Ecuador Week 10

So this week was interesting.  Hermana Herrera didn´t actually come back from Guayaquil until Wednesday afternoon, two days later.  She was traveling in a trio of hermanas and one of them got sick so she had to wait with them.  I was so glad to have her back.  I was in a trio with the hermanas in Rama 2 and it was no longer working trying to go on splits with members to work both of our sectors and whatnot.  What a mess.  But she´s back now and it´s okay.  

Katie & Hermana Herrera with Gladys and Yadira

Emperatriz and her family

Saturday we had 3 baptisms!!  We could have had 4 but the sister of one the girls who got baptized decided she wanted to wait, which was kind of sad.  But yeah, we had 3 baptisms for us, one for the other hermanas, and one for our district leaders (Rama 2 with the hermanas).  So there were 5 people baptized Saturday night, and it was one of the most stressful nights of my mission.  First of all, we kept waiting for certain people to show up, and we almost couldn´t have the baptism because there wasn´t anyone from the bishopric in our rama to preside over the baptism.  We finally got permission to have it without them and started.  Gladys (whose sister Yadira ended up not getting baptized) was super excited to be baptized and went first, and hers went flawlessly.  Next was Emperatriz, who´s a little quiet and timid and was also a little nervous as well, and the elder who baptized her is newer than me and was almost more nervous than her.  He kept saying the prayer wrong and then couldn´t help her down in the water so she just kept leaning backwards or something---it was bad.  Finally they went to get the zone leader who baptized Gladys to get him to baptize her, but he was already changing, so his companion got dressed super fast and baptized Emperatriz on the first try.  I felt so bad for the new elder, he felt really bad.  Poor Emperatriz was a little upset.  So that was a bit of a disaster that we had to avoid.  Next was Davis, a 10-year-old boy who lives with his grandparents and aunts whom are members.  His grandpa was going to baptize him which was all nice, but he´s a little old and couldn´t remember the prayer to save his life.  He said it the first time (wrong) and without pausing sort of threw Davis backwards into the water and back up again super fast.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of the look on Davis´s face when he came back up after that first time because man that was hilarious hahaha.  Eventually he had to have about two or three people help him say the prayer correctly and then he was fine.  Next was the baptism of the hermanas, a viejita that couldn´t stand up straight because of how bent over her spine is.  Her baptism was really...interesting, challenging, impressive, I don´t know the word to use.  They had to get one of the little chairs from the Primary room and have her sit in it and two elders had to help dip her back into the water.  It took a looooooong time, and I don´t know if she fully understood what it meant beforehand to be baptized, like the action of being submerged in water.  It´s okay, she eventually did it and it was really sweet.  The last one was of the elders, and the new elder was up again.  He was more nervous than the boy he was baptizing, but this time he did it perfectly on the first try.  I was proud of him.  But yeah, so a lot of mini heart attacks.

As far as other news goes, we ate at a restaurant owned by members Saturday 

(I think they´re going to send you photos soon of me eating there, they were taking photos of all the missionaries and getting their parents´ emails, really sweet) and after we finished the soup, a soup that I have had before, one of the elders came out to our table and asked us if we knew what we just ate.  That made me really nervous but I asked him what we ate.  Apparently this soup doesn´t have potatoes, but pies de burro.  That´s right.  Donkey´s foot.  I´ve eaten it.  At least twice.  He even brought the plate with the foot out to show us.  I didn´t know how to feel after that.

I don´t have a whole lot of other news besides that.  Still loving the work and being here.  It made me laugh when you said it was almost 90 degrees.  It´s almost always over 90 degrees here haha.  Thank you for all of your support.  I love you all and miss you a lot, but I´m really glad to be here.

Love, 
Hermana Iverson