Nearly Arrested!

Holaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Changes were yesterday and I'm still in Loja and HNA Bravo is still my companion, but she goes home in 3 weeks so we'll see what happens when we get to that point. Enough about that. On to more interesting news. LUIS ENRIQUE WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!! We were sooooooo happy and I was gonna upload photos but I forgot to bring my cable and we're kind of running on a tight schedule because we snuck out of the zone barbeque to go write to our families and if we don't go back soon there won't be any food left. But, he was baptized and confirmed and he was sooooooo excited. His testimony was amazing, he was like, at first I didn't want anything to do with this church but now I know that it's true and I'm going to go forward. He's totally gonna be a missionary some day. Believe dat. So now he and his mom are members of the true church of Jesus Christ and his grandma has NO IDEA. I love secret baptisms. The fear of being discovered is a huge adrenaline rush. lol.

This Saturday all the missionaries sang in the Christmas devotional for the district and it was lovely. HNA Bravo and I discovered that straightening hair with a clothes iron is more effective that doing it with a straigtening iron. Basically, my hair hasn't looked that good in all my life, and no, I did not burn myself, just in case anyone was wondering (although I did burn HNA Bravo and after that she decided that it would be better if she ironed her own hair instead of letting me do it. Ha.) Perhaps this is a shameless show of vanity on my part, but hey, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty-and seeing that our cute missionary clothes limit us a lot, we do what we gotta do right??

Random side note: This internet cafe is playing old school gangster rap and it is really difficult to not listen to it. I hate it when the cybers play trunky music. It's just unfair.

Anyway, this Sunday was awesome too, Lida came to church and loved it. She told us that when we called she was getting ready to go to her own church but decided to come to ours instead. She'll be baptized on Christmas day and we're totally excited. She needs a little bit of help with her testimony, but that will come as she puts in her part. Keep praying for her-if there's one thing I've figured out in the mission, it's that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers.

Now they're playing reggaeton. Hableme en serio.

Funny story time!!! This week we went to Cuenca and I had to come back Thursday night while my companion stayed for a capacitation. We were having a killer time, telling jokes, laughing, when all of a sudden the bus stopped in the middle of the road and a policewoman got on. She said, good evening everyone, I`m here to make sure that you're all legal. At this point I remembered that my censo had expired the week before. Great. I got it out anyway and prayed that she wouldn't check the date on the back, but my prayers were in vain. She took my censo, flipped it over, frowned at me and said, you're only legal until November 23, 2010. I was like, yeah I know but the thing is that we have to go to Guayaquil to renew it and we can't go until they call us. She was like, sorry, but you're gonna have to get off the bus with me. I was like . . . . . they're gonna take me to jail, this cannot be happening. Fortunately Elder Arevalo and Elder Chicaiza were sitting right behind me and they're both from Ecuador. Elder Arevalo was like, is it really necessary for you to take her off the bus, she's gonna go renew it really soon, look we're missionaries (missionary seems to be a magic word here, lol). The policewoman was like okay, I`ll let her pass this time but you need to go get it taken care of as soon as possible, yeah?? We all breathed a huge sigh of relief and I asked, hey, if she had taken me to jail you guys would have come with me right??? They all said OF COURSE!!! True friendship right there-in fact I'm remembering a facebook bumper sticker right now that says, a friend will come bail you out of jail. A best friend will be sitting in the cell with you saying dang we messed up!!!! Haha. But I didn't go to jail, fortunately. And just so everyone knows, I'm going to Guayaquil next week to get my censo renewed.

Annnndddd . . . . . that's about it. The elders are all probably dying to eat, so chao until next week!!!!

Hermana Chamberlain