Thanksgiving Week!

This week has been a little crazy and stressful with everything going on. Lots of people getting sick and needing appointments etc. I actually got a pretty bad headache the last two days and intermittent waves of nausea but I have been taking ibuprofen and drinking tons of water which has seemed to almost kill the headache completely. Tomorrow we are switching to Aetna the new insurance company so I´m sure getting use to the new system will cause some stress but hopefully by January I will be a costumed to everything.

Looks like everyone is having a fun Thanksgiving Holiday! I would kill for some thanksgiving food, especially pumpkin pie. Ryan´s Razor looks like tons of fun and a lot of mud. Today I helped a lady in our ward decorate her Christmas garland in her house and it made me a little homesick. Wish I could help Mom decorate the garland on the mantle again this year but you will just have to send me lots of pictures!

Today we have two baptisms that we are really excited about. One is the mother of our convert Rafael. Rafael is going to baptize her which is going to be so neat to see. Two of our converts Rafael and Richard are both attending mission prep after church and Oswaldo and his family are so excited to go to the temple in a year.

Con Amor,
Hermana Lyman

Ecuador.... Only Nurse!

Ecuador.

Now that my wonderful trainer has left me here alone and with a cell phone that NEVER stops ringing life has picked up quite a bit. Hermana Williams went back home Monday morning so last weekend we visited some of her converts which was neat. I can definitely feel the added weight and stress but am adjusting well. Most of the medications have different brand names so I have been constantly researching medications. I have several different packets that Area Medical Doctors have made with different medications for different problems to cut down on the number of clinic visits. These have been a great resource for me. Now I want to go to nurse practitioner school when I get back because I am LOVING it but at the same time stressed out of my mind!

My Spanish is far from fluent but this week I have been able to speak so much better and understand a lot more. This was my biggest fear that I would not be able to understand sick people that only speak Spanish but the Lord has strengthened me so much and I am able to understand most of what is being said. How great is his power and I know there is no way I could handle this calling without his strength. This week has been such a testimony builder for me that I am understanding phone calls that before I could not. I am so blessed. I am actually in a trio right now with the other two Hermanas that are my roommates. Hermana Blas and Hermana Aramayo that only speak Spanish so this will help me learn the language better as well. President Dennis told me he is searching for a new companion for me so maybe by Tuesday I will have a companion.

This week I had a phone conference for Aetna training, the churches new insurance, which will be effective December 1^st. We now have to contact Aetna first and give them the information and what clinic or doctor we want to use to get approval then we can send the missionary. Also it is only with doctors and clinics that have signed contracts with Aetna which as of today we only have 2 clinics in Guayaquil because they are still in the process of adding more doctors.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Con Amor,

Hermana Lyman

Short But Definitely Sweet!

Hola!

Thanks so much for the e-mails! Not much new to write about this week. My companion leaves Monday morning to go back home so I should get a new companion Sunday. I´m not sure if she will speak English but in all honesty I hope she doesn´t. We don´t speak Spanish ever unless we are teaching a lesson or in studies. I have progressed in the language just not as fast as I´d like. If I get a Spanish only speaker then I know I will pick it up in no time. I´m probably going to be really stressed for the next few weeks to adjust to everything. Also I will be the only nurse which means I now have all the responsibilities for that. Also we are changing insurance companies starting Dec 1st so I´ll be doing some training for that. 

We have 2 baptisms of a married couple 25 years old tonight. I still have a lot of progressing to do as a missionary but I would have to say my understanding of the importance of the gospel teachings has a whole new meaning now that I have witnessed how it changes lives. These people that pray for the first time and have prayers answered through the spirit and to physically see the change in families and homes is such a blessing. I am most thankful for the restoration of the church. I am so proud to be a member. Everything good comes from the church, it changes lives. I am also speaking in sacrament tomorrow over missionary work so I´m a little bit nervous but at least it is an easy topic! We haven´t made the video yet they keep pushing it back.

Love and miss everyone!

Hermana Lyman

Hola!

So today is our p-day instead of tomorrow. Our schedule seems to be crazy lately because a lot of things have been happening on Saturdays so we´ve been having to change our p-days every now and then to Fridays. Tomorrow our ward council is being filmed as well as our pan de guineo activity. For the last two weeks we have had a general authority at our meetings and having extra meetings in preparation for the film. Our ward has had a lot of growth and for this are making a film for South American wards to show as an example. Last night the general authority actually told us that it might not be filmed until next Saturday so I might have p-day on Friday again this upcoming week.

This week has been pretty crazy with making appointments and getting medicines for sick missionaries. President and Hermana Dennis have been in Peru all week for a training conference. We have to get approval for any appointment we make and sometimes for medications that we send out. With them being out of the country it has been hard to communicate in a timely manner. Also yesterday President´s daughter got sick at school so we had to go pick her up and take her to the mission home. We are excited for them to get back! This week I also went to a doctor appointment with a Hermana to meet a doctor and to see some clinics and a hospital in the southern part of Guayaquil. Before Hermana Williams leaves we might take a hospital-clinic day so I can be familiar with the locations and facilities. 

This past Sunday our converts, Rafael blessed the sacrament and is talking about serving a mission in a year and Oswaldo received the priesthood. It was such a great thing to witness! They both are so great and Oswaldo and his family have been so blessed and are so happy. His wife and son have two chairs set up in their living room waiting for us every time we have an appointment with them. They are excited to go to the temple in a year to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity and I should be able to attend!

Love and Miss Everyone,

Hermana Lyman

Birthday P-Day!

11/2/13

Thank you so much everyone for the birthday wishes, love, and support!
 

I am so lucky that my birthday is on PDAY! This morning my other roommates came into my room early in the morning and woke me up singing "Happy Birthday" in English with their Latina accents holding a huge cake! So apparently it is a tradition in Ecuador to bite the cake after you make a wish....they neglected to tell me that it is also tradition to slam the person's face into the cake while doing so!!! So here I am taking a bite out of the side of the cake and my face getting slammed into the side while screaming! I ended up with icing all over my face and hair and Hermana Blas got it on video so it is pretty funny to watch. The assistants to the Mission President also called me and sang me "Happy Birthday" in a nice remix between Spanish and English (they are both from Columbia.)   It was so sweet and a great start to the day.

So I got my package in the mail 3 days ago but I was good and waited until today to open it. I Started with the picture album and It was so nice to see photos of everyone and when I got to the end of the pictures with Dad, Mom, Tanner, Ryan, Brannon, and Bryce with families they had baptized on their missions I started crying as soon as I saw Dad and Mom's pictures in Chile and Japan and I was pretty much weeping by the end of it. That has been the BEST gift EVER and means so much to me.  I am so grateful for the wonderful example my family is to me. I have put a photo of my first baptism next to them to finish the album. Mom that was such a meaningful gift and I will cherish it forever.  Also thank you for the gifts! It was a lot of fun to open them all!

Today we went to the Park of Iguanas downtown which has some really pretty buildings.  The park was pretty despite the fact that I am not a huge fan of IGUANAS!  But it was neat to see them and as long as they weren't running at me I was good. Little kids were picking them up and such....crazy!  Today Ecuador is celebrating the day of the dead and I am celebrating the day of my birth! Just a fun fact for today. Also some people celebrate Halloween but we really only saw a few people dressed up.

Yesterday 23 new missionaries arrived so we were at the Mission Home pretty much all day. We did preventative teaching and handing out care kits of medications the missionaries won't have access to in Ecuador without a prescription including Tylenol and ibuprofen. It is so weird to me that we can't buy those without a prescription but you can buy antibiotics and pretty much anything else. The new missionary orientation is actually pretty fun the office elders always do skits which are WAY entertaining! My companion leaves on the 18th to go back home to South Carolina and I am going to miss her so much!

I am so incredibly blessed!

Con Amor,

Hermana Lyman

Settling In!

Dear Family and Friends,

Once again thank you so much for the letters, photos, and videos! It really makes my week and I love seeing and hearing how everyone is doing! So I am quite jealous to hear about the weather getting cooler. I would love to be able to even put on a cardigan for that matter. I forgot that fall and winter even exist so thanks for the reminder! I actually had a dream last night that Hermana Williams and I were proselyting in snow. How likely is it to snow at the equator? This makes me wonder if it has ever snowed in Ecuador outside of the Andes of course. It has actually been slightly cooler here at night getting down to what feels like the low 80´s with a nice cool breeze. Everyone has been wearing long sleeves and some even jackets at night time which is CRAZY! It is still warm! People have even been asking us why we aren't wearing long sleeves the few nights it has been cooler than the normal blasting heat.

My companion, Hermana Williams, was originally the nurse of the Guayaquil South mission but after they made the new West mission they sent her to the West. The President of the South Mission is actually a doctor so they sent her to the West. So I have been in my mission the entire time. Hermana Williams leaves to go home in a month, November 18th I believe. She has mixed emotions about it but for the most part she is not wanting to leave. I am going to be very sad as well when she leaves. She has been a great trainer and we get along great. I am surprised at how similar my companions have been. President Dennis talked with us yesterday about how things are going and what he is planning for when Hermana Williams leaves. He said he is thinking about putting me with someone who is bilingual so if I need someone to translate my companion will be able to help out. This will be nice since I am far from being fluent. But he told me I can always call him if I can´t understand etc. President Dennis is awesome! He is constantly making jokes and his wife is so sweet. I have actually been taking almost all of the phone calls from sick missionaries this week and have been able to communicate pretty well with the Spanish speakers. Just hope the stress does not overwhelm me when my companion leaves.

This week we ordered more medications for the new missionaries that will arrive next week, reinforcements for some of the zones in the mission, and the people that are going home. When missionaries go home we give them ¨La Bomba¨ or the bomb which consists of Albendazole and Tinidazol. This is just to kill any and everything that they could have gotten while in Ecuador such as a parasite or bacterial infection.

Last Sunday was quite an eventful day! Saturday night we went to the church to fill up the baptismal font for Rafael´s baptism that was planned for 8 am, an hour before church starts. Two of the young guys that always go out proselyting with us covered the drain to the font with a plastic bag and a large rock on top. The font was taking such a long time to fill up that we actually started hauling buckets of water from a spicket and dumping it unto the font. It took us two hours to fill the font! The next morning we showed up to the church and the water had completely drained over night. Apparently the drain hadn´t been covered correctly. So we turned on the water to fill the font 15 minutes before the baptism was suppose to start and once again began hauling buckets of water to fill the font! Rafael´s baptism started 15 minutes before church started and we ended up being late to sacrament meeting! Everyone was stressed but it ended up working out! I think we need to get a more effective top for the drain, but a plastic bag and rock is what the ward has always used. We have another baptism tomorrow morning before church so we are going to show up extra early to make sure the font will be filled in time since we can´t trust it to stay filled over night!

Last night the ward had a talent show which was actually a lot of fun! I got to see some Ecuadorian dancing and a lot of guitar playing and singing. The ward goes all out for their activities!

And the cat problems continue!

Love and Miss everyone,
Hermana Lyman

Ecuador Updates

Sent Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Hola!!!

Wish I could write more today but I just don´t have that much time....ever! This week was better. We had 2 people that were suppose to get baptized this Saturday but wont be able to until next Saturday. We also have another baptism planned for the 26 of October. He is GOLDEN!!! He is 30, married with one kid and so willing to follow commandments and progress. Our first lesson with him we taught him keeping the Sabbath day holy and he said then and there he would stop working on Sundays. We are very excited about him. The other 2 ladies that I told you about last week we ended up dropping as investigators because they can´t progress. It is very sad because they both want to be baptized but their men wont marry them. That is actually one of the biggest problems here, nobody is> married!!! Last night right before we returned home to the apartment we knocked on one last door. It was my turn to pick a house and I am SUPER excited about her.  It was late so we just invited her to church and set an appointment for today so I am excited to teach her. Something about her seems right and my companion as well is excited. I am out of time...wish I had more.

Con Amor,
Hermana Lyman


Sent Friday, October 18, 2013
Hola!

So our P-Day is a day early because tomorrow is a ward activity where we deliver banana bread to a sector in efforts to receive referrals. President Dennis allowed us to have our P-Day today on Friday instead. I am reading the Book of Mormon and Preach my Gospel in Spanish which is actually going very well. I have found that speaking is more of an issue for me at this time. I am beginning to understand a lot more of what is being said! The ward is so awesome. We always have members wanting to got out proselyting with us and always have at least one member with us for every lesson. We have 3 great investigators at this time who all have baptismal dates. Rafael, 21, is getting baptized this Sunday. He has progressed so MUCH these past few weeks. Oswaldo and Milton are so GOLDEN! Everything we teach them they understand and recognize as truth. Oswaldo´s wife is a member but has been inactive for years. She is now reactivating and their family is just beaming and so happy! Milton is actually the bishop´s brother. We saw him sitting alone in sacrament meeting on Sunday and by the end of Church he told us, I am getting baptized in two weeks and I know this is the true church, being here makes me feel like a new person. We gave him a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon and he told us he read it 3 times to understand it. Can all of our Investigators follow suit? He also is getting married sometime within the next 2 weeks so he can be baptized. How faithful these men are! The difference in the countenances of these investigators has been such a blessing to be a part of. They are so eager to follow the commandments of the Lord and change their lives. It gives me such joy to teach someone to pray and hear them talking with their Heavenly Father for the first time in prayer.

Last week we went to the airport with President to pick up a new sister and we met the President of the south mission. I had actually met his daughter in the CCM in Mexico City. He is actually a doctor from Arizona and still working some for the practice he was at as far as managing etc. He gave us his number in case a question arises that we need medical help with. Dr. Piepgrass, the area medical adviser, lives in Bogotá, Colombia so we can only call him from our office phone. We are only in the office 3 times a week so this will be a wonderful source for us in Guayaquil for us. This week we had an Elder who had to get his wisdom teeth removed and he had some issues with payment but the Dentist has a lot of trust with the Church and went ahead and did they surgery. A lot of the doctors and dentists here have a lot of trust with the Church. They get plenty of business from all the sick missionaries and of course always get payed.

This morning we did a lot of cleaning before our land-lord came. The people that live on the floor below us have a cat and no litter-box. The cat has decided to use our balcony as it´s personal restroom. We cleaned up several piles of #2 and when I say several it was in the teens. This is the cat that got into the apartment one night and used the bathroom in the living room and got into the kitchen trash. We have covered the base of the bars that the cat comes through that separate the balcony from the stair case but he still gets through. The elders that lived here before had pizza boxes at the base of the bars but nothing is stopping Smokey the cat (we have named him.) If anyone has any suggestions on how to resolve this cat problem I would be more than happy to hear them, we are desperate. The land-lord came to fix the hot water in the apartment but was only able to fix it in the bathroom of Hermana Aramayo and Hermana Blas. I might be using their shower from now on because our water is FREEZING. Hermana Aramayo is from Bolivia and worked in a salon with her mom before the mish. She gave me a pedicure and manicure this morning! She did a great job and I have missed this luxury.

I will try and get some pictures of the city soon. It is not safe for me to carry my camera around so I have to be careful.

Con Amor,
Hermana Lyman