P-Day

It was such a blessing to get to talk with everyone Sunday! I miss everybody so much and everyone looked wonderful.  Glad to see that the Lord is blessing my family at home. This week went by so fast but was mentally exhausting.  We barely spent any time in the sector and most of our time researching clinics online and an endless stream of phone calls. We will leave tomorrow for a 6 hour bus drive to Bahía in Manabi. From there we will visit Manta, Montecristi, Portoviejo, and Daule. I am pretty excited to travel but it is going to be very exhausting and make for some long days. I hear that some of the roads are not paved so I am going to pack some meds just in case I get motion sickness.

My companion and I love our new Zone. Our zone leaders are awesome and the Elders are hilarious! Not sure what it is but all the missionaries end up getting sick in our zone. One has chicken pox and is stuck in the house for 21 days. He has to stay out of the sun to prevent scaring, his papules are almost all gone and healed but he still can’t shave because there are still some on his face. We call him mountain man with his full on beard.

Another Elder in our zone recently decided to cut his ingrown toenail off himself but only made it about halfway. We give handouts when missionaries arrive to the misión on prevention for certain illnesses and one for ingrown toenails since it is so common. On the handout is a picture of the toe after a doctor has removed part of the nail. He told me that he thought he had to do that since it was on the hand-out. The zone leaders tried to help him cut it out too.  His toe looks pretty gross and I am surprised he cut it out as much as he did. Haha we are going to revise the hand-out and put in bold- DOCTOR WILL REMOVE THE TOENAIL IF NEED BE.

Wanted to send pictures but my memory card doesn’t fit in the computer tower.

Love,

H. Lyman

Portete

Portete is a nice area, our sector includes 4 gated neighborhoods that aren't very big. The sector is very small and a lot less walking distance than La Florida. We still haven't had much time in the sector. We are trying to get to know the members more because we know absolutely nobody! We are having English classes Wednesday and hoping that we can receive some references that way. The phone reception is awful and almost non-existent in our house. I'm not sure how much time I will have here but I imagine until July. That is our goal to have everything organized in the nursing department by then. We are going to be making plans to travel this week probably for the 3rd week in May to all of the Provinces. I am pretty excited about that! I will get to see many different parts of the mission. Our zone here only has one other companionship of sisters with tons of elders which is way different than my last zone.

This week I completed 9 months in the mission! I had completely forgotten about my halfway mark. We are in a Trio right now because Hermana Taylor from Nicaragua arrived this week and is with us until President can find an apartment in Mapasigne for another companionship of sisters. We went out to eat with President and Hermana Dennis when she arrived and Pres. asked me when I hit my 9 month mark...and realized it was that day! He told me it was all downhill from there.

Love,
H. Lyman