Camera works again!

January 26, 2015

Katie & Hermana Risco

Catamayo

Welp, not much interesting happened this week.  But one very exciting thing is that I got my camera checked out and now it works fine again!!  I´m back to having a working camera that takes pictures without freaking out.  

You know how I said it was raining last weekend?  It rained until about Wednesday.  There was a lot of mud, but I loved how nice and cool it was.  It was amazing.  But now we´re back to the typical hot weather of Catamayo.  

Here´s Rodolfo and Jesús (yup, the wife´s name is Jesús...pretty weird, right?)

This week we have a baptism!  An elderly couple is getting baptized on Friday, and next week is their son´s baptism.  We´d really appreciate your prayers, since they´ve had a few challenges along the way.  They´re a really special family.

Welp, pretty boring week.  sorry.  I´ll write more next week!

Hermana Iverson

Cambios! (transfers)

January 19, 2015

Katie and her new companion, Hermana Risco

Some big changes here this week.  First of all, I had cambios!  They called me Monday night, and I already kind of knew.  My time had come.  The next day we went to Guayaquil, and after waiting for a very long time, I found out where I was going, and I was so excited, because I´M NOT IN SANTA ROSA OR CUENCA!!!  POR FINNNNNN!!!!!!!!  I am in a town called Catamayo, which is about 30-45 minutes west of Loja.  Loja is sierra as well as Cuenca, and even though I had heard that it isn´t as cold as Cuenca, it still was reasonably cold.  I knew that Catamayo was in the general region of Loja, so I thought it would be chilly there too.  Welp I was a little mistaken there.  It´s so strange, because I know I´m in the sierra but I feel like I´m in the coast: it´s super hot and sunny, there are tons of bugs (I have so many nasty mosquito bites), and I got a crazy sunburn my first day.  I guess it´s at a lower altitude, and is in a valley, kind of like a bowl, and the sun just comes straight down here.  But Saturday a thunderstorm randomly kicked in, with lightning and everything (it was so cool!!); it´s been raining off and on ever since.  It´s actually raining right now, and I thought it was going to be sunny again...oops.

The other exciting thing is that I´m training!  The cambio (or transfer period of 6 weeks) having started over again last week, I got sent to Catamayo to finish training my current companion, my first hijastra (stepdaughter).  My companion is Hermana Risco, and she´s from Iquitos, Peru.  This is her second cambio in the mission, so she´s only been here in Catamayo and the mission for 6 weeks.  I was a little anxious when I heard that I was going to train, but then I got here and realized my companion is so pilas that I practically don´t have anything to worry about.  She´s super great, always stopping to talk to everyone we see.  I think this will work out fine.

Other than that, I got some mail this week! I got two packages and two cards: I got one Christmas package from the Poelmans, and a really cute Christmas card from the Relief Society back in the Foothill Ward that came in the other package.  I also got your (our?) Christmas card, and it turned out really cute!  I liked it a lot.  I also got a Christmas card from Kay Harrison from the ward there in Temecula.  I was pretty impressed, because I received most of my Christmas letters and packages last year in February, March, April... but I was really excited to receive all of that mail at the same time.

Welp, for now that´s all the news I´ve got.

Love, 

Hermana Iverson

p.s. yesterday we were reading the story of Elijah and the 450 priests when they try to see whose god can start the fire first, and there´s one verse that´s super funny, it´s in 1 Kings 18:27

I don´t know why I write so much

January 12, 2015

The first half of this week was really slow, so I´ll just fast forward through the boring stuff.  So Thursday afternoon, we were in Baños, a part of our sector that is a little bit out of the city and up in the hillsides.  We had passed by a member´s house to visit her, and as soon as we got there she asked us, "Do you want to go up to see the view?  Come on, let´s go!" and before we knew it, she was taking us up her property, showing us her little crops that she had on the steep hillside above her house.  After showing us a few of her plots, she took us up a little higher, and then she showed us a path that was above her property (all of this is us going uphill), so we climbed through the fence and followed her up the path with her two kids.  The view was super neat and you could see everything, so we kept going higher and higher and higher.  At one point we stopped to talk for a little bit, when we realized what time it was.  We were going to be late for an appointment!  The sister asked us if we weren´t going to go up to the top of the hill. That´s when we realized we had almost climbed all the way to the top.  It was a fun little hike, especially since I haven´t hiked in a while.  It was a really neat view, especially since we could see the churches that were in the city center, which was really really far away.  

We ended up rushing back down so that we could make it to that appointment, but as it turned out, the family we were going to visit wasn´t even there...but the member couple that was going to come with us to visit them was waiting for us.  Oops.  It´s kind of funny, because the couple that was going to accompany us (familia Zapata Ponce), I´ve literally been following them my entire mission.  They´re both from Santa Rosa, and when I started my mission in Rama 1, the husband´s dad was the branch president there, and I met them when they came to visit when they were newly married.  Later when I left Santa Rosa, I came to Alamos for the first time, which is where they attend.  When I went to the other side of Cuenca, I saw them with the husband´s mom in the stake conference and we took pictures (that they still have, and showed me), but this time she was pregnant.  Then when I went back to Santa Rosa, I went to Rama 3--which is where the wife´s family lives.  They had come to visit while I was there, with their little baby.  So I know the families of both of them, and have been in their own ward twice.  Kind of funny.

We had a cool experience on Friday night.  We were leaving an appointment and were walking towards the main street to get the bus, when the member who was with us stopped and was like "hey that kid who just passed us is reading the Book of Mormon" so we were like "WHAT WHO WHERE" and one of my companions whistled at him to get him to come back haha.  So he came back and we asked him how he got that book.  Turns out his friend had lent him a copy and he liked it so much, that his friend got him his own two days earlier.  He had been reading it since then and was already 58 pages in.  In the short time he´s had contact with the Book of Mormon, he had already begun to quit drinking and smoking and other bad habits, and he´s only 17.  It was a miracle.  But...he didn´t have a phone number and he didn´t show up to our appointment the next day to find his house, so now we have to pray really hard that we find him again.  But we have faith!  We WILL find Jonny again, I know it.

Welp, besides that, on Thursday I found a white hair by my forehead...the sister who took us up on her hill pointed it out.  Also, Friday would have been my 15 month mark...my quinceñera *sniff*  Oh well.  It´s fine.

Love you a bunch!

Love, 

Hermana Iverson 

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2015?? WHAT?!

January 5, 2015

Katie and her companions

Happy New Year!  I´m still freaking out that it´s 2015.  That means that ten years ago it was 2005.  It´s already been 10 years since then!  MANDE.  Ya pues.  

We had to be home by 6pm both the 31st and the 1st.  That was fine with us because there are usually a ton of borrachos near our neighborhood anyways, and we didn´t want to know what it would be like on the one day of the year of the highest alcohol consumption.  Literally, like even the people who normally don´t drink, they always say that the only time every year that they do drink is New Year´s.  Imagínense.  New Year´s Eve was pretty boring, we pretty much did nothing that evening in the house.  We watched a video.  Yup.  New Year´s Day there was barely anyone outside.  There were usually a lot more people than I thought I´d see; usually everyone´s sleeping.  That night when we got home, we went downstairs to the bishop´s house to borrow their mixer and their oven to make chocolate chip cookies.  They turned out really good and I was so happy.  I wanna make more.  While they were baking, we played a Book of Mormon trivia board game with his family.  It was super fun, especially since his two kids, who are 10 and 8 years old, are crazy, and we totally won.  We kind of read that book every single day, so hey.  It felt like a little Family Home Evening, it was great.

Yesterday we got a bit of a surprise thrown at us.  Since it´s the first Monday of the month, there was Consejo de Líderes in Guayaquil, so the zone leaders and the hermana leaders went.  But the thing is, the companions of each of the hermana leaders are still in their 12 weeks of training (they both literally only have a week left), so they couldn´t be alone together without an hermana that wasn´t in her training.  So somehow somebody decided it would be best to ask the trio to stay with them.  It was a little crazy trying to meet up with them, but we finally did.  We aren´t allowed to do divisions for whatever reason, so we´ve been in a strange 5-person companionship for the last 24 hours.  Yup. 

We got the Liahona magazine for this month, and I saw that the Mutual theme for the youth is in D&C 4:2.  I thought that was really great, and it made me remember how our teachers made us memorize that entire section in the MTC.  I really hope that the youth take it to heart and really study what the scripture says.  I only remember it in Spanish, but mas o menos it says: Therefore, oh ye that embark in the service of thy God, see that ye serve Him with all thy heart, might, mind, and strength, so that ye may appear before him without stains in the last day.  (that´s a rough translation)  Now more than ever we need to be more focused in being in the service of Him, to serve Him and show Him that we´re willing to do whatever He needs in order to complete His work and His glory here on earth.  A lot of the youth are getting ready to serve missions, and they´ll learn to really appreciate this scripture a lot more once they´re out on the mission.  

Well, gotta go, but I love you a lot and be careful with all that snow!  One of the hermanas that was with us today is from Rancho Cucamonga and was hardcore freaking out, like "THAT IS NOT CALIFORNIA, THAT LOOKS LIKE UTAH.  THIS NEVER HAPPENS."

Abrazos y besos,

Hermana Iverson

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! (Happy New Year!)

December 29, 2014

Wow what a busy week.  I was so happy to talk to my family on Thursday.  It felt way too short. I love you all and I loved being able to talk to you.  

From the beginning of the week, there wasn´t anything that really happened.  Just that after we had our district meeting on Tuesday, our district leader shared some Christmas fudge that his mom had sent him, and besides calling my family that was probably the best thing that happened to me this entire Christmas season.  I haven´t had fudge in TWO YEARS--far too long.  It was delicious and made me just the tiniest tad bit trunky.  It also made me want to kick myself for not asking my mom to send me some, but I didn´t think she would for fear of it melting or going bad before it got to me, but now I see I was mistaken.  I really want some fudge.  And nut goody.  OH MY GOSH.

Tuesday night, we went to visit a part-member family that Hermana Petersen had been visiting with Hermana Gutierrez before we got here.  The husband/boyfriend is an inactive member, and his wife/girlfriend isn´t a member, but would like to be baptized; but she couldn´t because they were living together and weren´t married.  They have a little baby, but I guess before Christian, the boyfriend, wasn´t interested in coming back to church or getting married or anything.  But when we went Tuesday night and asked them what they thought about the matter, they took us completely by surprise when they told us that they had already started to get the papers they needed to get married!  As we continued talking, Christian said that he´d talked to his mom as well about coming back to church and how they want to take that step.  So we helped them make goals and put deadlines for their marriage, and for the baptism of Nelly, the girlfriend.  It was really really neat.  We´ve been really excited for them.

Wednesday and Thursday we had to be inside the house by 7pm.  Wednesday, we helped our mamita make lasagna for our lunch.  It was soooooo good.  We ate the leftovers for lunch the next day.  Thursday, right before we went to call and coordinate the time we were going to skype, we ran into a recent convert who took us to present us to his cousin´s family.  He took us to his aunt´s house to wait for them, but the thing is, she and another woman were preparing cuy--or in other words, guinea pig.  We watched them burn their hair off over the stove and then gut them completely.  It was gross but mesmerizing.  Very strange.

This week will be interesting with New Year´s; pretty sure no one will be out on Thursday.  Nobody.  They will all disappear.  Should be fun.

Love you all, stay safe, make good choices, and have fun!

Love,

Hermana Iverson

Merry Christmas! (and you will never guess where I am...)

December 22, 2014

wow so this week has been super crazy.  Where do I begin...well Tuesday morning we were told that the entire zone had to be in Guayaquil by 8pm with a change of clothes and our temple recommends.  So we spent the afternoon traveling and spent the night in Guayaquil because Wednesday we all got to go through the temple!  It was a really neat Christmas present.  The entire mission got to go, with different zones going different days, and Santa Rosa and Machala went on Wednesday.  It was so nice to go, since I hadn´t gone in 6 months.  It was even nicer, because I realized that there was a group of missionaries finishing and going home on Thursday, and in that group were two of my former (and favorite) companions, Hermana Carollo and Hermana Herrera, my trainer.  And I got to see them both!  I got to talk to Hermana Carollo for a few minutes there in the temple hotel, but I just saw Hermana Herrera for about five seconds, literally, just long enough to give her a big hug and the note I wrote for her.  It´s so sad to think that my trainer has already finished her mission.  After going through the temple and eating lunch and everything, we went back to Santa Rosa.  Right before I left, the people in the office gave me some mail...and my package that you sent me!  I got it just in time for Christmas.  I was really really really really happy. :D

...but the locura doesn´t stop there!  The next morning I got a phone call in the middle of personal study from my zone leader, and the first thing he asked was how long I´d been there in Santa Rosa.  All I thought was "FREAK I´ve got cambios".  Then he asked how long it takes to go from Santa Rosa to Guayaquil, and I was just like "freeeeaaaaaakkk I totally have cambios".  And then the famous line in the mission that I think every zone leader is obligated to use when they´re about to tell someone they have cambios: "Hermana, ¿tiene algo para apuntar?" ("Hermana, do you have something to write with?") and I was just "freaking bestia tengo cambiossss".  So yup, Thursday, exactly a week before Christmas, I got cambios and left Santa Rosa after 3 months there.  Hermana Macahuachi was so sad that she started crying.  That made me really sad because I was really excited to be with her for Christmas for the second year in a row.  I love her so much.  We were only together for a month. :(  But yeah, so we got to Guayaquil and I waited a while until my companion showed up.  But we were a little confused, because my companion was the one who had cambios as well, o sea, she didn´t have a sector either.  We thought we were going to open a sector somewhere, but as it turns out, we were going to be in a trio in...you´ll never guess...Cuenca!  I went back to Alamos, my first sector there in Cuenca.  Yup.  That´s right.  I left Cuenca to go back to Santa Rosa, and then only left Santa Rosa to go back to Cuenca.  I thought they were joking when they told me.  But yeah, after nine months I´m back in Alamos.  It´s actually really cool, because I was only here for 5 weeks (my shortest time in any sector) but everyone remembers me and is all happy to see me.  That makes me feel good, and a little confused, since I didn´t talk much.  It´s interesting being in a trio.  My new companions are Hermana Arizala from Esmeraldas, a province in Northern Ecuador (I think that´s the Quito North mission), and Hermana Petersen from Utah, who I actually talked to on facebook over the summer when I was home and she just had her mission call.  They´re both really great and the three of us get along really well.  

It´s exciting to be back in Cuenca.  It´s cold, but I still have plenty of warm clothes from the last two times I was here (que bestia).  I love you all and can´t wait to talk to you on Thursday.  Have a holly jolly Christmas and make good choices!

Love,

Hermana Iverson

A fun birthday

December 15, 2014

The Birthday girl!

Wow so this week has been busy.  Wednesday was the big day!  When I woke up and walked outside of our room, I saw that my cute little companion had made me a little birthday banner and had taped it to the wall directly outside of our bedroom.  It was literally so cute.  Then later after we started our companionship study, she pulled out of nowhere an adorable handmade birthday card with a little box of chocolates!  I was dying from the cuteness.

We had to go to the chapel with all the rest of the missionaries in the afternoon to practice the opening and closing hymns that we were going to sing in the Christmas devotional that night.  We all had to wear green, but a sister in the branch was going to help us out by making us some dresses since neither of us had any clothing that was green.  She was going to give them to us at 5, but when we got out of the practice at 5 and we still hadn´t heard anything, we tried calling her, but she never answered.  We started freaking out a little bit.  So we went to her house, but her mom told us that she wasn´t there, and that she´d gone to her classes early to finish the dresses or something and that she didn´t bring her phone.  We started freaking out even more.  We had to go to the house and look for something to put on.  Later as the devotional was about to start and people were starting to arrive, Thalía (the member) ran in and grabbed us and took us straight to the bathroom to change.  Right in the nick of time we got our green dresses!  They were really cute.  Everyone loved them, especially since we matched.  We´ve been trying to think of something really nice to do for her for helping us out on such short notice.  But yeah, the rest of the devotional was really nice.  The choir sang really well, and even though they were the same songs as last year, I understood them a lot better this time.  It was neat.  Afterward, we had to bring some of the hermanas from the choir to our house, but as they were assigning us which hermanas would be going with us, the mission president´s wife told us to wait there and to not leave.  We found out that they were going to take us out for pizza for my birthday!  So we got to go out with them, and they got us pizza and ice cream.  That was really fun.  

It got interesting the next morning though.  We woke up to find that they had cut the water!  And we had four more people in our house!  We ended up going without water for almost two days, but the second day was unnecessary.  Turned out that the water had come back, but when the dueña came and was trying to see why the water stopped, she had left the water turned off, so when it came back we still didn´t have any.  We finally went to look in the afternoon, and we were really embarrassed.  

oops think I ran out of time gotta go, sorry they haven´t told me anything about calling yet.

bye love you

Hermana Iverson