One Year!

ONE YEAR......

 

I am really dying now.  

This week went by really quickly. We traveled to Guayaquil for a 2 day tri-mission nursing training with the mission Guayaquil South and North. I got to meet the new mission president's wife from the north. She served a mission in Mexico and her husband in Santiago, Chile. Dad I think y'all might have served at the same time. His last name is Riggins and I believe he is from Idaho. She said he was serving when they split the mission into the north and south. It was a fun training and neat to meet nurses from the other missions.

As for Portoviejo.... I am as happy and content as I think I could be. I feel like it is my Ecadorian home. Still working with Juan and his addiction and now his wife is participating in the lessons and starting to read the Book of Mormon. We have some other good investigadors that we are excited about.

Love,

H. Lyman

 

Here is a photo of the entire mission in celebration of the mission's one year anniversary.

Portoviejo

This week we were very blessed to have the baptism and confirmation of Danilo and Cecilia. President Dennis and his wife attended with about a third of the ward which made it that much more special. We are so happy for them and I feel like they are family. We have a family home evening planned with them for tonight and are going to teach them about The Family Proclamation to the World. Which is so incredible and I want to start using it more with inactive families. Juan is progressing well but is still struggling with his addiction to tobacco. He went 2 days without smoking but he has been having withdrawals and it has been very difficult for him. He had severe left chest pain and shortness of breath during one of our lessons and had to step outside to smoke. I told him he needed to see a doctor to get checked out.  I hope he doesn’t have cardiac issues. It kills me to see the look of disappointment on his face when he tells us he has smoked. He has such a strong desire to quit. The bishop gave him a blessing on Sunday and he has started to attend the addiction recovery program at the church. Many prayers are needed for him please.

I feel so much love for these families we are teaching. I am so happy here in Portoviejo and learning a ton. I feel like this is the place is going to be my favorite. I am going to cry when I have to leave it but know the Lord knows best.

Hermana Bassett is so AWESOME! I am training her to be the next nurse for when I end the mission. She is the sister with dark hair that is in my photos with Danilo and Cecilia. She is from Nevada.

I haven’t been happier in all of my mission.

One year y’all!
H. Lyman

Danilo and Cecilia baptism

 

 
                               

Hermana Saucedo and my Ecuadorian haircut.  Almost all of the women have their hair cut in a V shape....so I thought why not?

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

MANABI MANABI MANABI

I Love Manabi. Love it Love it Love it!

The town of Portoviejo is so neat, reminds me a lot of Fredricksberg, TX. The houses are so old but it has a nice small town feel. The apartment we live in is so beautiful and we have HOT water! Could I ask for anything more?? Haha! I will send pictures next week. There are a lot of people here with light eyes and skin so I pretty much fit in here as a native! They eat a lot more seafood here because it is only about 45 minutes to Manta, the coast. Ceviche is a popular dish that has fish, shrimp, lime, tomatoe, and herbs. It is like a shrimp cocktail on steriods. 

Our bishop is awesome and every Saturday we have a movie night in the church for the ward and investigadors which has turned out to be very successful. The spirit is always super strong and it is great for animating our investigators to attend church the next day.

We have 3 investigadores that are so awesome and progressing really well. President Dennis has been directing us towards really teaching the doctrine well and not inviting people to be baptized until after teaching about the Resturation and bauptism and confirmation unless the spirit indicates otherwise. That the people need to understand who they are and their value. We now start almost every first lesson with teaching about the nature and purpose of the Godhead, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. How they function and their natures. As well as who we are as children of God and our value and potential. My favorite scripture to share for this is Romans 8: 16-17. President Dennis shared with us Moses 1 several times and how when we know who we are and our value, Satan does not have power over us. Guayaquil as a city (including all 3 missions) has the most baptisms than anyother city in the world. Elder Waddell from the 70 at the tri-mission conference we had 2 weeks ago said he wants to see it be the city with the most retention. That baptism without the temple ordenances doesnt value anything. I have the BEST mission president in the world.  He truely only cares about converts.  

Love and Miss yall,

H. Lyman

A Week From Heaven

I am so spritually happy I don't want it to ever end. I feel like I'm in a moment where I wish I could hold on to it forever. How can you feel so happy, so full, so sure of who you are and why you are where you are? I have never felt the Saviors love so much in my life. I wish I could express all of the wonderful things that have happened this week, to put to words how incredibly blessed I have been, or how I feel, but I can´t.

This week I received a phone call from my last convert Jorge, that lives in La Florida, my prior sector. He traveled to Bahìa for his job for several weeks the day after his baptism. I was so nervious for him because he would be working in an area 2 hours away from the nearest chapel and would not be able to attend church. He also had a problem that was hard for him to overcome. However as long as he was reading his scriptures he was able to stay strong. I wrote him a letter and gave it to him at his baptism. In the letter, I expressed to him how grateful I was to be able to teach him and be a part of his conversion. I also told him that he had to promise to read his scriptures everyday to stay strong and fight temptation. Especially since he wouldn't be able to attend church for several weeks. He called me this week and told me, ¨Hermana Lyman, I read all of the Book of Mormon and the Bible...I just got back to Guayaquil today and I cant wait to go to church on Sunday!¨ I cried. How wonderful is this gospel, how blessed am I?

Today we had a conference with the 3 missions in Guayaquil. The apostle Dalin H. Oaks was suppose to come, however was unable to make it due to travel difficulties. Instead, the mission presidents and their wives spoke as well as one of the 70, Elder Waddell. When President and Hermana Dennis talked at the conference, I was so proud to be from the west mission....so proud to be from the BEST mission in the world. I have noticed in the last zone conference, womens conference, and this conference with Elder Waddell that President and Hermana Dennis GLOW. I saw the same glow in Elder Waddell. The light of Christ shines through them and I thought about Alma 5.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my personal conversion. Thinking about who I am and my purpose in the mission. I have a lot to learn and still have a lot of things I need to do to progress as a missionary and daughter of God. I feel like the time has just flown by and that I don't have much time left. I want to make my Heavenly Father proud of me. I am going to do my best to do that and try and use every minute I have left on the mission to being a better missionary and daughter.

I also have been thinking more about who I am. In doing so, I am beginning to feel more and more the love of my Heavenly Father and a greater love for myself. A closer relationship with Him. I have already seen a difference in my attitude, etc. as I have pondered more about who I am. This also lead me to think more about my family history and who my ancestors where. I am so proud of who they are and what they did. Knowing who my ancesters were and that I am a daughter of God has really helped me. I cannot wait to learn more about them....to honor them. Knowing who they are makes me feel like I know myself better...my purpose better.

Con Amor,
Hermana Lyman

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