CRAZY HOW THE SPIRIT KEPT LEADING US THERE........

I love to see the temple!!!! But what I really would love is go IN the temple and not just see it. haha. I wanna do a session here so bad!!!

Hey Familia,

Well another Lunes has arrived. First off, Yes, I talked to the finance guy again and he said he only has control of my mission account so he's gonna put the money in. I'll let you know when I see it in my account when I'm at the atm next. 

President and Sister Torres!! They are just the best.

So this week has been an interesting one. Starting with the mini trip to Guayaquil. I don't know if I told you but we ended up staying the night at the temple to break up the trip. Thank you president Torres! After I wrote you guys last week, we had lunch with everyone and I got to sit by President

and his wife. They are so great and she is so funny and real. I just love them. I wish I had more opportunities to get to know them better but what are you gonna do? They complimented me on my Spanish!! I've noticed that I've actually been getting a lot of compliments on my Spanish lately. So that's been nice. However there are still a ton of people who still can't seem to wrap their brains around Spanish with an accent so they just don't listen and say they can't understand. That's the worst. I mean ya, I know I'm Gringa and got an accent but I also know that I'm talking in Spanish and if you just listen you can understand me!! haha. But I do need to work on my accent. This not-being-able-to-roll my Rs thing is just not cutting it for the people. But I don't know what to do because my tongue literally does not have the ability to do it! But whatevs.

So Halloween was this week!! The people don't do anything here. There are some stores that have a small selection of Halloween stuff to buy and some people get drunk, dance and party but that's about it. My comp luckily likes the states and was down to party with me. See attached pics. Yes, I wore black and orange and put the Wonder Woman ¨costume¨on my hand. At least my hand was dressed up!! haha. We had a good time taking pics. Which we did again the next night for the 21st bday of Hna Yagual! I bought us some slices of chocolate cake at a pasteleria but other than that not many people remembered it was her birthday so that was kinda sad. But what are you gonna do, life in the mission. 

So this week we were basically told we are not allowed to contact, we have to work with the members. So during the times that we had nothing to do and would normally start contacting, we visited members like obedient little Hermanas. And boy were we blessed!! We stopped by one members house to ask for a reference and his 14 year old daughter who lives apart with the mom happened to be visiting! And she lives in our sector! And she had randomly had a change of heart and had been thinking about going to church with her dad when we showed up. Supes perf. So we taught her the restoration; she said she'd come to church and she did. We invited her to be baptized after, she said yes. The dad was afraid the mom wouldn't give permission, but we talked to her and she did no problem! And the craziest part is, she lives in a house that we have contacted twice already. Each time we had talked with someone different. Crazy how the spirit kept leading us there cause there was someone there being prepared by the Lord and we eventually found her!!! The Lord works in mysterious ways and this just shows we need to trust in his timing. Her name is Christina and she is like the coolest person. She even had a fossil watch. We are already besties. 

We also had another family come to church, neighbors of a menos activo we stopped by to visit. (not contacting!! being obedient pays off. and working with members is a cussload more effective.) Her name is Gladys and she has two kids named Randy and Adriana. They didn't want to accept baptism dates, but they said they liked church and want to keep learning so we will see what happens with them. 

So I attended like the 3rd farewell of Diego on Sunday. haha. The poor kid kept getting his report date pushed back at the last minute for visa issues. He was originally supposed to report in August....then September....then they skipped October and just said November. haha He's getting set apart today and leaves tomorrow. I really hope he's reading this right now and getting angry than I'm talking about him. He hates attention. And he's really good with English so he can understand all of this. But he made us all these awesome T-shirts that say Obra Misional Del Barrio Boyaca. They are so sick. He hates pictures but I forced him to take some last night. It was fun. He was like the back bone of the missionary work of this ward though so it's gonna be sad when he leaves Wednesday ...but he's gonna kick butt in Brazil, and I'm proud of him. And we still got his sister Valeria who is awesome and helps us out too. 

So ya those were the events of the week! Oh, I almost forgot! On Tuesday I got fed sooooooooooooooooo much food. Like it's always a lot but this was literally my weight in food. But of course I shoveled it all down....and I may or may not have barely made it out of the house in time before my stomach shoved it all back up and I threw up in the street right outside the house. I wasn't even nauseous; my stomach just literally did not have the ability to hold in all that food. How gross is that??  Ok gotta go. Thanks for all the letters. Glad you guys had a fun Halloween!! 

Love you all!!!

Love from Ecuador,

Hermana Harper

Lovely sister May. The new nurse for me here in Machala. She goes home in December but we sat next to each other on the bus and had a solid heart to heart in English. She's great. She also asked the bus driver to put on The Testaments as the movie and he did. lolzzz. It was funny. Everyone on the bus is like what is this?

Oh and eating pizza with my zone leaders in Guayaquil. They are the funniest.