Ecuador!!!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Hola de Guayaquil!

I arrived here around 11:00 am this morning. Presidente Dennis and his wife picked me up from the airport and they are so sweet!  They took me out to eat at a Chinese restaurant here that was really nice. I also met their daughter Sara who is 15 and attending an American Academy in the city. The city is a lot different than I expected. I guess I thought it would look more like Mexico City, however it is a lot nicer.  It makes me excited for y'all to come pick me up. The mission office is way nice as well; it is in a new building right across from the temple. I have met my companion, she is 25, a nurse, and leaves in November. Hermana Williams is her name and she seems to be cool. However I miss Hermana Berrett :( It is so incredibly hot here and they say it is cool for Guayaquil. Feels like Houston in the middle of summer. The rest of the new missionaries actually arrive 2 weeks from now. There will be 22 new missionaries in my mission arriving. I am so incredibly TIRED!!! I was able to sleep on my flight to Bogota, Colombia which was 4 hours. I am looking forward to getting some sleep tonight. Presidente Dennis told me that they had 87 baptisms in my mission a few weeks ago but it usually is around 30. Well don't have much time left, but my P-days are now on Saturdays so I will write more then!

Con Amor,
Hermana Lyman

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Hola de Ecuador,
 

Saturdays will be my P-Days now because that is when the office has P-days which is nice. The few days I have been here have been quite different and well let’s just say a CULTURE SHOCK. The area of Guayaquil that I am in is called La Florida Norte. The people here are so sweet and open to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We already have a Baptism next Saturday and 3 more in the upcoming weeks. A few weekends ago the mission had 87 baptisms from what Presidente Dennis told me. All the women kiss our cheeks anytime you enter and leave a house or even at church, when someone walks through the door even if they don´t know you, they greet you with a kiss on the cheek before they pass.  

So far I have not seen a mosquito or any bugs....pure happiness there. However there is a serious bird, cat, and dog problem here. Our apartment is on the 3rd floor of an apartment building and there is a cat that will get on our balcony and use it as it´s personal liter box. Also there is this bird that perches itself on our window and makes the weirdest sound at 6 am. Some guys came to fix one of the showers in our apartment the other day and removed one of the bird´s next from our balcony. There were 2 baby birds that were big and ugly in the nest that he took home to EAT!!! How disgusting is that? He first put them on our floor in our apartment while he was cleaning out the balcony and while he was doing so the baby birds used the bathroom on our floor. They stink so badly. The little kids here like to play with the cats and kittens. They pick them up by their arms and swing them around and around. I feel so bad for the cats!  

We take the buses everywhere and it only costs 25 cents! I love that the currency here is American money but I am not use to using so many coins. We do not have warm water in our bathrooms so I am still getting use to the cold showers. There are 5 hermanas total in our apartment and they are all so sweet. My companion is from South Carolina and the other 3 Hermanas are from Bolivia and Colombia. It is so funny because I can barely communicate with them but they help me with my Spanish and I help them with their English. My companion is great, we get along well. She is also a nurse and training me in the office 3 times a week with medical records and documentation as well as the missionary life. I am nervous for her to leave in November. I'm trying my best to get the language down but it is so frustrating not being able to communicate much. In the lessons I pray and bare my testimony. I am able to follow what my companion is teaching however I have a hard time understanding the natives. They speak so fast and mumble. It doesn't help that my Spanish vocabulary is very limited. I am walking around with a hand-sized dictionary and doing as much language study as I can when there is a free minute or two. My companion is getting several calls a day with sick missionaries so it is quite a busy workload with proselyting and coordinating appointments and information to the missionaries and Hermana Dennis, the mission president´s wife.
 

The food here is pretty good, lots of bananas and rice. I am being extremely careful with things I eat and washing my hands and using hand sanitizer like crazy. I can't wait to be able to speak more and teach people.  So far things are going well just trying to keep the stress light which is very difficult at times.

Con Amor,

Hermana Lyman