July 28, 2014

July 28, 2014

so yeah i had cambios.  and guess who is my companion.....  Hermana Mosley.  Yeah we seriously thought it was a joke.  But it{s for REALS!!!!!!!!  We are just to darn happy.  We just crack each other up.  She{s hilarious.  She{s half black so she brings out my black side.  Her personality is a mix of Kirstie and Makenzie Legge.  It{s the best.  And she always says that her and mommy are bffs. she be a diva.

so we{re in loja and it{s just great.  Well we havent had much time to work because we had the zone conference and interviews.  but we are teaching this family who has soooo many questions which i love!  and then they came to church butnow they went to cisne for that whole mess of the virgin del cisne.... so they{ll be back in a month.  so hopefully we{ll be able to save them from that priestcraft.

these are of the museum that we went to.  that was the field trip of loja.  so i felt pretty special i got to go on 2 field trips.  the dress at the end is the dress of the virgin del cisne...... que apostasia.

these are from the little castle thing we went to today.  that was pretty sweet.  we also ate hamburgers.  and did laundry in our WASHING MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!  i am so excited we have a washing machine.  except it leaks like crazy so we{re going to have to fix that...

oh my heck yesterday we were talking to this guy and we were verifying everything, something we have to do the first contact.  we have to verify if they have problems with word of wisdom, law of chastity, going to church, or question 4 of the baptismal interview, which asks if they{ve ever killed anyone, been to jail, or participated in an abortion or a homosexual relationship.  so we were verifying the homosexual relationship and he like freaks out.  he{s like hombre con hombre?????????  what????  why would anyone do that????  what is the point of women then?????  and we were like yeah, it{s against God{s laws pues.  And he just kept going, like hombre con hombre, en serio??????  why would i be with another hombre????  for like 3 minutes.  and we were just dying trying not to laugh.  but he accepted to be baptized so that{s happy!

okay well i dont really have much more to say.  I am just happy to be here!  I{m so grateful to be a representative of our Savior.  I have learned so much about His Atonement and I have grown to know Him more.  I testify of the infinite and unconditional love He has for us.  We can{t do anything that will make us unworthy of that love.  I know we can be healed through Him.

I love you all so much!!!

Hermana Bytheway

July 21, 2014

July 21, 2014

so the vivanco family got baptized!!!  president came with us to visit them on sunday and got them super excited for their baptism saturday.  and yolanda was sooo happy too!  she has changed completely.  she was super angry about all the changes and didnt want to be baptized anymore but we got her super excited and she was sooo happy!!  i am so happy for all of them!

ya pues i have cambios so i cant write anymore.  but know that i love you all and i{m always praying for you!!  :)

Field Trip!

July 15, 2014

hiiiiii
so yesterday we went on a fieldtrip with all of the missionaries in cuenca!!!!  it was awesome.  we had a conference and they told us to bring tennis shoes and an umbrella.  we thought we were going to have an object lesson or something but then after the conference president was like everyone get on the bus!  we{re going to ingapilca!!!  yayyyyy!!!!!!!  it{s the first fun thing i{ve done here.  so it was pretty sweet.  the only bad thing is that it took away our whole pday so today we have 15 minutes to write and 30 to buy groceries.  but it was worth it.

we had a baptism saturday of the 12 year old!!  i dont have pictures becasue my camera wasnt working.  but next week i{ll get them from my compy!  so that was fun.  the vivanco family didnt get baptized this week.... they got in a fight and the dad went out and got drunk.  but we went and visited them with president and now they are super excited for this saturday!  we also have another baptism of yolanda this saturday.  she{s 21 and has the cuuuutest baby!!!!  so things are good.

July 7, 2014

July 7, 2014

I am so so happy to be back in Cuenca.  But for reals.  We won{t talk about the bed bugs because they definitely have already eaten me but it{s fine.  You met  Hermana Mojica.  She is the one from Nicaragua pues.  But I was only with her for 6 days and then she left and then mi hija got here!!  Hermana Brule is my compy again!  Yayy!!  She is the cutest.  We are super happy to be together again!

Oh someone in my ward has your same name!  Her name is Conchita.  Concha is shell and then with the ita it{s like ie.  cute!

So yeah, we had changes.  Again.  But I{m super happy being with mi hija again!  We are having lots of fun running from bus to bus to visit everyone.  We are still trying to keep up both programs and it{s kind of crazy because there are people everywhere!  But we havent gotten toooo lost so that{s good.  I{ll tell you about the people we are teaching.  Gunther is who got baptized last week.  He is from Guayaquil but is living with his uncle who is the 2nd counselor in the stake presidency.  He is so awesome and is so anxious to keep learning more!  He{ll be an awesome missionary.  This week there is a family who is going to be baptized, la familia vivanco.  They have 2 little girls who are just adorable.  It was hard for them to adjust when the elders left but now they realize that hermanas are cooler because we can hug them!  Hahaha and we are just cooler anyway.  hehe jk.  But they are so awesome and super excited to be baptized!  We are also working with these 12 year old twin boys who{s family is all members but they{re not.  It is like pulling teeth trying to get them to do anything... bAhhh!!  Pero bueno.  It{s good preparation for my future kids I guess.  We are also teaching Ricardo who is 23.  His whole family are members too.  He{s super excited to be baptized as well.  Oh and we also found this family who are soooo cute!  We found the mom at a little fruit store and we talked to her about how families can be forever and she just lit up and told us how she wanted her family to be happier and eternal.  They are going to be baptized next month.  Seriously I just love Cuenca and los cuencanos so much!  i really hope I finish there but you never know with all the crazy changes in this mission.

Today we had leadership council in Guayaquil.  I thought I was done being hermana leader because in our zone there are nurses and they are always hls but 3 days ago they called and said that not anymore!  hahaha so hna viloria and I are hls together again!  she is the one that i was hls with in machala for 3 months.  hahaha fun fun!  she is hilarious so we had lots of fun together this weekend.

Um I think that{s all I have to say now.  I{m happy to be here as a servant of the Lord!  The gospel is so true and so perfect and it makes me so happy reading it and studying it all day everyday!  I love you so much and I am so grateful for all of your love and support!

con mucho amor,
Hermana Bytheway

June 30, 2014

So I got transferred!!!!  Thursday morning I got changed to CUENCA!!!!  Yayyy!!!  I am soooo happy!!  My companion is Hermana Mojica again!  Ha!  I am in a sector called Miraflores.  Before the changes, there were elders with us here but when I got here, they took out the elders.  And Hna Mojica has only been here for a week so we get lost quite a bit...  We also had to take over the elders´ program so we have been running around like crazy people trying to visit all of our investigators.  I love it!!  I´m super tired from all of the hills and running to get to places in time but I´m so happy!

On Saturday we had a baptism and Satan was working sooo hard to frustrate us alll day long!  In the morning I forgot my nametag and we didnt have time to go back to the house so I made one at lunch... hahaha one of the members asked me if I was from the reformed lds church.  No.  I just am forgetful....  Then we got lost about 8 thousand times and took the wrong bus and spent a ton on taxis taking us to the wrong places.  Then about a half hour before the baptism we realized that we didnt fill the font!!!  So we were running back and forth with buckets trying to fill it before he got there.  And there was no gas so the water was cold.  But it all worked out and he got baptized!  Yay!  Then that night when we were going to bed we realized we never turned the water off in the font!  Oh my heck we prayed soooo hard!!  The next morning we ran to to the church and the font was empty.  The Lord answers prayers!  I have another story showing the Lord answers prayers but I´ll just send you the picture because I dont want to have to write it again.

Sorry I worried you last week.  I was just getting really frustrated with myself.  But looking back, I´m so grateful for the time I had in Almendros.  I learned sooooo much patience!

Oh yeah I definitely remembered Baby Brenden´s birthday on Thursday!  Even ask my compañera.  Don´t worry, when I get home, I´ll tend him and he won´t even miss his parents because he´ll love me so much.

Ecuador is out of the world cup.

Hahahaha I can totally picture Dallin right now.  Tell him to write me back!  Oh my heck that reminds me of one time when we were in a cyber emailing and there was this guy (he had to be at least 30) on the other computer with headphones watching a youtube video of some sappy love song and was singing along, in complete falsetto.  Baahahahaha my compnaion and I were dying.

Mmkay well I think that´s all.  Know that I love you all so so so much and am always praying for you!  Don´t even worry about me, I am super happy and working my hardest!  I am so grateful for this sacred time I´ve had to be a missionary and come to know my Savior more.  I know He lives!

Love you!

Hermana Bytheway