No place like Ecuador (Week 27)

July 15, 2014

Katie back in Ecuador!

First things first: I made it back to Ecuador!!!!  I literally got in to Guayaquil at like 10:30 at night or something, I don´t really remember.  I did end up having to move to a different plane in Dallas, so I had three flights (as usual) to get there.  While I was in Miami, I met a new elder who was going to my mission!  He´s from Utah but was only going to be in the mtc for 2 weeks but had issues with visas so he had to stay longer, thus he was coming with me.  We ended up flying together to Guayaquil, and now he´s in my zone up in Azogues.  He´s a funny kid.

Katie's new companion, Hermana Adams

The next day, I met my new companion in the bus terminal.  Her name is Hermana Adams and she´s from Colorado as well (nope, still not Nathan´s mission).  When I met her was when I found out that I was going...back to Cuenca!!!  I´m now in the Tomebamba ward, which is literally the neighboring ward to the Totoracocha branch, which was my last area.  Like we literally share the same chapel.

I found it actually wasn´t too hard to jump back into missionary work--it was kinda like riding a bike.  I had no problems with the language, but getting used to teaching again was a little awkward at first.  I like to think I´m getting better.

Ingapirca

Now, for the reason I didn´t write yesterday...we found out this weekend that Presidente Torres was going to be comingon Monday to give us a training meeting (I don´t know if that´s what you call it in English, I´m translating from capacitación).  We were pretty bummed at first, like come on, on P-day?  But we went and it was super great as always, but then we finished like super early, like before lunch.  Then Presidente told us that we were going to go see Ingapirca, some Incan ruins that were a little farther north than Azogues!  Our zone leaders had told us to bring tennis shoes, and now we finally knew why.  It was super neat!  It was also freezing.  Like the wind would blow so hard I thought we were going to die, but I really really enjoyed myself.  When we got back to our sector, we just had time to print our emails.  

This morning, we had interviews with Presidente, and he challenged me to talk to 100 people a day for a week, so I guess I´ll tell you next week how that goes.  I´m still not sure if we even see 100 people a day, but hey, I can try!

I know that this time will go by fast, so I have to make the most of it now.  I´m literally so happy to be back.  I was grinning from ear to ear and even almost teared up when the plane touched down in Guayaquil.  It felt like coming home.

Talk to you later!  Les amo muchísimo!

Love,

Hermana Iverson

Coming Home :(

May 22, 2014 to July 8, 2014

Katie on her way home after a very long flight from Ecuador

As many of you now know, Katie came home on May 22nd.  She has had a recurring problem that needed medical attention (minor--don't worry).  It is church policy that missionaries serving in foreign countries be sent home to attend to their medical needs.  We are so grateful for that!  We were called on Wednesday afternoon, and picked up Katie at the airport on Thursday.  She didn't have much more notice than that either.

At first, she was really reluctant to share that she was home.  As you can imagine, this was a disappointment and a bit of a difficult transition to make.  She was a trooper though and we were really fortunate to get quick appointments with a superb doctor.  Her recovery was swift and nearly painless.  We feel so incredibly blessed.

While she was home she had some incredible opportunities.  She attended Lauren's graduation, her Aunt Laurie's wedding, and her cousin Becky's college graduation.  She helped Lauren register for college, celebrated Lauren's & Mom's birthdays, and visited with lots of family and friends.  For such a short window of time, a lot of people were seen.

Lauren's graduation

Dinner with the whole family, celebrating Mom & Dad's 25th anniversary

Katie cheering for Ecuador during the World Cup

Becky's graduation

She happily went back to her mission in Ecuador on Tuesday, July 8th.  Again, we feel blessed.  Often missionaries are reassigned stateside to complete their missions.  Not only is she returned to her original mission, but she will finish her remaining time.  This was a pause, not a loss, in her service.

Before she left, she remarked on how fortunate she has been in her life to have such wonderful friends.  She is mindful of your support and unconditional love and acceptance.  She treasures her friends and the strength you all give her to achieve difficult tasks.

Thank you for being there for my girl.

Leaving for Ecuador (again!)

Anita Iverson (Katie's Mom)

Short and Sweet? (Week 26)

May 19, 2014

Well, this has definitely been an interesting week.  On Tuesday night, Hermana Carollo got the phone call--cambios.  She left Wednesday morning.  My new companion came in the afternoon.  Her name is Hermana Castro and she´s from Honduras.  I had actually met her at the beginning of my mission in Santa Rosa (in her 15 months in the mission she´s spent collectively 12 of those months in Rama 3 in Santa Rosa--like she´ll get cambios somewhere for a couple weeks or a month or something and then she´ll get sent right back to Santa Rosa).  But yeah, she actually has about 15 months in the mission (I think she started the week before my cousin did) and she´s a really good missionary.  We´re already having more success in the area since she got here.

Also, I got my family´s package on Saturday!!  I got it exactly a month after they sent it--I think that´s a record.  I was so excited to open it that I was trying to use the house keys to cut it open on the taxi ride home from the zone meeting haha.  I was very very happy.  I´m wearing a pair of my new socks right now. 

Welp, this weekend I got sick...today is the third day I´ve been sick.  I really hate being sick in the mission.  It is not fun.  I finally started feeling well enough to leave at around 3pm today so we could go write and I feel mostly okay.  My stomach just still kind of hurts.

I think this is all my news for the week.  Keep it real folks,

Love,

Hermana Iverson

Happy Post-Mother´s Day! (Week 25)

May 12, 2014

Wow, I´ve had quite the busy day.  Today we went to the Feria Libre (which was in my old sector, Álamos; got some serious deja vu going back) for an hour and bought some stuff we needed/wanted (I got a grandma sweater, I am very happy--will send photos soon), raced back to buy groceries and whatever we needed, then went to a member´s house so she could dye my bangs.  I´ve been wanting to dye my bangs a lighter color for a couple weeks, and so she bleached it for me and put on the color.  It was starting to look a little too light so she added just the teeniest tiniest bit of dark color to balance it out, and it darkened it almost back to what it was before.  But you can tell it is lighter now, so that´s cool.  We´ll see if I´ll dye it lighter or not.  Right after we did that, we had to race to a cyber to write.  My companion wrote for an hour, and just as I started to get onto mine, the power went out.  That was at 4:45pm.  We had to race to find another cyber so I could write.  We cut it close, but here I am!  Super stressful.  Oh and we´re starving because we haven´t eaten all day, but oh well.  We´ll get around to it.

I was so happy to be able to skype my family yesterday!!  My mom looked so pretty.  I´m pretty sure her hair has gotten a lot longer.  Lauren´s hair is about a million feet long, I love it.  I have the most attractive family.  We´re all such beautiful people.

OH MY GOSH THERE IS THE BIGGEST SPIDER ON THE GROUND RIGHT NOW IT IS SO HUGE OH MY GOSH IT CHARGED US WE´RE GOING TO DIE IN THIS CYBER OH MY GOSH IT´S ABOUT TO CRAWL ON THIS GUY´S FOOT DO I WARN HIM HOLY COW AHHHHHHHHH IT´S ON HIS FOOT MY COMPANION AND I ARE DYING AHHHHHHHHH I DON´T KNOW WHERE IT WENT THIS IS SO NERVE-WRACKING PRETTY SURE I MIGHT START HYPERVENTILATING

Um anyways so now I´m writing with my feet raised above the ground, I´m not risking anything.  But uh yeah so uh this week what happened this week I´m too scared to think.  Yeah, so on Wednesday we did intercambios with the hermana leaders.  Don´t know how to translate that, but basically my companion went to their sector and one of them came with me to our sector.  We were in intercambios for 24 hours--the first time I´ve done exchanges for so long (oh yeah, that´s the word).  It was interesting...but I kind of missed my companion by the end of it.  We´re back now, so everything´s fine.

Friday we didn´t have lunch so we cooked in the house!  That was pretty cool.  I kind of just made it up and bought the ingredients and it turned out pretty good!  I made a pasta with tomatoes, carrots, and onions (as well as mayonnaise--everything is better with mayonnaise), and my companion made chifles and deviled eggs.  It was super delicious.

What a feast!  Deviled eggs, pasta salad & chifles (fried plantains)

Also, this whole week I´ve been making smores.  I´ve been super duper happy.  I bought more stuff to make smores today...don´t judge

My converso Yinson gave me and my companion bracelets!  He made them with our names.  He had some trouble making the V on mine haha.  Last night he called us because it was raining really hard and he was worried about us haha.  He´s a good guy.

Yup, so it´s just been raining a lot around here.  It´s kind of cold, but I´m doing alright.  I´m really happy here and I´m so glad to be on a mission.  I love you all, and I´ll write y´all next week!

Hermana Iverson

Happy (Almost) Mother´s Day! (Week 24)

May 5, 2014

So this week was both exciting and not that exciting at the same time.  It was exciting because we finally moved into our new house!  This is now the second time I´ve had to change houses.  I hope this isn´t a pattern in my mission.  But yeah, it´s just me and my companion living by ourselves there, and it´s really nice!  The owners have a wood manufacturing company like right next door, so there´s really really nice wood everywhere.  It´s a really pretty apartment.  I´ll send pictures.

The not exciting part is that not much of anything else happened.  We´re still trying to look for new investigators, so there´s a lot of walking--which sucks because our sector is like all hills.  Getting quite the workout here.  Also the weather has been awful--lots of rain.  On Friday, it was starting to sprinkle as we went to visit the branch president´s house.  Within minutes of getting there, it started to rain harder and harder until it was a torrential downpour with winds and everything, a little unusual for here.  The kids in the house tried to go grab some towels or something that had been hung out to dry and accidentally lost their umbrella.  It had gotten caught by the wind and had flown away!  Since my companion and I had our rain coats we offered to retrieve it.  It had gotten caught on a stop sign at the end of the street, a good 50 yards away!  We got soaked trying to get it, but it was quite the adventure.

Not really much else happened this week I think, but then again, I left my notebook with my list of things to write about in the house, soooo....oh well.  I´m really excited for Mother´s Day to talk to my family!  It feels like I just Skyped them last month or something.  I can´t believe it´s almost been five months since then already.  Wow.  Imagíne, next Mother´s Day I´ll be home.  Nope gonna stop right there, too weird ha ha.  Anyways, love you all, and talk to you soon!

Love, 

Hermana Iverson

PS Oh and I made s'mores today :D  They were quite delicious.

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

Hey I´m back... (Week 22)

April 21, 2014

So this week had some interesting stuff happen.  First of all, this last Wednesday was definitely a milestone in my life: I received my first wedding proposal!...from an old, slightly drunk, probably homeless man.  It was interesting.  He approached my companion and I in the street with some question about life after death, so we tried teaching him.  We sat down on a bench in a park across the street, but he started telling his life story and even started crying about a girl or something and was just like "¡Nadie me entiende!" or whatever, it was a little weird.  He kept talking about how he almost got to go work in the US and all the times he´d showed up to Catholic churches drunk or whatever, but then I started to realize that he was only directing himself to me.  He was turned with his back to my companion, and whenever she tried to talk, he would interrupt her to ask me the same question she was explaining.  All of a sudden he started telling me how "guapa" I was, and I was just like "oh great now he has a crush on me".  He kept asking if I had a boyfriend here in Ecuador and I kept saying "claro que no, pero el EVANGELIO" and finally he was rambling and he just was like "¡Cásese conmigo!  ¡Lléveme a los Estados consigo!" and I was just like whoooooaaaaaa there buddy we are done here I ain´t marrying you, you smell funny.  We tried leaving and when I shook his hand he wouldn´t let my hand go.  I was standing there for like 15 seconds trying to pull my hand out of his grip while he was staring at me all lovey-dovey, it was weird.  I saw him again on Friday and he tried talking to us and I was just like "oh gosh let´s keep walking before he proposes again"

We had stake conference yesterday too, and it was literally one of the best conferences I´ve ever heard.  It was broadcasted to all of Ecuador, and some of the speakers even spoke in Spanish!  Elder Holland spoke, and he started out in Spanish and oh my freaking gosh, it was exactly what I never knew I´d always wanted to hear.  He has the most gringo accent on the planet, it was adorable.  He spoke the rest of his talk in English (with translation), but then at the end he bore his testimony in Spanish again.  His Spanish was awful (okay actually his grammar was fine just his accent was pretty bad) but holy cow, you could feel the Spirit so strongly.  It just bears testimony to me that how well you speak makes no difference--you can still touch the hearts of others with the Spirit.  That was probably my favorite part.  After him spoke Elder Richard G. Scott, all in Spanish (he served his mission in Uruguay, did you know?).  It was such a spiritual meeting.  Oh, and guess who I saw?  A sister from Santa Rosa, who was the wife of the branch president in my branch!  Both my companion and I had been in her branch, so it was so wonderful to see her.  She cried when she said goodbye to her.  I was so so so happy to see her.

This Saturday a 70 from our area is coming to visit and give us training.  I´m really excited, because the missionaries from Naranjal are coming to Cuenca for his visit, so that means I´m going to see Hermana Herrera (my trainer) again!!!!  I´m literally so excited, I haven´t seen her in over two months.

One last thing before I finish: One thing that one of the speakers said yesterday is that we should pay attention to the details of the gospel, including saying family prayers, reading the scriptures as a family, and having weekly family home evening.  Make it a habit now to do these things with your families.  Help them forge these habits before they´re out on their own.  These things are so important, and if you do these things now they´ll see how important it is and you´ll have promised blessings from the Lord.  You´ll all see the difference.  Do them, I´m dead serious.

I love you all a lot and can´t wait to hear from you next week!

Love,

Hermana Iverson

p.s. I put my hair in a ponytail today!!! I may have like 7 bobby pins holding in my hair, but whatever

Ecuador Week 21

April 14, 2014

Hey mom!  So yeah, this week wasn´t super eventful for me either.  It kind of sucked missing Conference.  If you can already read them online and stuff and knew I didn´t see it, why didn´t you send me those talks you liked...?  Idk, it would be really appreciated haha.  Otherwise, I´ll have to wait a month to read it in the Liahona in Spanish (which I can do, but it´d be nice to have it now in English).  

I think as a result of being sick last weekend, my appetite went out the window.  Usually I can eat meals like the pictures I sent you, but this week I was dying.  I could barely finish any of our lunches.  The mission has made me develop a burning hatred for rice.  Please, whatever you do, don´t try and serve me traditional ecuatoriana food when I get home, and DO NOT GIVE ME RICE.  I will have eaten enough rice to literally last me a lifetime.  When I get home just take me to In n Out or something, but no rice.  None.  I don´t even want to see it.

Our convert Yinson has been really great.  He´s literally one of those golden investigators that every missionary dreams about.  This week he bought us pizza and gave us presents (he also got them for my companion´s former companion, who were the ones who met him right before I got here; she just went to the neighboring ward, still in the same chapel, and we´re pretty sure he has a giant crush on her, it´s really funny): he found out our favorite colors and got us coordinating scarves and gloves.  It was really sweet.  He´s so funny, because he´s just kind of turned into our little buddy.  We always meet him in the park, and in the park right next to it they do bailoterápia, which is sort of like dance aerobics, every night at 8pm.  Every once in a while he´ll just be like "¡Bailemos!" and we´re just like "...you know we can´t!" so he´ll just start dancing by himself and it´s really funny haha.  I sometimes forget that he´s literally twice our age since he looks and acts so young.  

Katie in front of the cathedral

Well, I have some pictures of our little outing today.  We got permission to go downtown and I FINALLY got to take pictures in front of the cathedral.  They always make me think of you.  I think that´s why I love them so much.  This one was so pretty.  We went to a little artesania feria near there, and it was awesome!  I´ll send some pictures of stuff I got.

Katie loving her spoon

from the feria (street market)

Love, 

Hermana Iverson

Ecuador Week 20

April 7, 2014

Hey mom!  Yeah, cambios are just a crazy part of life here.  They´re never expected and they happen often.  There are almost more cambios in the six weeks between cambios than there are on the day of cambios.  It´s normal.  My last companion, Hermana Catmull, she never unpacked her suitcases because she almost routinely got cambios every 3-4 weeks on average.  The longest she ever stayed in a sector was 7 weeks.  But she´s an extreme case.

I´m glad that General Conference was so great for you guys...it wasn´t for us.  My companion and I got sick two days before and we didn´t fully recover until yesterday.  So for that, we didn´t have anyone to bring and could only go to the Saturday morning session.  I was seriously seriously bummed.  But we stopped by for the Sunday morning session to see if one of our investigators was going to stop by (he didn´t...we waited outside awkwardly for him and couldn´t go inside), and I saw a whole bunch of people from the Alamos ward that I just left.  It was super nice! 

Katie with Yinson at his baptism

The good news though is that last night after conference we had a baptism!  His name is Yinson and he´s literally one of the best investigators I´ve ever had.  Definitely an escogido (sorry not exactly sure how that translates).  He has such a strong testimony and even though he´s twice our age (he´s a 40-year-old single dad) he´s become a really good friend of ours.  He would ask a bajillion questions, and we would somehow always have the answer for him.  It was so cool.  His baptism was one of the most spiritual baptisms I´ve attended, despite the scarce attendance (three members from the ward showed up).  I´m so happy for him.  I just know he´s going to do great things.  He always says he´s going to visit us in the US haha.

This Wednesday, so in two days, I hit my 6 month mark!  I don´t know how it went by so fast.  I only have exactly a year left until I go home!  This is much stranger than when Nathan was on his mission, especially since he was out for six months longer than I´ll be.

Katie is super happy!  Loved her package.  Thank you Jill!

Oh yeah, and this week I got a package!  It was actually from the Juchau´s!  It had peanut butter which made me laugh because I remembered what you had told me.  It definitely made me feel better when I was sick.  I think it was supposed to be a Christmas package, but I didn´t get it until April 1st...the thing is packages get to Ecuador fast enough, but they just sit in the mission office for the loooooooongest time, it´s so annoying.  Like just give me my mail, darn it.  I still haven´t gotten Neeharika´s or Angela´s letters.  I´ve given up hope with those.  

A typical lunch.  Katie eats this everyday!

But yeah, that´s all my news for now.  Hope everything is all chill now that everyone´s home.  I think Nathan gets home in just a couple weeks, right?  Ya mismo!  Love you all,

Love,

Hermana Iverson

La vida misional acá en Ecuador [Mission Life in Ecuador] Week 19

March 31, 2014

A panoramic view of Katie's sector from the top of one of the many hills.  "I'm dying there are so many hills!"

Well, guess what?  I got cambios!  There were just four hermanas in Barrio Alamos, and they took all four of us out.  It was ridiculous.  The other three all went to Guayaquil and I´m not sure where they went after that, but I just went from Cuenca Sur to Cuenca Norte.  I´m in Rama Totoracocha on the other side of Cuenca, so that´s not too bad.  

Katie's new companion, Hermana Carollo

My new companion is Hermana Carollo and she´s from Colorado (I already checked she´s not from Nathan´s mission, she lives in the Colorado Springs mission).  She´s really cool and we get along really well.  It´s funny, because she was companions with Hermana Herrera in Santa Rosa right before she trained me, and she also trained Hermana Davenport, my companion from the MTC!  We´re just waiting for Hermana Herrera and Hermana Davenport to become companions now haha.  Her mom is Mexican, so we always tell people that between the two of us we have one gringa and one latina haha.  She went to BYU-I like a semester before I did, so I´m excited to see her there when we get back.  There are a lot of people here who went to BYU-I or are going there after the mish.  One last thing about her, she literally has Lauren´s eyes, it´s super cool.

We got a whole bunch of new rules in the mission.  Before, for someone to be baptized they just needed to attend church twice, but now they have to attend three times if they´re older than 12.  If they´re 8-11 and don´t have the support of their parents or a close member of the church (or basically someone who can make sure they´ll be going to church every week), they have to attend church for a couple months before they can be baptized.  We also have to teach spouses together; if one of them isn´t there, even if they aren´t interested in the church or getting baptized, we can´t teach them until they´re both there.  Also, they have to have ALL the lessons before the baptismal interview.  The idea is that this way so many converts won´t go inactive, because often times they go for two weeks, get baptized, and never come back, and we don´t want that.  So this will be good.  It´s going to be a whole lot more difficult though, so I expect that the baptisms will go down for a while before they go back up.  

It´s cool because we also got new techniques.  Oh yeah, they give us techniques here in the mission and scriptures for different situations and for baptismal invitations.  We just got new ones for the sierra, or basically Cuenca and Loja, since people there are more duro and waaaaaaay more Catholic.  So now we have scriptures and techniques specifically for them.  It´s awesome!

I was thinking this week, since they also asked us to talk to our investigators and converts about family history, that it says in my patriarchal blessing that I´ll be able to help further the genealogy work in my family.  Now that I´m here in Ecuador learning Spanish, I´ll be able to help read all of the old records that are written in Spanish.  I think that´s another reason I´m supposed to learn this language.

We did a lot of wandering this week since Hermana Carollo only has a week more than I do in the sector, and I got some nasty blisters that hurt me when I walk, but other than that, things were pretty good.  We have an investigator that´s progressing like crazy; Hermana Carollo found him with her last companion the weekend before I got here, and in about a week and a half he´s probably read up until 2 Nephi 10, after starting from the very beginning of the Book of Mormon.  His testimony is growing so fast, it´s really cool.  I´m excited for him to watch General Conference.

Katie enjoying a p-day (preparation day)

That´s about it for now.  Keep it real folks!  Choose the right!

Love, 

Hermana Iverson

Hola...hace frío acá [Hello...It's Cold Here] Week 18

March 24, 2014

Sorry I didn´t send anything out last week, I hardly wrote anything anyway.  The only news is that I´ve been here in Cuenca for about five weeks now, but there are cambios today so we´ll see what happens.

Cuenca is suuuuuuuuper cold, especially compared to the coast.  I´m kind of dying, especially right now, because I´m sitting right next to the door.  It´s sort of like a mini European town in some parts here, it´s kind of cool.  There´s even a super fancy mall that we got permission to go to today since we brought more than 5 people to church yesterday haha.  It was so fancy, I thought I was in the US.  There was a KFC, McDonald´s, California Kitchen Co., and other things that were generally really cool.  I even bought a Butterfinger.  ...and a box of Alfajores that I found.  They´re a different brand than the kind in Uruguay, so we´ll see if they´re any good or not.

Fountain inside the mall

Baby bananas -- Katie is obviously excited

Butterfinger!

Alfajores, a Uruguayan favorite

This last week we didn´t have any baptisms, but hopefully everything will go well for our baptism for this week.  His name is Jorge and he´s 14, super tall, and super serious, but we´re starting to get him to smile more.  He´d never admit it, but we´re totally his friends.  The week before last, his little sister got baptized, so we´re hoping this will help get him excited.

...so I bought a beanie...and I love it so much

Nothing else really is new, except that I bought a beanie last week (I love it I wear it all the time when we´re in the house) and that I´ve probably gained about 15 lbs since I left my house.  Greeeeaaaaat.  Meh it´s okay, I was a little underweight before the mish.  

Hope everyone´s doing great and I hope to hear from you next week!

Love, 

Hermana Iverson

Happy St. Patrick's Day (Week 17)

March 17, 2014

As for my week, it was pretty normal.  We've been working with this family and they're literally perfect except for one little problem: the parents aren't married.  They have two kids, Jorge (14 years old) and Melanie (9).  Grasiela (the mom) just turned 32 (...I know.  It's pretty normal for women here of that age to have teenagers) and is almost 8 months pregnant.  We thought she was a member because she remembered the missionaries teaching her when she was about 10 and even remembered her baptism, but didn't remember her confirmation.  I guess it didn't happen because she doesn't have a record in the church, and therefore is not a member.  Melanie got baptized on Saturday and she's literally the cutest little girl ever.  She's super super smart and super funny.  Her dad actually kind of wanted to get baptized the same day too, but he kind of has to get married first.  Ya mismito though; we're having a family home evening with the stake president's family tomorrow night (his son's the ward mission leader and just got back from his mission like 2-3 months ago), and they're going to offer to pay half the fee so they can get married.  I swear mom, I will see this family baptized, every single one of them.  I want it so badly it's insane.  They're just so fantastic.

Melanie Coronel (yes that is my scarf around her waist--the dress was a little big okay)

The view from Katie's apartment

inside her apartment

" I got a package and letters from the Activity Day girls from Foothill!  That was so nice of Sis. Bennett, I loved it!"

Cuenca is really cool!  It's in the mountains so it's literally really cool, but since it's the warmer season right now it's actually generally sunny during the day.  It rains a lot, but never when I have my raincoat with me (claaaro que no).  People are reeeeaaaaaally Catholic here, but it's alright.  We have plenty of scriptures specifically to share with those people haha.  Cuenca is really pretty too.  A lot of places remind me a lot of Europe, and others remind me of Northern California.  But really though, sometimes it's hard to remember that I'm in South America because it just feels like I'm in a little European town.  I have some cool pictures from our little patio (we live on the top floor) so I can send you those.  

Love,

Hermana Iverson

Hey, I'm back... (Week 16)

March 10, 2014

This is my first normal P-day in a looooooong time, it feels like.  It's at least my first normal one since getting to Cuenca.  My first week here we had to pack up our entire house and move to our new apartment in another part of the sector.  It was insane.  We literally didn't do anything else all day.  We were really lucky that there's a tienda right downstairs or we would have died of starvation.  (Oh yeah, here in Ecuador there are little stores everywhere.  They're literally just parts of people's houses and they'll sell a bunch of food and it's really great and convenient, I think they need them in the States.)  Then the next week was Carnaval, so our mission president decided that all of the missionaries would go straight home after church on Sunday and wouldn't be allowed to leave until Carnaval ended.  So we were in the house all Sunday afternoon and all of Monday and Tuesday, and for that reason I didn't write last week.

Anyways, onto the news from the last two weeks: two days after we moved houses, Pres. Torres stopped through Cuenca to give the same...capacitación (I'm not really sure how to translate it) that I heard in Santa Rosa two weeks before.  So as you can imagine, didn't take a whole lot of notes.  I got to have another interview with him though.  It seems to be a pattern that right when I really need to talk to someone about something, he's shown up twice now, so I hope that keeps occurring in the future haha. 

That Friday, the hermanas that we live with decided they would take part in the festivities and surprise attacked us as we got home.  They had bought this big can of foam spray that people had been selling everywhere for Carnaval and got home and waited in the dark for us.  I'll admit, they got us good.  It's okay though, because exactly a week later we got them back with a water gun that we had bought. 

The next day, we had a baptism--Hna. Camacho's last one on her mission.  Lourdes Zhizhpon (yes, that's her last name--people literally have the weirdest last names here and I can almost never understand them when they tell me) is such a special lady.  I really like her a lot.  The day before her baptism she was telling us how much her life has changed and how she's so much happier and that she's really grateful to us for helping her find the church.  Hna. Camacho was already teaching her with her previous companion when I got here, but I still felt really happy to know that I helped a little bit.  It was really exciting too, because her husband and all of her kids came to her baptism too.  It was a big deal that her husband went, because he'd always been really cold and opposed to all of this.  He kept saying beforehand that he wasn't going to go to her baptism, but in the end he did, and a bunch of us (including me) swear we saw him cry during the baptismal service.  Really huge.

This week was really strange with Carnaval.  We were basically under house arrest.  The custom here during Carnaval is to that the people will throw water at each other; whether they dump buckets or blast you with water guns or water balloons.  But since we're in Cuenca and it's cold here, it really sucks to have water thrown at you...trust me.  On Tuesday morning, Hna. Camacho left for Guayaquil, but we had to go to the (far) bus terminal at 4 in the morning--it was awful.  We ended up waking up at like 2:30 in the morning and found a taxi faster than we thought we would, so we got there at 3:40am.  No one else got there until about 45 minutes later.  It sucked.  A bunch of other people got cambios too, and my new companion was actually already in our zone.  It was actually really funny. 

Katie's new companion, Hermana Catmull

My new companion is Hermana Catmull from Gilbert, AZ--my first gringa companion.  When she first got to Cuenca about two months ago, she was with Hna. Murri (an hermana that came in the same group as me but from the Mexico MTC) in our barrio (ward), Alamos, for about a month.  Then she got cambios to Barrio Tarqui, which is literally the neighboring ward.  She literally moved like 5-10 minutes away and was still in our zone.  She was there for 3 weeks and then got put back in Alamos, but in the other sector with me (there are two sectors in Barrio Alamos).  It was funny when the other hermanas in Alamos woke up (we just have two companionships of hermanas in our ward, no elders) and Hna. Murri saw Hna. Catmull, she just yelled at her, "Why are you here?!" over and over again.  It was really funny.  But yeah, we ended up having a really last minute baptism on Saturday. 

When I first got to Cuenca, Hna. Camacho and I had gone to visit one of their investigators and he was super, super drunk.  So we told him not to drink and other things and came back the next day to see if he was better.  He wasn't.  We stopped by for 5 days in a row, and every time he was outrageously drunk.  It was really sad, because he's a lonely old man that lives alone in his room--not an apartment, he literally lives in a room.  After we passed by Sunday and he was still drinking, we stopped visiting him.  Exactly a week later, we saw him in the street before church and he was totally fine.  He actually hadn't drunk at all since the last time we'd seen him.  So we invited him to church, and he went!  Since he'd gone to church once before that, he had two attendances and could get baptized.  So we talked to him on Thursday, had his interview on Friday, got baptized on Saturday, and was confirmed on Sunday!  He's literally the cutest little old man.  We have an appointment with him tomorrow night to visit his daughter and his niece.

Cesar Mejia after his baptism (he's such a cute little old man)

I don't have enough time to talk about everything I want to, but I'm really glad to finally be able to write.  I can't send any pictures today since I forgot my SD card reader home, but next week for sure haha.  Take care everyone!

Love,

Hermana Iverson

Ecuador Week 14

February 24, 2014

Katie's new area is Cuenca.  It is the third largest city in Ecuador and is located in the Andes (8200 ft.) 

hey mom so I have about -10 minutes to write so I will keep it short: On Tuesday morning I had cambios [transfers] and now I'm in Cuenca my companion is Hna. Camacho she's from Bogota, Colombia and she only has one week left in the mission.  We've been looking for a new house because we need to move out by Saturday but we finally found one and we move today so we've been packing like crazy and we have to go really soon because our investigator is getting interviewed for her baptism today and we're already late and I don't know why the apostraphe isn't working dumb computer.  Okay lemme try and send you photos love you all I'll write more next week but like we haven't even bought food and forget about washing clothes okay ciao super late bye

Katie with Hermana Camacho, from Bogota, Colombia

Katie and her new companions

Buenas de Ecuadorrrrr (Week 13)

February 17, 2014

Sooooooooo I´m still in Santa Rosa, but Hermana Herrera isn´t!  She finally had cambios (um transfers is what they´re called in English I think) (Dad was complaining that I use Spanish words in my emails but I don´t think he realizes that some of these things I don´t know/remember how to say in English) after 7 months only here in Santa Rosa.  They played another prank on us Monday night calling her and saying she had to go to Cuenca the next day and then admitting that she wasn´t going anywhere.  The next day when they called her saying she had to go to Machala the next day she didn´t believe them haha.  But nope, she actually had cambios.  She´s in Naranjal now, near Guayaquil.  She left on Wednesday.  She got to finish training me!  Not many people can say that they had their mamá for all of their 12 weeks (mamá/papá is what they call trainers and any other companions you have during your first 12 weeks are your madrastra/padrastro).  

Burned toast...again.  It's the thought that counts.

Saying good-bye to Hermana Herrera

Katie's new companion, Hermana Pascual from Guatemala

But yeah, so my new companion is Hermana Pascual!  She´s from Guatemala and has 10 months in the mission.  It´s funny, we found out she has almost exactly 6 months more than me, almost to the day.  She left in April and goes home in October, whereas I left in October and go home in April.  But yeah, she´s pretty cool!  I felt bad though, because just as she got here, our program totally tanked.  It´s gotten a little better, but it´s still pretty awful.  We don´t have very many strong investigators.  Oh and the really sad thing is that Vanessa and Jostin didn´t get baptized on Saturday.  This whole week there was some new drama with the parents every day we stopped by, and the dad wants them to wait a month before they get baptized.  He´s really negative and doesn´t support them, and it´s really sad because with him and Vanessa´s old friends from her old church passing by telling her negative (and untrue) stuff, they´ve gotten so...desanimated (I had to stop and think for like two minutes how to say that word in English--I still don´t think it´s right) DISCOURAGED (I thought of a better word we´re okay) that now she doesn´t want to get baptized--again.  *sigh*  Gonna keep praying for her...

On Thursday we had a...training meeting (capicitación) with the mission president.  He´s kind of the best.  I was really glad that he passed through when he did, because I was seriously freaking out Wednesday night.  I had to remember all of the people that live in Los Ceibos and think of who we could visit and I don´t know I was really really stressed, so I was glad that the next day we were going to see him because I knew we were going to have interviews with him.  I felt much better after talking to him.  He´s a really wonderful man.  He shared a scripture with me after talking to me for a bit and it kind of made me cry haha (Ether 12:27).

Not sure if there´s anything else...cambios and seeing the mission president were the most exciting things.  Hope everyone is doing well! 

Keep it real and choose the right. 

Ciao,

Hermana Iverson