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