¡Buenas Días de Ecuador! - Week 3

¡Buenos Días! ¿Cómo están?

I hope the letter/picture idea worked out well last week, because my companion and I have even less time to write this week.  [Katie has been hand-writing a letter to the family, then photographing it and sending the photo out via email.  Makes for a tough read]   I forgot why, but I thought it was so we could bake cupcakes.   Why would we be making cupcakes you ask?  Well for those of you who don’t know, tomorrow is my birthday!  Yup, I get to spend my 20^th birthday as a missionary in Ecuador.  How cool is that?

Katie showing off her birthday cupcakes.  Happy 20th!

Top priority

Well, this week has been less than spectacular.  We’ve been asking for referrals and contacting people, but we’ve been having trouble finding new investigators to teach.  We even had a fast as a companionship to try and find more people.  We’re hoping to find a family of at least six who would want to be baptized and eventually make it to the temple.  I hope we find them soon.

 

Johnny's baptism

On a happier note, we had a baptism this past Saturday!  The oldest brother of the two kids who got baptized two weeks ago finally got baptized.  So now the three children that are of age are baptized, and it’s just the parents’ turn now (if they ever get married).  Their cousin, Jair, is getting baptized on the 21^st, and we got his mother to commit to that date as well.  We might move Jair’s date up to this week though.  To be honest, he’s more than ready.  He’s a really smart kid.

It’s been hot here some days and cooler others, and Saturday night it even rained a little bit.  I’ve been eating a lot, but people still call me “flaquita” and tell me I need to gain weight.  Oh well.  Hope all is well back home or wherever you are, and feel free to write me! (*ahem*) ha ha.

All ready for Christmas!

ª Hermana Iverson

Buenas!

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

I can’t believe this week has gone by so quickly, or this year for that matter.  It’s already December!  I’m so excited.  People here in Ecuador have been decorating and preparing for Christmas since before it got here.  (It’s because they didn’t have to wait until after Thanksgiving.)  Speaking of which, how was Thanksgiving?  Sometime Thursday morning as I was preparing to go out for the day I remembered.  It was weird not having any Thanksgiving stuff anywhere. 

This week I got to finally visit Puerto Jelí, the town just next door that’s part of our sector (our sector is huge by the way).  I guess the little bay there opens up to the sea eventually or something, I’m not exactly sure.  But I liked it, it was a kind of neat little beach town, but really small.  Luckily I had my camera with me that day so I got to take pictures.

  

We’ve started teaching this boy who’s the cousin of the kids who got baptized last week.  We have been trying to contact his mother for a while, but when we finally went over he was the only one home.  So we taught him instead, and he’s agreed to be baptized!  It was so neat, because (as we found out the next day) I guess that night as he knelt down and asked Heavenly Father if he should go to church like we asked him to, he heard a voice say “(You will) go to church” (sorry it’s hard to translate and understand exactly what people are saying here).  When he heard it, our investigator asked, “¿Quién es?” (Who’s there?) but it was dark and he was completely alone.  When he told us about it, we asked him if he felt like he got his answer and he said he did.  Guess who came to church on Sunday? 

Katie and her companion, Hermana Herrera

Each with their Spanish/English dictionaries

 

View from their apartment

Obviously they are way too serious

Katie's location in Southern Ecuador, near the Peru border

I don’t think I explained much about my area last week.  Like I said, I’m in Santa Rosa, four or five hours south of Guayaquil.   It’s in El Oro, near Machala (45-60 minutes south of it—we actually had a capicitación there last Friday.  Funny story really quick, at lunch I ate my big whole plate of food but was actually still hungry.  Pres. Torres and his family sat down at our table, and when I mentioned I almost wanted to go get seconds he just said, “Go ahead! Please, eat more.  EAT.  You need it.”  A lot of people have commented on how skinny I am, but that one took the cake.  It can get pretty hot here, but usually since I’ve gotten here it’s been overcast.  It’s sunnier today.  We’re in Rama (branch) 1, and like I saidour sector (or area I guess, we say sector in Spanish) is pretty large.  We go all the way out to Puerto Jelí on way and out to Estero Medina another.  We live in en el centro of the city.  There are a lot of parks with statues and fountains everywhere, and now they’re all decorated with lights for Christmas.  It’s really nice.  We’ll be walking down the street and two blocks away we’ll hear someone blaring reggaeton.  It’s totally normal for people to blare their music from their house as loud as they can.  A lot of times I recognize the songs playing and have to fight the urge to dance like all the time.  Hardest thing for me right now – ha ha.  Also, it’s very common for people to just never get married here.  They just start living together and have kids and everything.  I was expecting that, but I wasn’t expecting how young they’d be living together.  One girl we know is 18, and she’s been living with her boyfriend for three years already!  So crazy.

Well, I’ve run out of room.  Food’s great, people are great, everything’s dirty, language has its good days and bad, and I am so glad I decided to serve a mission.  Peace!

Hermana Iverson

I'm Here!

November 25, 2013

I´m here!  I´ve made it to Ecuador!  Still alive, if anyone was wondering.  I had a long flight on Monday morning: I left the MTC at 2:30 in the morning for Salt Lake City for my 6:25 flight.  From Salt Lake, Elder Kabel (the only other person in my travel group) and I flew to Dallas, and from Dallas to Miami, and then finally from Miami to Guayaquil.  We got in at around 8:30 that night and our mission president was waiting for us.  Since most of the new missionaries were coming in the next morning, we stayed at the temple with a few other missionaries that came in that night.  The next morning while we waited me and some of the other sister missionaries there got to do a session in the temple!  It was really nice.  When the other missionaries came from the Mexico MTC, I got to see my old companion Hermana Davenport again!  It was nice to be reunited with her again.  Later that day, I got to meet my new companion!  May I present to you the lovely Hermana Herrera!  She´s 20 years old and is from Honduras.  She understands a lot of English which is a HUGE blessing.  So far we´ve been getting along really well together.

Katie and her new companion, Hermana Herrera

My Spanish isn´t totally hopeless.  I´ve found I can understand almost everything being said until it´s directed at me, then I can almost never quite make out what they´re trying to say.  Go figure.  I feel like my speech is pretty awkward, but my companion was really impressed my Spanish skills.  She says I have a Spanish accent, like from Spain.  At least I don´t sound like a gringa!

On Wednesday after we had our interviews, we went to our area in Santa Rosa, just south of Machala.  It´s pretty nice here!  The weather has actually been overcast recently, but it´s really mild.  I won´t be cold here!  

(Hallelujah)  The food is really good too.  We eat lunch at members´ homes and it´s basically a soup and then a main meal.  Loooooots of rice, pero es muy rico.

No one here can pronounce my name, but I decided a long time ago to not correct people.  So when people read my nametag and say "Hermana...EeBERsohn?" I just smile and nod and say "sí".

We had three baptisms on Saturday!  Nice way to start off the mission.  Wish I could take any credit for them, but they were scheduled to be baptized long before I got there.  Still, pretty neat!  Two of them were children from the same family, Delicia and Lucio Sánchez, and the other was a young man named Christian Gauliche.

One of the trainers that I met when I first got to Guayaquil is from Alpine, UT.  I asked her if she knew the Bowmans and it turns out that not only is she their neighbor, but she´s like best friends with their daughter Mollie!  So Mom or Nathan, you can let them know I met Hna. Jolley.

Hmm, what else...well I´ve got a bunch of bug bites (picaduras), all of my books and notebooks are warping and the pages are all wavy, it´s super weird, my shoulder bag was killing me so I bought a backpack today, and we´re going to start teaching English classes on Fridays!  Fun stuff!  Oh yeah and there´s another companionship of hermanas in our apartment and one of them, Hna. Almeida, is from Uruguay!!  Woooo!

Well I think that´s it for now.  I´ll tell you more next week!

Katie Arrives in Ecuador

November 20, 2013

Mission president, Maxsimo Torres, sent our family a wonderful letter letting us know that Katie arrived safe and sound in Ecuador.  Here is a picture of her with the other new missionaries in from of the temple in Guayaquil.  Note:  She is standing next to Hermana Davenport, her first missionary companion in Provo.

Last Weekend in the US

November 15, 2013

Hi everyone! 

So I leave for Ecuador on Monday morning!!!  I have to be at the travel office at 2:30 in the morning to make my 6:25am flight.  Not super looking forward to that, but I want to try to place a Book of Mormon in one of the airports before I get to Ecuador.  I'm kind of terrified to do it, but I better get used to it since that's what I'll be doing for a year and a half.  I actually have two short layovers; I and another elder fly from Salt Lake to Dallas, and then from Dallas to Miami, and THEN from Miami to Guayaquil.  It's gonna be a long day.

The weather has been pretty mild recently, except that it got colder today.  It's been raining lightly all day.  I'm glad I have a raincoat at least, and also that I'll leave for a much warmer climate in three days. (!!!!!)  Apparently it's supposed to snow on Sunday or something, which I'm not looking forward to.  I REALLY did not want to be here when it snowed, but I'll escape pretty soon after.

Katie messing around

Showing off her apartment

Katie being Katie

It was pretty cool this week, because we had Elder L. Tom Perry of the Twelve speak at devotional Tuesday night!  And I got to sit pretty close to the front!!!  It was so cool.  He was just kind of adorable, and the longer I looked at him the more I wanted to just give him a big hug.  That is honestly the hardest thing so far about being a sister missionary, especially a solo sister in a district of all elders.  I get close with these elders and they've become like brothers now, and I won't be able to give any of them a hug when we leave.  It's okay, we're planning an MTC district reunion in a little over two years, so I'll do it then haha.

Katie and her district (Elders Bueno Cabral, Robins, Burnett, Williams & Howell)

Yesterday we had in-field orientation on main campus for like nine and a half hours.  It was actually not as bad as I'd heard it was.  They had us move rooms a lot and had a bunch of different workshops, so we didn't totally die of boredom.  We learned about planning and setting goals and working with members and a bunch of other stuff that we'd need to know about going out into the field.  I met a girl in my workshop group who had the same name as me: Sister Iverson!  When I saw her walk by me, I didn't know what to say, so I just pointed at her name tag in shock and then pointed at mine, and after several seconds I finally said something like "That's my name!" or whatever.  It was really embarrassing haha.  I got to talk to her later and found out her family is Dutch and came across the plains with the pioneers, not Norwegian and from Minnesota.  Oh well.  But still, I've never met anyone with the same name as me before!  It was so exciting.

With friend Katy Armknecht (met at EFY)

with Keely Lu (from San Jose--going to New Zealand) 

It feels so surreal that I'm actually going to Ecuador finally, but whenever I'm not freaking out and getting all stressed about it I realize that I actually am ready to go and do this.  It's going to be hard, really hard, but I'm excited to push the boundaries of my comfort zone and grow in my testimony.  I'm really excited to go to Ecuador and do the Lord's work.  I just have to remember that all of these feelings of fear and doubt don't come from my Heavenly Father, but the adversary.  I know that God will protect me as I bring His children the truth of the gospel of His Son.  

Yo sé que Dios es mi Padre Celestial y que Su Hijo Jesucristo murió para mi y pagó el precio para mis pecados y los del mundo.  Yo sé que él les ama Sus hijos y quiere lo mejor para ellos.  Mediante la expiación, podemos ser limpios y llegar a ser como nuestro Padre.  Si hacemos todas las cosas que nos pida, podemos tener vida eterna y vivir con nuestras familias por siempre.  Estoy muy agradecida y animada para servirle la gente de Ecuador.  Vaya con Dios!

Love, 

I'm Going to Ecuador!

I'm Going to Ecuador!  Katie got her travel info--she leaves for Guayquil on Nov 18th!

November 8, 2013

Last week we got 16 new missionaries, 8 elders and 8 hermanas.  The district just before us left on Monday for Argentina, and since the four sisters I was living with all left and my apartment was empty for a couple days, I spent three nights in one of the other sisters' apartments.  I think they were sad for me to leave.  I really love those hermanas, they're all so great and really genuinely like having me around, even when I'm tagging along or dragging them places.  I'm really glad.  We got even more missionaries in our zone this week though, and there are--are you ready for this?--20 of them.  That's right, we got 20 new missionaries this week, and 16 last week.  It's half and half again, 10 elders and 10 hermanas.  So we now have six districts: my district of 5 elders and me (Elder Taylor left for the Colombia MTC on Tuesday), the two districts of 4 elders and 4 hermanas each that came last week, and we just got another district of 4 elders and 4 hermanas (these hermanas are living in my apartment with me now), a district of 6 elders, and a district of 6 hermanas.  There are 42 people in our zone now.  We doubled in one day.  Crazy.  I really like our newest hermanas so far, especially the ones in my apartment.  I haven't gotten to know the other 6 hermanas very well, but I think I'll like them pretty well.  But yeah, so we're officially the oldest district now.  We're the grandparents, the 16 are the parents, and the 20 are the babies--I mean, kids.

On Sunday, I got called to be the zone music coordinator.  I basically have to pick out the hymns for meetings and get people to lead and play piano.  I also organize musical numbers and make sure everyone knows how to properly lead music and stuff.  Should be fun!

Since Elder Taylor left and I was teaching with him and Elder Bueno Cabral, the two of us have been put with the other two companionships.  So now I'm teaching with Elder Howell and Elder Williams, and Elder Cabral is in a trio with Elder Robins and Elder Burnett.  There are two trios in our district now, a little weird.  

I got to host new missionaries on Wednesday.  Basically what that means is that when new missionaries get dropped off, I help them take their luggage to their room and get them settled in.  I kind of love it a bunch.  I super love new people.  My elders were laughing at me on Wednesday because I was just so happy and excited about all of our new people.  Anyways, as we got a new busload of people, I saw one of my friends from my last EFY standing on the corner!  I had remembered that she had gotten her call to Mexico, but I didn't know when she was reporting.  I remember we were the two Katies (except she spelled it Katy) and we both had curly hair, but she was super duper tall.  I pretty much jumped her when I hugged her and I got to host her.  I was so excited to see someone I knew!!!  I've seen her a couple times since then.

I saw two people I knew today on main campus (we went to print out our emails): one elder was a guy from my ward this past spring up in Rexburg, who is flying out on Monday for Ukraine, and the second elder was actually a friend from SOAR who went to BYU-Idaho as well and was actually friends with Brian, the first guy.  Small world!

I get like no mail ever (just two dear elders and two packages from you and a dear elder from Ashley, that's all I've gotten in four and a half weeks),

I better go, I have more emails to write and Elder Robins is dying to talk to me about some sort of girl advice or whatever.  He's an interesting guy... Talk to you more next week mom!

Love your baby girl, 

Hermana Iverson

MTC Life and Eye Problems

Enjoying some Halloween fun!

November 1, 2013

As far as my week goes, it wasn't as crazy as the last two weeks have been, but not completely uneventful either.  On Tuesday, we found out that Elder Taylor, the elder in my district who knew Eva, finally got his visa to go to the Colombia MTC.  He's really excited and leaves this coming Tuesday.  That evening, we went up to main campus for devotional, and you will never guess who sat down behind me.  Elder Anderson, Bishop Anderson's son!  I had never met him, but he recognized me from when I gave my farewell.  It was a slightly awkward conversation, made more awkward when we took a picture together for me to send to you (so you better appreciate it because oh my heavens idk why it felt so awkward).  Since Wednesday started my fourth week here, Tuesday was officially my halfway mark.  I am less than three weeks away from leaving.  AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Katie with Elder Anderson

We got two new districts this Wednesday!!  Both of them had four elders and four hermanas.  So we have eight new hermanas and they're all really wonderful!  I like all of them a lot and I think they like me so that's good haha. 

My patience was a little thin with my district this week.  Boys are crazy!  Like honestly I don't understand what's wrong with them.  I have to try and remember that they're going to be crazy and weird and I shouldn't try to change them (too much; they are elders now) jaja jota kah

So Wednesday night my eye started hurting a little bit when I blinked and looked a tiny bit red.  Thursday morning when I woke up it was hurting a lot more and was completely bloodshot.  It was pretty painful and I started worrying if it was pinkeye.  It wasn't goopy, so I was told that meant it wasn't that.  So the lady who called you had me take their shuttle to this eye doctor who was way on the outskirts of Provo.  Like apparently we were almost in Orem because one of the two elders escorting me could see on the hill the house right behind his from the parking lot of the medical office.  It was pretty weird.  Oh I almost forgot, when the lady called you her earset was really loud so I could hear your voice!!!!  I was just sitting there kind of inwardly freaking out and listening really closely and whispering to my elders "I can hear my mooooommm!!!" hahaha so yeah I enjoyed that part :)

Getting her eye checked out

As far as the actual eye appointment, it looks like the surface of my eye was irritated or something, I don't remember exactly.  I think he called it episcleritis or whatever.  Nothing serious.  He thought that maybe it could have been a result of dryness (I have decided I will never live in Utah because the dryness here will literally kill me like my knuckles actually were starting to crack because of how dry it is here), but there were no symptoms in my left eye so he didn't know exactly what was causing it.  He gave me some eye drops (the first time I have ever used them in my life btw) and now I have to put one drop in my eye four times a day for four days, and then three times a day for four days, and then twice for three or something, and then finally once a day for how many days.  I don't remember it exactly, but a lot of eye drops.  Ugh.  On top of that, the shuttle was an hour late picking us up from the office.  So lame.  

I asked the elders in my district to give me a blessing last night since I was kind of worried and my eye was starting to hurt more, especially when I was outside.  I also was (and still am a little bit) having trouble reading because my eyesight was starting to get a little fuzzy.  That really scared me, because when I went in earlier that day they were shocked because my eyesight was actually better than 20/20.  So I got up the courage to ask for a blessing.  I don't think I remember the last time I received one.  It's been a while.  I'm so glad I did though because it was exactly what I needed.  Elder Cabral mentioned that this was exactly where I was meant to be in this exact moment and that I was doing the right thing, and recently I had had a few doubtful thoughts hoping that this was for sure the right thing for me.  When he said that I started tearing up.  I feel so happy because I know for sure now, I have confirmation from Heavenly Father that there is literally nowhere else in the world that is better for me than right here.  I'm so glad because I love it here and what I'm doing.  I'm still terrified to go out to Ecuador, but I have moments too where I just want to get out there.  I'm so excited to be serving the Lord and to meet all of these amazing people.  Today we did an endowment session and I was probably praying for 10-15 minutes in the Celestial Room for everyone I could think of because I was just so grateful.  

Yo sé que Jesucristo vive y que él es mi Salvador.  Sé que podemos estar juntos con nuestras familias por siempre.  Me encanta este Evangelio y estoy muy agradecida por esta oportunidad de servir el Señor.  

Love,

Hermana Iverson