Watch Out for the Masked Man!

Hola!!!!

So guess what lame thing happened today???? They turned off the water in ALL of Guayaquil!!! And it´s not coming back on till 5 PM today!!!! VIVA GUAYAQUIL!!!! So we've been feeling really gross all day but we just sucked it up and went out anyway. But this whole, turn your utilities off when you´ve paid the bill thing is getting old. Fast.

So this week was fun, we had a lot of good stuff happen to us and some weird things too but mostly it was a super good week. Where to start. Oh yeah-FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS ABBY!!!! I wanted to send you a card but I couldn´t find one that I liked, so when I do I´ll send it to you. I´m so glad your party was fun!!! Anyway, so let´s start with Sunday. Sunday is always kind of a stressful day for missionaries-we´re always worried about who´s going to come to church and then we have meetings pretty much all day so it´s not very restful. Sacrament meeting is especially bad because everyone shows up late to church so we´re all jumpy and nervous until all our investigators walk in and then we´re happy again. So this past Sunday we had planned to have Catalina, Yuri, Yvonne and Camila in church with us and Eduardo said he was going with his family in Milagro. Well we went to pick up Catalina and when we got there her mom was like, she left!!! WHAT??? We went to the church and when we got there, there she was, sitting with the Familia Villacis. Know what she said??? Well, you guys didn´t come so I just thought, well the hermanas forgot about me, I´m just gonna go by myself!!! (we did get there 15 minutes after we said we would-we´re running on Ecuadorian time now!!) Ouch, but way to take some initiative Catalina!!!!!

So then we were sitting in church and HNA Jacklin hadn´t shown up with Yuri and the two girls yet. So we were getting really nervous and I was feeling bummed and I kept looking around behind me like I was checking for ladrones but really I was looking around for them. Well finally I turned around and saw Jacklin and all three of the girls there waving at me. I waved back, turned around and thought about how beautiful life is (actually what I thought was, it´s a good thing HNO Villacis talks so long or they might not have made it in time for sacrament meeting!!! But I did feel really happy. Ha.) They still come to every lesson we have with Yuri and we met their mom and we think she´s going to give them permission to be baptized. Yaaayy!!! They really are very special girls, I´m really excited to see their progression!!!

So then we came to Alfredo, who comes to church every Sunday starting at the 2nd hour but technically lives in Guasmo but is never there. We´ve sent the reference a bunch of times but the elders there can´t ever find him. So we decided we´re just going to teach him and baptize him in our ward, with president´s permission, and he´s okay with that too!!! Plus we found, taught and put a baptismal date on Luquita (her real name´s carmen but everyone calls her Luquita for some reason) this slightly crazy but super awesome lady that´s a friend of Fam. Criollo. She really is a little nuts, but you can´t help but love her. So basically, we´re just gonna baptize the whole world this change, hopefully. There´s a lot of work to do still but we´re feeling good!!!

We've also been finding a lot of good people this week. We found Luquita and her niece Veronica and HER niece Nicole, plus we had a reference from a family in our ward for another family. We got there to teach them and the husband was like a brick wall, didn´t want anything, is Catholic, blah blah blah. It was so funny, HNA Foster asked him if he wanted to know if there was a prophet in the earth today that guides and he said NO. I was like . . . . so you don´t want to be with your family forever, is that what you´re saying??? But the wife was pretty interested so we´re going to go back to see her. He just needs his whole family to get baptized and then he´ll feel left out and want to get baptized too. Ha. Anyway, so we left this lesson last night and we ran into Arreli again!!!! Remember Arreli??? If you don´t, scroll down the blog to where I talked about her. She said, why haven´t you guys come back?? We were waiting that one day!!! Dang it. We explained that we had come back but no one was there, and then we came back again and they were having a party or something and we didn´t knock. So then she said, my husband read that book you left. We were like, well, when can we come again?? We´re going back tomorrow at 6!! I am so excited because I ALWAYS wondered what happened with them, and now we´re going to find out!!!!! YAAAY!!!

So this is the part where I talk about the weird/crazy/dangerous stuff that happens in our sector. I´ve decided I´m just gonna lay it all out-I thought about keeping it all on the DL until I got home but you guys don´t worry too easily so now you´re gonna know everything!!! So this past week, we found this lady and we asked if we could come in and share a message. She let us in and starts talking about how dangerous Guayaquil is getting and how we need to be careful (thanks for the reminder) and how people will kill you for 25 cents here (at this I was like, oh come on, why did you tell me that???? As if I´m not paranoid enough aready!!!!) So then we leave her house and we start walking home and I see this guy in front of me . . . . with a mask on his face. I stopped dead and said, HNA, that guy´s got a mask on. She was like where??? Where is he, I don´t see him!!! HE¨S RIGHT THERE HERMANA!!!!! She saw him and was like, okay we´re going back the other way!!! So we turned around and started walking very quickly in the other direction, I looked back and this guy has taken the mask off and is WAVING AT US!!!!!! AHHH!!!! VAMOS!!!!! So we got away pretty quickly after that, we were super freaked out!!!!

So THEN, we went over to Jacklin´s house to teach Yuri, Yvonne and Camila. They live really close to where I was robbed the second time. So Yvonne tells us that someone was KILLED in our sector because two guys were trying to rob him and he didn´t want to let them have his stuff. You know where this happened??? The exact same place where we were robbed. You know when??? This past Tuesday at ONE IN THE AFTERNOON. AHHHH!!!! We were pretty freaked out after that one too, not surprising. I know the Lord is protecting us and everything, but that´s still just a little bit scary.

So THEN (yeah, there´s more. There always is!!!) we went over to Fam. Criollo´s house one day and were talking to them with Andres. All of a sudden this guy comes out of the house next door with a GUN in his hand!!!! I was like uhhhh . . . . hermana el tiene pistola (he has a gun!!!) She was like what!!! Where?? Then HNO Criollo´s like, he´s gonna go rob someone. AHHHH!!!! That guy was less than 10 feet away from me and he had a GUN!!!! Fortunately, we´re there all the time, so he knows not to mess with us-not that he´d get anything if he did (although the book of mormon would help a lot from an eternal standpoint . . . . . . )

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

So anyway, that was my week. I´m excited about this package that´s coming, hopefully it comes soon so that I can get my new camera. Is it too late to ask for more B day presents??? I´ve been meaning to tell you this forever, but I kept forgetting, but my iPod´s broken and has been since I got to Ecuador. I dunno what happened, HNA Mount used it in quarantine in the MTC and she said it worked fine, so I don´t know. Maybe it got the swine flu??? Anyway, if there´s an old Discman hanging around the house that still works, could you send it to me with copies of all the church CDs and EFY CDs you can find?? Plus I would like the CDs Paul Cardall´s Songs of Praise, the MoTabs Come Thou Found of Every Blessing, and one by Jessie Clark, I don´t know the album name but it has a recording of Come thou fount too. Por favor y gracias!!! There was something else but I don´t remember what it was.

Well I was going to write more people but we have to go. Chao hasta la proxima semana!!!

MUCHO AMOR!!!! HNA Chamberlain