March 9th

March 9

Well, this week was better, but still not perfect, a lot better than the others and we will continue to try to have us be great friends by the end of these last two weeks that we have together! I think she did! 

I will let you know as soon as I know anything about Mothers Day!

As far as our traveling, we do a ton of it!! And no, we don’t have a separate fund for travels, it all comes out of our apoyo that we receive every 15th and 30th. But for right now, we are doing okay!! I'll keep you posted!!

If you sent clothes or are going to if you could send them a tad bit smaller, esp. any sweaters- that would be great, cause all of mine are too big.. but doing well!!

So, this week was kinda fun! We had a fun p-day last week, we made a cake with the Elders in the home of a part-active, and it turned out pretty well… it was a basic yellow cake, but the Hermana put raisins in the batter right before it went in the oven, then we put strawberry jam between the layers and frosted it with a frosting that wasn’t all that great…but it turned out good in the end--and they have a weird custom here in Ecuador where when you make a cake you cut out the center..like the pinnaple..and some one eats that ....I don’t really understand why…but there you go!! haha! 

Well, as I mentioned last week, we have started the pensionista program...and I’m not really the biggest fan of it...besides the fact that we, the Hermanas, don’t really have a pensionista-- it is still basically a mamita, since they can’t find anyone in our sector that can give us lunch Tuesday to Saturday, we have someone for dinner, just not for lunch...and dinner is another thing that I am not really liking. The whole first, ...well, up until now, we just didn’t eat dinner, we were busy working and members always gave us food when we went, and it is hard too because we have to eat dinner at 5, and that takes away an hour of our time when most of our people can meet with us, but we have zone conference on Wednesday, so we will see if we can change that somehow-- that maybe we can just pick up the food and eat at home later, or something...

We had a lesson with the husband of Hermana Fabiloa, who is a CR, and the best way to describe him is a hippie...long hair, facial hair, tiny little glasses that are like sunglasses, but he wears them all the time, and he has some very strange beliefs!! 

On Wednesday, we have capacitaciones by the missionaries for the members to help them know how they can help in the Obra mission, invite their friends to church.  Then, after the branch has what they call a noche de amigos, and they have a little message, then play games!  This week was super fun!  We played mafia and fruit basket since it was the Obra mission that ended up in charge of this week!! It was super fun!!  

We had a crazy /great lesson with an investigator named Renato, and he is the son of the hippie, but more normal…anyway, we had a cool lesson with him.  We met him at the little shop where his sister works and we were like, hey, can we talk with you, only more normal, and we have had a few lessons with him before, so not so weird, and he was like yeah, so we were walking cause we needed to have another woman with us to teach him and we started walking in the direction of a family and then we weren’t and we looked at each other like where are we going? -- -we ended up at the house of a part-active, her son is active and they were both there for what ended up being a great lesson! They helped a lot and we were very upfront with him in this lesson, cause he wants his life to change, but he is stuck living in the past and with that, can’t progress. So that will be a trick and a half to get him to change! But we have faith and with God, nothing is impossible! 

We had a baptism...well, the Elders did...on Saturday and the poor lady- the water was cold and she didn’t understand very well what she needed to do or what was going to happen when they baptized her so they ended up having to try like 5 or 6 times, but they did get her baptized and she was confirmed yesterday! It was awesome!! 

As far as our sector, it is pretty much city. I have no idea how many people are in the city, but it is really pretty! 

pics....

 the group picture we all have the rope wrapped around our necks because we did an activity where we had the rope wrapped around all of our legs and had to walk as a team around this hill, it was really hard, but really fun at the same time! And we had to do it as companionships up the hill. That was really funny and not quite as hard!  It was a great day!  Then we went to lunch in the mall and ate Carl's Jr!  It was a pretty fun p-day! 

 I don’t really know what was the best part of the week, our lesson with Tster, she has a very hard time hearing so we just sang hymns for her, and took the picture after. The noche de amigos where we played games, was pretty great!  The worst…we didn’t have anyone to make us lunch on Wednesday so we called an Hermana and she was like sure, we'll meet and go to a restaurant...yeah, cant spell...I walked in and looked at my companion and was like no, no, no, no, no, no, everyone was eating fish...and that is all I saw on the window where they have some pictures of what they serve, and we walked in and sat down and luckily, they had something else for the main meal, but they always have a soup first, and I was okay after I ordered the meat, until I got the soup.........first off, they served it with sangre frita, avocado, and lime on a separate plate, the soup had trishmishqui, and watita...and if you don’t know what those are...it is intestines, and cow tongue...yeah, it was disgusting!!!  Never again do I want to have to eat that,...but I still have a year here in this ..beautiful country...jk I love it, I just don’t love their food! Yup, that has got to be the worst part of my week. The fact that I had no other choice, but to eat that nasty food that should not ever be eaten...but, oh well!  Luckily, we don’t eat that in the states!!! 

I know this week has been hard and I was talking with my dl and he told me some advice that he had learned from someone...yes, this is a trial, this is one of your many trials in this life, but God gave us our trials, he can’t do them for us! Man have I learned that!  I know this is a trial and I need to be grateful for the rain, as well as the rainbow, be grateful for the trial while I am in it and not just after, there is something that I have to learn from her and from this partnership; I don’t know what yet…other than a lot of patience and the importance of obedience and maybe it will be that I am training next partner and need to learn this to help in the future...I don’t know.

But, I do know that I am never alone! My Savior knows me and knows how to help, all I have to do is rely on Him, put my faith and trust in Him that knows everything and know that He will help! I know this church is true and I am so grateful to Joseph Smith that he had the faith to continue even when things were so difficult, that he endured to the end so that we can now, at this time, have the restored gospel on the earth and have the Book of Mormon to help and guide us through this maze of life! Love my mission and I love you all sooooooo much!!

have an amazing week!!

always and forever

Karlee Jo

86 year old Ester

Dress being made for Karlee

Karlee and companion

Karlee at the lake

Lake trip for P-day

Rope Activity

March 2nd

Wow, this week has been crazy!! Monday was P-day, like normal, and we bought material with a member who is going to make us dresses! They are going to be super cute and I hope they will look good on us, as well! Ha ha! Well, Monday night, I started not feeling good- I was freezing and we still had visits, which is normal...I mean we are missionaries after all… didn’t sleep good at all that night -I was super cold and had a fever and just didn’t hardly sleep.

Tuesday, we had a district reunion then went from there straight to lunch… even though I really didn’ want anything to eat and hardly ate anything at lunch. Afterwards, we went home and packed for our trip to Quito. I was not looking forward to this trip! It is a 5 hour trip-- 4 to the terminal in Quitumbe, then another hour in the thing that is like Trax, but a million times more packed with smelly people. It didn’t turn out too badly, I slept all the way there and that helped a ton!! We stayed in the house of the secretaries with another, like, 6 Hermanas-- there was at least a dozen of us in the house!! It was fun and would have been even more fun had I felt better!!

Wednesday was amazing! It was the first ever Hermana conference! Pres. Christensen organized all of it and we had good food and great trainings. Pres and Sister Christensen gave a couple lessons then each of the 3 companionships of Hermana leaders gave one and they were all sooo good!! The best part was being able to see all of my friends!  I got to see Hna Castillo and we laughed because neither of us is really enjoying this Cambio. But we keep putting one foot in front of the other!  

Thursday we had our reunion de Zona and that was great, followed by a very interesting lunch with a family. The mom is a convert and the rest of the family are not members- the daughter and son are investigators of ours, but the dad… -well, the best way to describe him is he’s a hippie!! His kids hate him, his wife isn’t happy because it, the relationship between her husband and kids, is ripping the family apart… it is a mess!! But, we had an amazing lesson that night, as well with, what was a reference, but turns out that he is a less-active, but he is living with his girlfriend, who is not a member but she wants to get baptized and knows that they have to get married first.  They have fecha for the 24th of April, but we are working with them hoping that we can get the date moved up, because they told us that they have no reason that they are waiting that long, they have been engaged for like a 8 months or so. So, if we can get them married and her baptized and help him in his process to come back that will be so great!!  Friday...I completed 6 months in the mission!!!!!!! Our DL, who, yes, is feeling much better, was in Quito and we needed to have Mayra´s interview- if she was going to get baptized on Saturday..so our ZL’s, we talked to them on Thursday, and they said that if we did it Friday morning they would do the interview for us! Fantastic! So, we went to talk to her and we set everything up- including help her paint in the morning before her interview. So my comp and I went to help paint and we started with the sanding and what not, then our ZL’s showed up and Elder Nielson took Mayra into the back room to have her interview and they didn’t even get started when her boyfriend walked in and was like, I need you to exchange this, I need the other kind,...so she got up and left.. sad day, but when Elder Nielson came out looking a little shocked, said that if she came back we would continue with the interview, if not we were all leaving. She did come back...only to grab her keys and walk out again...so we left...we will try calling her this weekend, but this was her third chance of having her interview and it hasn’t happened on her part...so, we´ll see what is going to happen with her.

Saturday, we had a service project that was supposed to be with the entire ward, but no one but us showed up, so the 6 of us cleaned the entire chapel! Afterwards, it looked soooooo much better! Then we had some great lessons, we had a great ndh with the Mayo family, the family of our branch pres. but he and his wife weren’t there, they were at the temple! But, it was a really great lesson and we have another one on Saturday and I am going to cook something… don’t know what exactly yet, but it will be good!!  

Sunday, we had  a lesson after lunch, which was super fun, with the family of one of the RM´s of the branch, then he came with us to visit the dad of the convert, the hippie, and it is a good thing he was there, that man is so weird! I have no idea what to say to him! -and it is weird, he is perfectly pleasant when we are there, but all the stories we hear from his family, he is the opposite...! Then we had the best ndh, with a less-active, it was sooo much fun!!

We are definitely doing a ton more contacting in this sector! and we also do a lot more riding in taxis and buses than we did in Latacunga. Our sector is huge and our investigators don’t live close to one another which is a pain! But all good!  I think we had 140ish at church on Sunday… not too bad, ´eh?!

I love you all sooo much! and I love my mission! It is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, but also the best decision I have made in my life! It is the best-- getting to meet millions of new people, learn a new language and travel to and live in a different country, there is nothing like it!! It is amazing to see the Lord in my life every single day, and something I am not as good at as I should be about thanking him for all the blessings and miracles, but that is one of my goals for this week! My DL was talking to me on Sunday and recommended trying that for at least a week at night-- offer just a prayer of thanks, and let the Lord see your love and He will bless you with everything you thought you needed and more!!

So here is to another week that is going to be the best one yet!!! I know the church is true and that my Savior lives and that because of him we have the opportunity to live with our families for all of eternity!! 

I love you alll sooo much!

hugs and kisses!

always and forever

Karlee Jo




23 February 2015 Hard Work and Learning

Well, this week was another adventure!  As all of this next transfer is going to be!! I am trying hard and it is getting better, but not perfect yet!   As you’ve said, we can’t change someone´s ways after only two weeks… especially when they are from a different stubborn country..Peru..what..and have no freaking sense of time!  We are still trying as I said and it is getting better.  Your emails were perfect for what I needed to hear and definitely give hope and something to keep trying and keep moving forward to! 

Where are all of you in your scripture studies?   I would love to hear where you’re at and what you’ve learned!  And I hope you are going to the temple and taking advantage of that amazing opportunity that you have with the temple so close! 

This week wasn’t too bad-- not as good as I wanted it to be, but all we can do is keep putting our best foot forward-- 110%.   For me…, we will see what the Lord has in store, maybe a baptism, maybe a new companion.. we´ll see!  Have you listened to the new songs they have for the youth on the church page?  They´re great! 

Anyway, on Tuesday, we had divisions with the Hermana leaders and they really are great!  Having that day apart really helped me get a grip on things, besides being able to talk to someone else about it and receive immediate answers and feedback.   Wednesday we had a lesson with Alexandra and her daughter, Leidi, who is 7 ½, they are so cute!  They..well she, accepted fecha for the 14th of March, but that will have to be changed to the 21st since they didn’t come to church yesterday like they said they would :( 

On Thursday, we had our normal district meeting followed by a short zone meeting, and lo, and behold, who should show up...?  President Christensen!  It was good to see him, it was pretty funny too because he asked me how I was liking Rio Bamba and I was like: it’s great!  Not all that great, but we will change that and make it better.  For all I know, I could be getting an even harder companion after this one and I guess I should just be grateful for what I have now!  

Our investigator, Mayra had fecha for Saturday, but something happened with her dad and she had to travel to the Orient until Tuesday and was supposed to have her interview on Thursday, but she didn’t feel ready, so she didn’t have it,. so we set it up for Friday at noon, and we told her we would come pick her up since we were going to be up there for a service project, and we went and she wasn’t there… didn’t answer her phone, and so we are hoping she can have her interview on Wednesday when we will be able to visit her since she has to do stuff for work on Tuesday..  and hopefully the elders will be able to stop by and at least see how she is doing since we won’t be here-- we will be in Quito for our Hermana conference!

I am so excited to see Hna. Castillo again! I am not, however, looking forward to the 4 hour trip to Quito!  I think we are leaving tomorrow night or afternoon staying with the nurses... and then have the conference Wednesday and come home. 

Saturday we had a district study with our dL and practiced lesson one to help my companion and I know what we can do better in our teaching!  It was pretty good! 

Sunday our dL was super sick, he had something wrong before-- I think parasites-- and I guess it wasn’t all the way gone--he came to church for the first two hours and was just miserable and then the elders did divisions and he went home and stayed all day.. now we just hope that the rest of us don’t end up with anything.  All six of us are in the same branch here and there are two or three other branches here in Rio Bamba.  

So, it hasn’t been too bad of a week!

I send my hellos and love to all the umpires from down here in Ecuador!!

The internet place is pretty close to our house..basically across the street. 

We only contacted 10 or 11 people today and He has so many more for us to talk to!!!   Our area is really pretty-- we are in El Centro again, but it seems a lot more calm here then in Latacunga! 

It is kind of like watching the kids here play from what i can picture of your Blue and Gold banquet--they just play with what they have--they don’t’ have a full bucket of toys like all the kids at home.. and the toys are all a lot more expensive here! 

Well, you will have to send all my love to the fam!  Lots of hugs and kisses!!

I love you all soooooooooo much- thanks for all of your love and support and I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow... despite how hard it is, ..but as my nana kept reminding me before I left,  [ I CAN DO HARD THINGS ] I know that my Savior lives, that he loves me, and has a plan for me! I know it is hard now, but there is so much to learn from this experience! 

Have a spectacular week!!

Love always and forever

karlee jo

16 February 2015

Hi, all!   Well,  I think this has been one of the hardest weeks of the mission!! Hard companion and I am learning a lot more patience than I really want to be learning! But, hopefully all will work itself out!

So, as I said, my comp is from Peru and when I was talking to Hna. Castillo last week, before cambios, we were talking about which ‘type’ of companion had been the hardest and she said, for her, it was Peruvians...and I now know why.. and I don’t really know how to explain it...she has absolutely no concept of time- so we are late to everything...and you know how much I love that!

Like our district mtg. the other day, she never seems to want to shower until half way through our studies or like 15-20 minutes until we need to be somewhere so after we had shared what we had studied in personal study, I was like ‘k’ if you’re going to shower go a head and do it… and this was at 9:30 and our reunion was at 11...we were still a half an hour late!!  How does that happen!!??   She is 22 and I think she acts like an immature 12 year old! and it is hard too because I am in a new area which is really nice, and don’t know anything and she talks and talks and talks in lessons, which is fine except that when I have finished the lesson and she brings up another point or has another question for them...then the lesson goes on for another 30+minutes...which means that we are late to our next appt. ....how can I make us hurry faster...?  Okay, well, in our district there are six of us for the branch, elder Leach is our DL from California, his comp elder Marcos from Peru, elder Barton from Provo, and elder Moscera from Columbia. .. there are 8 Hermanas in the zone and I don’t remember how many of us there are in the zone.  But it is a fun district!!  Today we played carníval!!   It is a holiday of sorts that they have here where it is basically a water fight, they have cans of foam- cans like they have for silly string, and they play with that and water balloons and arena..flour, and eggs and sometimes the arena has coloring in it.  It was sooo much fun; we played everyone against everyone!  We were all soaked and coated in flour by the time we were done!  We changed and went to the mall here for lunch and talked and enjoyed the day! 

Okay, so last week our time got crunched so I am going to answer the rest of your questions now, then tell you more about my week then answer questions from this week

No, we don’t’ make our food we have mamitas that cook for us for lunch, and it is a service that they do for us, for right now, starting in March we are going to have what they are calling a pensionista and we will be paying them and it will be one lady for lunch and dinner, but this way we can tell them how much and what we want or don’t want to eat because we are paying them and we will be with them everyday. They said that this is in an effort to keep the missionaries from getting sick so often from food being not well prepared at investigators houses and such.

Okay, now to this week as a district and as a zone we have the goal of 8 contacts minimum every day and if we don’t complete this goal we have to buy everyone bread.. which isn’t too big of a deal since there are panadarias everywhere, but on our budget it is still a lot, if we aren’t completing this goal. So that makes it a little more fun to have a competition between the 3 companionships to see who has the most for the day.. clearly the contacts are still people and we still take it seriously, but it gives us a motive to contact even more because it is just something that no one likes to do all that much. 

This week we have visited a few different people, but the few that I want to talk about are Myra Gomez, she is I think 27, and has fecha for this Saturday!  So that is super exciting and she is great!  The other is the Flia Ortiz, it is a mom and her 6 year old and her 1 month old baby and they live with the papa of the two boys and she knows the church is true she knows what she needs to do...they just have to get married first! --like everyone here in Ecuador! 

I am really learning a lot in this cambio already, as I said before, my patience is really being tried, but I am learning a lot of Spanish -having to use it all the time!! And it is definitely a growing experience to be comp mayor! It is full of new possibilities to learn and grow- this change- and hopefully we will make it through!  Though I am sure, not with out a few more tears. But my DL is great! He kind of knows what is going on and knows that I am frustrated and said he’d talk to her… but how can I let him or have him talk to her if I can’t have the guts to say something first..?  If it is bothering me that badly, I have to put on the big girl pants and talk to her myself, if it still doesn’t get any better then I can let him talk to her.  

Well, we have had a good long first week, but I am hoping to learn and practice more patience and let it roll off and have some fun this change- so that will definitely be something we will personally working on! 

Our branch president and his wife are super young, but, hey, are really great!  I think that it is going to be a great experience working with them in this branch and hopefully we can help it grow!!

It is so good to see that some of the beautiful little flowers are starting to open up and bring a little more life and sunshine to life! 

Well, this picture is one of our district before the carnival fight and one of our zone afterwards! 

Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of love! Oh, and daddy, I made sure to eat some chocolate for v-day!!  Hope yours was fantabulous!!

Love you

Always and forever!

Karlee Jo