Don't Worry About Us--We're Perfectly Safe

Hooolaaaaaaa!!!!!

We have a baptism TODAY!!!! Yuri is FINALLY going to get baptized after having to wait almost a year for permission from her dad to do it. But she´s got the permiso and he´s even gonna come!!! Sweet, no?? Plus Yvonne and Camila are gonna come and they´re bringing their mom, who lives in Duran so she´s technically not our investigator, but we still need her permission so that she can be baptized so bueno-it´ll still be good that she comes. We´re super excited and so are Yuri and her mom Jacklin!!!

So last Sunday Alfredo came to Sacrament Meeting, which is one of the requirements for getting baptized-coming just to the second and third hour isn´t enough. So then we were waiting on Yuri, Yvonne and Camila again. About 3/4 of the way through Jacklin showed up with Yuri and Camila. Uhhh . . . . where´s Yvonne??? We asked and they said that she was all ready to go but then she couldn´t find her shoes, so she was too embarrassed to come in other ones. We thought that was pretty funny-especially when we went over to visit all three of them later that day and when Camila prayed she said, and Heavenly Father, please bless Yvonne that she won´t lose her shoes next week so that she can go to church. Hilarious!! Catalina bailed on us at the last minute, we´re not totally sure why, and we haven´t been able to go visit her all week because of some things that have been going on with the missionaries and their health. So we have no idea what´s going on with her as of right now, but we´re hoping to get over there and talk to her soon. But everyone else is super awesome-we are so excited about our people right now. These little girls, Yvonne and Camila, are really special. We talked about the 10 Commandments with them the other day and when we got to keep the sabbath day holy Camila said, um, I go EVERY SUNDAY. We were like . . . . . yes, yes you do!!! And you can´t imagine how happy that makes us!!!! We think that these girls are going to be the key to getting to the rest of their family. It´s a family of 8, so you can imagine how as missionaries we´re really excited about it.

We also found a few new families. One of them is progressing pretty well, the hermano read the Book of Mormon and really liked it, although he hasn´t prayed yet. It´s just tough to get to them because they both work late and sometimes don´t come in time for us to get over there and visit them. But they are really receptive and they want to come to church!! The other one is the lady I talked about last week, Graciela. We found out that she´s not actually married, she´s just been living with her nonreceptive "husband" for 18 years. Well we went over there to teach her the 3rd lesson which is the basic principles of the gospel (basically the 4th article of faith with endure to the end stuck on at the end.) We got through faith okay, then HNA Foster started talking about repentance. Graciela stopped us right there and said, Hermanas, I´m just living with my husband, I´m not married to him. Uhhh . . . we actually already knew that but we´re glad that you recognize that it´s bad too!! Then she started crying and saying that she wants him to leave and that he used to hit her and all this stuff. I felt so bad for her, I had tears in my eyes too. It´s obvious that she´s not happy in her situation and that she´s looking for a way out. She said that she sees a lot of families that are members of our ward all the time and they all look so happy and she wants that too. So we explained that repenting of her current situation was the only way to make things better. She really wants to and fortunately for her she´s making all the money, so if he left it wouldn´t be a problem from that standpoint. We´re going to keep working with her, and we´ll get her where she needs to be!!

Ohhhh, what else. So next week we are going on vacation!!! Okay, not really vacation, because we will be doing some work, but we are going to go on the gira . . . . by ourselves!!!! That means we´re going to 3 of the places outside of Guayaquil in the mission-Cuenca, Loja and Machala. Cuenca and Loja are in the mountains and I´m sooooooo excited to see them!!!! We´re going to see all the hospitals and doctors offices because I never went on the gira with President Johns and Hermana Foster did one time, so she´s going to show me everything and then I´ll be able to show Hermana Montalti and Hermana Barker when we go again. But I´m super stoked, we´re going to stay with the sisters out there so I´ll be seeing Hermanas Barker, Wise, Glanzer and Montenegro again!!!!! We´re leaving Tuesday on a bus to Machala, then that same day we´ll leave for Loja, stay in Loja at night with Hermana Glanzer and Hermana Velasquez, go visit the hospitals in Loja in the morning, then leave for Cuenca and stay with Hermana Barker and Hermana Wise, and then we´ll come back to Guayaquil on Thursday. It´s gonna be sweet. I got a new camera today so I´ll for sure be taking a LOT of pictures (mom the package with the card hasn´t come yet, but I put all my pics from my other card on CDs, so I´m just going to erase them all and use my other card.) I´ll try to get some to you all afterwards if I have time!!

I´ve decided that I´m going to call this part the "Scare Travis" part. I just think it´s hilarious that he wants to stay in the MTC longer now. It´s pretty unlikely that any of the things that happen to me here in Ecuador will happen to him in Oregon, but you never know. Anyway, so not a whole lot of crazy things happened to us this week, to be honest. This is probably due to our new precautionary measures-carry nothing but the BOM and pamphlets and put everything valuable down our shirts (not very ladylike, but hey, we´re in Ecuador!!!) But one night we were walking home and all of a sudden this cute little old lady walks up to us and says, I´ve just been robbed!!! Some guy just came up behind her, grabbed her purse and ran away. You know where this happened?? Not very far away from our house!!!! So even the other sector is getting a little peligroso now. So we told her where the street Febres Cordero was and kept walking (later we felt like jerks because we didn´t walk her over there-next time.) Anyway, we were walking and we saw this guy on the other side of the street and HNA Foster said, I wonder if that´s the guy that robbed her?? I said, I dunno but I don´t want him to know where we live so let´s stay behind him (by this time we were right around the corner from our house.) So we followed him around the corner and up to this tienda that we go to all the time. He stops right outside and this other guy walks up, they give each other something and walk away in opposite directions. We were like . . . . . did we just see a DRUG DEAL??? RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR HOUSE??? Wow. So then the next day, we left our house around 5 in the afternoon because we had to plan. Just as we walked out the door, a group of guys walks past our house. One of them, for some reason, is carrying two puppies. So I´m standing there with HNA Foster looking at the puppies and all of a sudden I notice that there´s a lot of white smoke all over . . . . . and that these guys are passing something in between each other and sticking in their mouths. We were like . . . . these guys are smoking WEED right outside our HOUSE!!!!! WHAT???? The best part was when one guy bent over and blew the smoke right in the puppies´ faces. Wow. I´ve heard of sharing is caring but really??? Right outside the missionaries´ house???

But don´t worry about us. We´re perfectly safe.

Well, that´s about it!!! Hopefully I´ll have pictures out soon, now that I´ve replaced my camera and am going to have a card. Hopefully also that package comes soon. Ohh, here´s something weird. I´ve heard so many songs from the United States here that I never thought I´d hear. A small list is-Here in Your Arms by hellogoodbye, Barbie Girl by Aqua, a lot of Lady Gaga (which I´m very upset about-I totally thought that I was leaving her behind for 18 months), a lot of 80s music, I Didn´t Steal Your Boyfriend by Ashlee Simpson, and right now Crazy by Gnarls Barkley is playing in this internet cafe. Random . . . . .

MUCHO AMOR!!

Hermana Chamberlain