Woooo this week was interesting

October 6, 2014

We found an iguana at lunch yesterday, I was terrified to touch it!

Woooo this week was interesting.  Long before Conference started, we got a phone call Tuesday night saying that early the next morning we would have to travel to Guayaquil for my visa.  We left our house at 3:40am and ended up waiting for an hour before we finally got a bus to Guayaquil.  We got there (in 3.5 hours!? crazy fast) and there were a few other missionaries there from my companion´s group (the group that came one cambio before mine).  That´s when we found out that we were actually there for my companion´s visa, not mine.  Don´t know how they got that mixed up.  So my companion goes with the rest of them to get her visa taken care of and comes back within an hour.  As we were waiting to leave, we get a phone call from the nurses saying that we´re to go to the mission office to have an interview with presidente about a medical issue that my companion had told the nurses about.  So we go to the office, wait to talk to him, go in and talk with Presidente, wait for the nurses there in the office to get there, they show up, we wait for them as they wait to talk to Presidente, they talk to him, then one of the nurses goes with my companion to get some blood tests done or something and I wait there with her companion.  We ended up leaving Guayaquil at 5pm and got to Machala at 9pm.  Then we couldn´t find another bus to Santa Rosa, so we had to call a member who has a taxi, and he ended up coming to pick us up.  We got home at 10pm.  A really long day in Guayaquil.
 

Saturday morning we had a baptism!  Luis Chamba, a 16-year-old kid that we taught, got baptized before conference.  It was really great and everything went well.  We had a chocolate cake that we had made and it was super yummy.

General Conference was much better this time around!  We got to see Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday.  I was so happy.  It was so neat that that elder from Uruguay spoke, and in Spanish!  It really threw me off because all of a sudden there wasn´t anyone translating for him, but it was still in Spanish.  I was very nicely surprised to see that now people are giving talks in their native language.  Also, I think it was Sunday...afternoon?  I can´t remember, but on Sunday there was an elder Carlos A. Godoy that spoke in Portuguese, and I was really excited to see him because he spoke to us in the MTC almost a year ago, and I had really really enjoyed his talk.  I didn´t get to see the very end of the Sunday afternoon session, because there were a bunch of kids playing in the back of the room that were being really loud and disruptive, so we took them to the nursery with another hermana to play and keep them occupied.  So I missed Elder Bednar´s talk to nonmembers, and I really wanted to see that.  Could you send me his talk, as well as Elder Godoy´s?  There were more I wanted but I can´t remember now, I left my notebook in the house.

It was neat, because I got to see more people from Rama 1 again.  I got to take a picture with one of my favorite families from that branch, the familia Suri.  They were always really good friends with us, and they invited me to come over for lunch one day, but that´s the other zone now...so it´s a little harder to do that now. :(  I also saw one of my converts, Elvia Ramirez.  I had heard she was less active, but she just showed up to the last session of Conference!  She also slept through all of it, but she always slept through church when we were teaching her.  She´s a little older...but hey, at least she went!

Today I´ve been doing a lot of reflecting, since it´s been 2 years today since they changed the age to go on a mission.  I feel like that was the day that changed my life.  If they still hadn´t changed it, I would probably still be waiting for my mission call right now.  I´m so grateful for the chance I´ve had to leave earlier on my mission, and for the people I´ve met in this last year.  This Thursday will mark a year since I left on my mission.  I may not have a year in total, but oh well.  At least I´m here.

I love you mom and I´ll talk to you soon!

Love,

Hermana Iverson