El Puerta Del Cielo

Living in Ecuador is like living in a different universe sometimes. At times, I feel like I have entered into the world of a very strange and gospel centered Disney movie. Every day I find more things to both love and hate about this place. Recently, the thing that I love the most is how beautiful it is here. It is unreal sometimes the way the sky looks at night, and I still can't believe how green everything is here. The thing I hate the most right now is the bugs. I literally am covered in bug bites constantly! I don't know how to make it better because the repellent I brought doesn't work and the repellent I bought here doesn't really work either. It is like a nightmare from "Indiana Jones" the way the bugs swarm towards me on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, I am having more and more positive experiences everyday. This week for example, we had "intercambios." This means that I had to switch companions for one day so that our Sister Training Leader could come to our sector and check up on the work we ahve been doing. It was really weird to have a different companion, especially one who doesn't know any English at all. But, on the other hand, it was interesting to see how different people share the same message in different but equally powerful manners. I had to go to the other sector and the sister training leader came here. It was fun to get to see a different city and sector. I went to a town called Catarama. It was beautiful and I got to see some small mountains in the distance-which almost made me cry. However, it made me grateful to be in Vinces. I think that Vinces is a little more along the lines of my kind of town and the people here are really just amazing.

We had a baptism for Jamilet and Julixsy this Saturday and on Sunday they recieved the Holy Ghost. It was a good baptism and they were both really excited. I am still not sure that they fully understand everything that we have taught them, but we are still working with them and we are teaching their parents right now too. Their mom Leonella is amazing! She is so attentive when we teach her and she always has questions, but for her, she wants to take her time to really understand before she makes a decision about baptism. Also, she and her partner need to get married before they can be baptized.

We still don't know what is going to happen with Jimmy Mecias. He was supposed to go to Guayquil this week to find out what is going to happen with his arm, but I guess the Doctor canceled his appointment. Hopefully this week we will find out, but either way, we are still waiting on his arm before we can do his baptism.

We are still working with Alexandra and her husband in hopes that he will develop the desire to really learn about the church. He still hasn't attended church, but I think he will this week because we are singing in the choir and he said he wants to see us. We went to "El Campo" with them again today. They are really like our parents here in Vinces. They take good care of us and we always have lots of fruit in our apartment because of them.

Once again I am out of time though! Love you all!

If you want a little spiritual inspiration, read Alma 34. It's the chapter that I found gave me a lot of inspiration this week!
Love love love!