I have a new companion!

Today is another short one because we had changes in the mission and because of this I spent a good long freaking time in a bus sitting waiting for a new companion. Yeah no more Hermana Espíritu. I am gonna miss her tons. But I have a new companion and I can already tell that I am going to love love her! So that is super exciting. Her name is Hermana Camacho. She is from Columbia and she speaks pretty quick, but I think I can keep up hahahaha. Anyway I love you tons and I am still in Cuenca and I am enjoying the beautiful weather. I have a million pictures to send but don´t have my camera to send them. SO.... next week I promise. I love you all and I am so extremely grateful to have gotten to see all of you and speak to you. I pray for you all every day. You mean the world to me. Remember in any moment of time we have an amazing Father in heaven who answers our prayers. He loves you all more than you will ever imagine. 

Miss you all dearly,

Emily

Merry Christmas from Cuenca!

Feliz Navidad!

 

 

 
 

Merry Christmas to us! Our presents for Christmas!

 

We dressed up like the people of Cuenca Ecuador to celebrate Navidad!
And had our Christmas dinner with rice of course! Haven´t gotten your box yet!

Sorry I am not going to write a huge email for everyone this week. Just don't have time with so many emails to send for Christmas.

I have learned that especially latino elders love love love new ties and clothing.

But I can promise you that they are some of the most hard working and humble boys I have ever met. Serving a mission sure has opened my eyes to what some 19 or 20 year old boys are capable of.

Mom and Dad you mean the world to me and I hope with all of my heart that I will be able to Skype you on Christmas. Tell everyone I love them and that I miss them like crazy. I just want to wish you all a Happy Christmas!
Love your hard working missionary,
Emily
aka Hermana Pack



I was CRAVING American food.......

Soooooo I want to start off and apologize. I literally have three minutes to write everyone. We had to buy gifts for our zone today and it took all of our free time!! Ugh. We exchanged names for Navidad and we both got two Elders in our zone and they are gonna look pretty dang good in the new cardigans that we bought them. It amazes me how the starting price of things are somewhat high here and we can usually bring them down a good 10 dollars. It is great. My companion is amazing.

 

 I have one more P day and then I get to talk to you all :) So excited! AAAAANNNNDD the other really great news is my Mission President is amazing and has given us one hour to call! Other missions only get thirty minutes. So that is cool.

 

 Anyway if you see that I charged my account today it is because I was CRAVING American food and I found a restaurant and drug my companion to it. Let me tell you it was pure heaven! Fettuccine alfredo and shrimp and asparagus. Holy crap so good. Happy Christmas to me! haha!

 

We had two baptisms this week. Two children of a mother who was inactive. I love them so much. Such a great Christmas present. I love you all and I hope you have a great week. Eat lots of yummy treats and remember what this holiday is really about. The birth of our dear Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Merry Christmas!  A little early:)

 

Emily

God be with you until we meet again!

HI!

I miss you all dearly!  I can´t believe you guys have snow. I was freezing yesterday and it was probably 70 degrees haha! It still rains a lot though.





I made brownies in our toaster oven because I was craving something from home! hahaha They were amazing! :)

 




Mom, I am sorry for taking so much money out. We ran out super quick because I had to buy medicine for my companion and she also needed new shoes. Her parents were supposed to send her money but it hasn't arrived yet so I pitched in until it gets here. Sorry.

Hermana Espíritu and her favorite drink. Pony malta. So nasty.
 It is literally like drinking molasses. But she loves it.

Also speaking of money I sure hope the box you send didn´t weigh more than 9 pounds. Because if it is more they said they won´t deliver it to Cuenca from the mission home...... Yikes. So I sure hope it wasn´t too much.

 

 

This dog followed us for like 10 blocks hahahaha
She was so cute! There are a ton of dogs here. It is crazy.

Anyway I want to tell you a little about this week. We were supposed to have a baptism this past Saturday but he freaked out and hopped on a bus to Guayaquil. I don´t think I could have been any more sad. We both walked out from talking with his Uncle and cried. Nothing is more devastating than those who don´t accept the gospel after we teach everything. SO heartbreaking. But this week we have 2 baptisms of two kids whose mom is a member but has been inactive for the past 4 years. I am so excited. I love them so much!!

 

Anyway  I love you all and I hope you have a great week. Sorry for all the typos I have to type quick for time.
Love you more than anything and God be with you until we meet again!
 

Hermana Pack

15 Ways to Survive a Mission to Ecuador

15 Ways to Survive a Mission to Ecuador

1.       Prayer, because there are definitely days that I feel like I don’t understand anyone speaking Spanish. But what is awesome is God speaks all languages!

2.       Study time, every morning I have 1 hour of personal study, 1 hour of companionship study and 1 hour of language study. These 3 hours are precious to me. I learn so much in this time every day!

3.       No fear! I am always afraid of saying the wrong words, but honestly, the only way to survive is by having no fear with the language, but often I don’t make any sense to people.

4.       LOVE rice. I eat more rice here than I have in my entire life, but I have grown to absolutely love it! They don’t have soy sauce so I have to eat it plain!

5.       Don’t ask! I have learned it is a ton easier to eat food if you don’t know what you are eating. This week I ate the stomach of a cow and if no one had told me what it was I probably would have enjoyed it more. If you’re wondering what it tasted like, it is like chicken skin. Haha!

6.       Hold on! Buses here are crazy! If you don’t hold onto something you may end up on the floor or smashed into another person. Haha! It may have happened to me once or twice.

7.       Get used to staring. Believe me, you will be stared at. Something about having light colored hair and white skin makes everyone and their dog stare.

8.       Learn how to wash your clothes. You wash everything by hand. Believe me washing your clothes in ice water is not enjoyable…But you will learn to wash them quick!

9.       Learn to laugh at yourself. I laugh at myself more than ever and it is necessary. I would be crazy in my head if I didn’t laugh. Life in general is just crazy here.

10.   Pretend. All I can say is smile and nod because a good 85% of the time I have NO idea what is going on or what we are doing or why we are doing it! Fake it till you make it!

11.   Ketchup and Mayo. I’ve never in my life had a desire to put ketchup or mayonnaise on anything but I’ve had to eat it on so many things I am actually starting to like it.

12.   Carry your own toilet paper. I use a ton of public restrooms, but I can promise you that none of them have toilet paper. Hence the reason I carry it with me at all times!

13.   Nobody can sing. And when I say nobody, I really mean NOBODY! It breaks my heart. You know how much I love music. Sometimes all I can do is laugh.

14.   Don’t worry about time. This has probably been one of the most frustrating things. I can’t stand to be late but the culture here is to be late to EVERYTHING!!

15.   Charity. Charity is the pure love of Christ and Christ loved everyone and everything. When you have divine love for others, everything else just seems to fall into place. It really is amazing to me that the more we try to be like Christ, the more blessings we receive.

 

Hope

Hola everyone!

First off I am so jealous that all of you got to have Thanksgiving! I love you all and I hope you had a great holiday! I honestly had forgotten it was Thanksgiving. We had a district meeting and another gringo girl came up to me and shouted Happy Thanksgiving! And I realized I had no idea it was even Thanksgiving. haha sad.

Wow. Anyway this week has been great. I have really felt the Lord's love this week. If there is one word to describe this week it is hope. I think I have really realized the meaning of hope. Hope comes with faith. You can say that you have faith in something, but do you also have the hope that the Lord will make it happen. I have realized this is so important in our lives. God has given us His gospel. We have a knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. First, is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, repentance of all of our sins. Third, is baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. With the proper authority. Fourth, is receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and the fifth is enduring to the end. Enduring to the end is where hope comes in. While we follow every commandment of God we have to have hope in the Lord that we may one day be able to return to him and live in his glory. How amazing this is to me. I am so grateful for the Lord. I know that I have hope and faith in every one of my investigators and that if I didn´t have this hope they wouldn´t progress. God is so good and I am so grateful to be a part of this church. I know without a doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the only true church of God and we cannot return to him without following the teachings of His gospel.

I can promise you that what I am doing right now is far better than any other thing I could be doing with my life. It is also the most challenging. Emotionally it is so much to handle. Nobody told me about all of the heart break in the mission field. My heart breaks on average once a week. I had no idea how real Satan is. I also know that there is no such thing as coincidence. Everything is inspired by our Heavenly Father. I know that I am here with Hermana Espiritu in Cuenca in the Guayaquil South Mission by inspiration. Wow! what a great God we have.

 

 Anyway I gotta go now, but I love you more than anything and I sure hope you have a great week! I pray for you guys every day and I miss you tons and wish you an amazing week!! 

 

Con mucho amor!
Hermana Pack