So I am finally in Ecuador! The real adventure finally begins. i am not going to use caps because it takes too long on this keyboard, so bear with me! this week has been a whirlwind, but oh so fun! i arrived late on wednesday and then on thursday had all sorts of orietations and things like that.
later that day i met my trainer, hna thelin. she is from california and is way cool. this is her first time training so she was pretty nervous, but calmed down when she saw that i was a gringa and that i already knew a lot of spanish. hna larson was a friend of mine in the mtc but got sick, so she didn´t come down with me, so her trainer is in a trio with us. so like in the mtc, i am in a trio. her name is hna merback and she finishes the mission in feb. her parents are coming down and everything so it reminded me of what will happen with me 16 months from now! anyway, they are both hilarious. they love to have fun and make the work fun, which i like. already we have these weird little games we play, like when someone burps, we all have to say a fruit and the last one gets hit. i taught them that! also, back in the mtc, hna thompson would always say instead of salud when someone sneezes, which means health, she would say death as a joke, so we do that too. so we definitley have fun together.
right now i am in solanda, which is on the outskirts of quito. quito is the richest part of the country, but it still seems very poor. my first night i kept waking up starting like at 5am bcause all i could hear was birds and dogs. so loud! quito is beautiful weather too. i think we are in the rainy season, but it hasn´t been too bad yet and i haven´t needed jackets or anything, so i am doing well. it is a gorgeous city situated n the mountains, very high up! it is actually a mission rule to wear your sunglasses in quito because you can have some serious eye damage. it is all very green and so colorful. most flowers from the us are imported from ecuador, so they sell gorgeous flowers for like 5 dollars a boquet. i think i will love quito! our apartment is small and cute. tile and wood floor of course, never carpet. our hot water doesn´t work, so right now we boil water on the stove and mix it with water from the shower that is sitting in a huge tub and we do bucket showers. they say that someone is going to be fixing it soom, but who really knows! there are two beds and since we are in a trio, i am on a mattress on the floor. no biggie, that is life in the mission. I just know it could be a lot worse! they were telling me about some of the other areas they served in and there is this place, Santa Domingo, and you basically sleep with cockroaches. they said i will almost definitely serve there because all of the gringas do! i am a little nervous about that, but i will be in solanda for awhile. i also want to go to this area called otavalo. there they speak quichua, which is nothing like spanish, but i hear it is beautiful and the people amazing. Elder Montgomery is there right now.
funny story about quichua, i was feeling pretty comfortable with spanish. i understood a lot of what people were saying to me and it was great. then i went to church and this guy starts talking to me and i don´t have a clue what he is saying. i was like, how do i not know what he is saying? i know spanish! hna thelin leaned over and was like, don´t worry, you are not supposed to understand, he´s speaking quichua. that was a relief! as far as the language is going, it´s pretty great! like i said, i understand a lot and when i don´t, i ask them to speak slower and then i almost always get it. i was on the bus sitting next to this woman and both of my comps were behind me. they kept telling me in english, get her! i was terrified to actually speak. i liked watching my comps do it. well, i couldn´t sit still and knew that after that, i had to talk. so i asked her if i could practice my spanish with her. we got into a great conversation and i ended up teaching her a little about the church. she said that she stopped going to her church about four years ago and was interested in finding religion again. she is not in my sector, but she is in hna merback´s real sector so she is going to teach her more when hna larson arrives. afterwards my comps were freaking out. they said that they had not done anything like that until like 5 or 6 changes into the mission, and one change is 6 weeks! that made me feel good because even though i don´t konw a lot, i am so blessed to have the knowledge of the language that i do. since then i´ve talked to others on teh bus and still have good talks. one man today already knew a lot about the church and kept asking me questions. it´s very fun.
let´s see... the work in solanda is kind of slow right now. hna thelin was here before, but they pulled out a lot of the missionaries in quito to be a part of this choir for christmas, so she was gone all the time and her sector got shot in the process. so these next few weeks will be full of contacting and knocking doors. that´s the other thing, no one has like street doors cause it´s always fenced in and locked in. so we just go up to a house, take our umbrellas, and bang on the fence and shout until someone comes out. haven´t had to do that too much yet, but am looking forward to it!
the food here is pretty good. thelin and merback think i am crazy for liking it, but i do. there is rice with almost every meal, and that has my name all over it! they also make great soups and the fruit is incredible. we have to do a lot as far as food safety goes. every fruit we have, we have to soak it in cloro water for 3 minutes. when we eat at other peoples houses you know they don´t do that, so you just pray taht it is safe. both of my comps have had parasites like 8 times each. they stress to me the importance of staying home if i don´t feel well because i will only get worse. don´t worry, i´m not sick yet, but from the sounds of it, i will be sometime in the near future. we are also not allowed to eat pork. both of my comps like to cook, so i am in the right place and just let them do their thing.
we did teach one lesson to an investigator of ours. she loves to study the gospel and has had two baptismal dates. her dad told her to take more time to study it out, so she is and cancelled the dates. she has two adorable children, one only two months, and the other is like 4. she is incredible and really doesnt feel like she is worthy enough or doesn´t know enough. so we are continuing to teach her and are going back tonight.
today was pday and we went iceskating. that is not my favorite thing to do, so i sat on the sidelines. there were two zones that went. i got to practice my spanish a lot with one elder who was also sitting on the sidelines, because he didn´t know any english. quito spanish is different from all other spanish. people say it is like a sing song spanish, and it so is! there pitch gets higher as they finish the sentence. i so want to demonstrate, but cant via computer! hna merback has such a quito accent, even when she speaks english. oh, and they both have been here too long because they can´t speak english anymore! they fumble words and things, like thelin always says, what hour is it instead of what time is it. they´re funny, and i hope i get that way soon. it´s like i want to forget english!
well, i hope everyone is well. know that i miss you and love you and think of you all often! email me because i do have printers available, and i want to hear from you! LOVE YOU!
Kaylee
aka Hna Sorensen
