Buenas Tardes de Cuenca (Week 23)

Katie straightened her hair.  It is getting a little longer!

So this week was pretty exciting.  We were getting ready for the visit from the 70 this past Saturday all week.  He is the area president for where we are; his name is Elder Juan A. Uceda.  We had to get to the stake center super early to rehearse EVERYTHING, including where we would stand, what songs we´d sing, the photos we were going to take, todito.  I have to admit though, for the majority of the week I was mostly excited about the fact that not only were both zones in Cuenca going to be there, but also the missionaries from Naranjal, a town halfway between here and Guayaquil, were going to come, which is where Hermana Herrera is right now.  I got to see mi mamá (trainer, basically)!!!  It was so nice, because we were rushing to get there on time (we fit six hermanas in one taxi---it was definitely interesting) so I momentarily forgot that she was going to be there.  As we walked in, I saw a group of hermanas standing outside waiting, and there she was!  I ran up to her and we had a big hugfest haha.  A lot of hermanas have awful horror stories about their moms (trainers), but mine was my best friend---I guess I´ll just always be a mama´s girl no matter where I go.  But it was really so nice to see her again---I hadn´t seen her since she left Santa Rosa about two and a half months ago.  I found out from her that some of the people we´d taught together eventually did get baptized after we left.  That was an awesome feeling to hear that.

But anywho, yeah, the training session (I think that´s what capacitación translates into) with Elder Uceda was really great!  He´s a really wonderful man, and just told all of us to relax.  He came down from the podium to the front and was joking and animated and really funny.  He´s been learning English, and so all of his scriptures and books and stuff that he had with him were in English, and he would randomly say English phrases ("I blew it!" "They don´t get it!") and it would be really funny.  I really liked all of the stuff he taught us about how to work with the members and with la obra misional in general.

In other news, this whole last week I´d been preparing my talk that I had to give yesterday in church.  I was literally so focused and motivated about it---I mean, I was actually working on it the whole week before.  I was speaking about "la obra de salvación" (the work of salvation, I think) and I had this super long talk planned, because I thought that no one else was speaking after me.  I started out yesterday, taking my time, kind of rambling a little bit I admit, trying to explain it with all my tabbed and overly planned out scriptures.  As soon as I finally get to the topic of missionary work, the branch president hands me a little paper that says "TIEMPO (TIME)".  I had to wrap up my talk within five minutes, barely talking about the importance of missionaries and members working together, and I still had a whole other subject I wanted to write about (temples and family history).  I was so embarrassed.  I still am.  I was so upset, because I´d worked on this talk all week and then only barely gave half of it.  Apparently someone else was speaking after me, but seeing as how we don´t have programs, I didn´t know that.  Ugh.

Not much else is happening here.  Oh wait not true; we should be moving houses this week.  My companion and I are going to be living by ourselves in a pretty new apartment.  I´ve never lived alone with my companion; should be interesting.  But yeah, mostly I´m just super duper excited because all of my friends from Young Women´s are going on their missions!!!  We had all of us always wanted to go, and now here we´re actually doing it.  It makes me so ridiculously happy.  I´m so proud of my hermanitas. :D

That´s it for now I think. Talk to y´all later!

Love,

Hermana Iverson