something happen with her daughter and she wouldn’t let us in or talk to us since before Christmas, but we finally got to visit her this week and she is doing great!  She knows the church is true and what she needs to do...we now just need her daughter to talk to us...we got a new Relief Society president and Young Women president and a new first counselor in the bishopric yesterday!  I am sad about the first counselor because he was awesome! But we are super excited to have a new RS president--people might get their visiting teachers now!

It is incredible to think of the miracle that was the birth of Christ!  The faith of his parents and the whole story...,but I never thought about the fact that it was recorded by a physician...interesting...:)

I will come home safely when it is my time, until then I am going to love these people and learning more and more.. -although I can’t believe how fast the time has gone!!

So, on Saturday we had a district study in which our zone leaders decided to come down to..to build unity within the zone...anyway it was great we learned a lot and then we played ninja and had a blast!

Love you soooo much! 

Karleejo

District Meeting

The new do!

New Year's in Ecuador

Wow! I can’t believe that we are in 2015 already!! It has gone so fast!

This week has been sooo much fun! Also, slightly frustrating because it was the new year so we had to stay inside for the whole New Year’s Eve day, so the elders ended up coming over to the house of the members that we live with and we played cards for hours! We ate chips and salsa Hna Castillo and I had made and some cookies-- it was so good!  These Ecuadorians have some strange traditions for New Year’s!! The men dress up as woman and dance in the street in front of like every car until they give them money! It is crazy! --but we had fun and then that night we had dinner with the family and they did some like sparklers and pop-its!

We woke up Friday morning at 2am--we heard something and got up and went to the little bathroom (that we never use) and as we were turning the corner there was water all over the floor! So, we open the door and the little tube thing under the sink had come off-- had broken somehow-- and was shooting a jet of water into the corner! We had no idea where the water shut off was or anything, so we grabbed the phone and tried to call Hno. Fausto, who lives downstairs, but naturally he didn’t answer, so we went down and knocked on the door and thank the lucky stars his wife got up and came to the door. We were like, I’m sorry but we have water going everywhere! Like it was out the front door and coming down the stairs! So she came up and got it turned off and we swept the water out the door and she said that they would come back and fix it tomorrow, so we went back to bed! But, man, what a crazy night!!  What was really cool, was that Hna. Castillo had something like a dream and said it was a voice in her head clear as day telling her that everything was getting wet --everything was wet! She kind of woke up, but then she felt like she was wet and got up and looked saw the water and came back into the room to wake me up just as i was getting up! It was so crazy!  I know that the Lord is watching out for us!! Because if we hadn’t gotten up, we had backpacks and books and crap all over the floor that would have been ruined!

This  week, as I said, has been crazy! We also left our keys on the desk one day and had the member come open the front door, but then we still didn’t have keys to get into our actual house, so my companion climbed through the kitchen window--and that is not very big at all!

Last night we were visiting a member/converso and her house isn’t all that clean, so I have this habit of keeping my backpack on my lap. We finished the lesson and she brought us yogurt and bread-- the typical Ecuadorian roll that is like a hockey puck, hard and crumbles all over. So, my hands are full and my backpack started falling, and not really thinking I tried to catch it....so, my bread ended up on the floor and yogurt all over my backpack and my hands and was somehow still coming over the side of the cup...man that was not all that fun! ---but funny now!!:)

This week we also met a new lady named Marta Corba- and she is super cool, she told us that she thought that we were the answer to her prayers! and that she was going to come to church with us on Sunday, but never came...sad day!

Today we played ecua-volley and we were playing with a soccer ball that was so hard! but it was fun and we made some guacamole, then as normal we went for pizza and we printed some pictures and came to email!

my comp has almost a year in the mission and it seriously is so much more fun than my first two cambios!!

I love you all soooo much,

Always and forever

Karlee Jo

Crepes and weird ice cream

My companion plays the guitar

Dancing in the street

Sitting in gum. Yuck!

Me and my comp (Hma. Castillo) at the crepe place

Water coming through the door

Waterfall/stream we walk by often