The Best Two Years!: Estoy aqui en Ecuador

Que mas mis amigos y familia!

I hope everyone's week was amazing and that you all were able to see the Lord's hand, helping you throughout the week. For me this week was crazy, but I know that through it all the Lord was watching over me and although things didn't go as I had planned it, I know that

He was in control the whole time and I am so grateful for that testimony of Him that I have!

To start off, Monday I was supposed to leave to go to Ecuador. We left the house and went to the Stake Center to say goodbye to a few Elders, and then that is when I realized I forgot my visa at home so we had to go back and get it. I ended up missing the baggage check in and had to wait in a line to see if I could still get my bags on. I got super anxious and stuff and felt like I was going to pass out. I laid down so I wouldn't and long story short the paramedics came and told me I couldn't fly and so my flight got rescheduled for Tuesday. Once the paramedics left this, Chilean dude was staring at me and came over and gave me some sort of blessing in Spanish. I had just got one from my companions before we left to the airport and while I was grateful for this man who cared enough to try and help, I know that he did not have the correct authority because the feelings I felt during it compared to that from my companions was completely different.

Last ride with these 2!

So after all that crazy stuff, I went home to try again on Tuesday. We got to the airport super early this time and everything went smooth. Met up with Elder Spangler and Tall from the MTC and a few other elders from Elder Tall's mission in Idaho. We left from Atlanta to Quito but when we got there, some volcanic ash was in the air so we couldn't land. We flew back to Panama, waited for a bit and then tried again. We slept over at the AP's house and got to bed close to 4am. Then we woke up around 8am the next day to go to our first devotional where we met our companions. I got Elder Dorsey from Idaho. We are like the only double gringo companionship. Everyone here calls us gringo and I don't like it!

Thursday we had like a 3 hour bus ride to our area called Latacunga. Its about an hour and a half from Ambato which is where our district meetings are. There is us and one other companionship in our district. The other two are both from Lima Peru. Their names are Elder Gutierrez and Caloma. They're super cool and I can tell this is going to be a fun transfer. Elder Dorsey is the district leader and he is training me. Everything is going well here. We had two families they were teaching before I got here. One family is on date for baptism on Saturday 29th. The other we are working on getting them married. We have found a ton of less actives and have been working with them to come back to church and have found a few new people. All in all the work is the same. We are teaching repentance and baptizing converts to help all of God's children return to live with him. There are a lot of interesting people here and the culture and everything is so different here. I am so blessed to have grown up in the United States!