La Paz, Portoviejo

This week has been super crazy with a lot of unexpected happenings. My companion ended up having to go back home because of the side effects from the medications that she was taking. She was taking a medication for her acne that started here on the mission due to sun damage and dust. Hermana Garrett was awesome and I miss her but I’m having a lot of fun with my new companion Hermana Bassett too. She is from Elko, Nevada and I haven’t felt so American in all my mission until her. She has 4 months in the mission and is so sweet. She is always doing my hair or giving me food. I am very content here in Portoviejo.... Mom and Dad we are coming here when you guys come to pick me up. It is 4 hours from Guayaquil, but only 45 min from the coast.

We have been working really hard to help Juan an invesigador that we have been teaching for about 3 weeks now. He has an addiction to cigarettes and has already quit drinking coffee. It has been really hard for him to cut back on his cigarettes, but we are going to make goals for him and we are going to assist the addiction recovery program with him that the church offers. He wants to quit so badly. He is progressing very well in the gospel and reading chapters daily in the Book of Mormon. Prayers for him please.

 Today we had an activity to help raise money for the couple that we have been teaching Danilo and Cecilia. They are getting married on Wednesday so we helped them make Ceviche, the BEST Ecuadorian dish there is, and sold it to members of the church and also the 18 missionaries that are in Portoviejo. President and Hermana Dennis were actually here today because we had interviews with him today and have a tri-zone conference in Manta tomorrow. They also came to buy Ceviche so it was awesome to have them in the home of our investigadors. It was so much fun and really animated Danilo and Cecilio! It was neat to see how excited they were to talk to all the missionaries from different countries. I also told them that when my parents come we are going to cook Ceviche with them. It took Danilo 3 hours to clean and cut the fish for the Ceviche but we sold about 40 bowls of it. Danilo is finishing up his residency at a hospital in Manta and they have the cutest little baby girl Bellamia. They are getting baptized on Friday!

Love and miss y’all,

H. Lyman