HOLA!!

Hermanas Romero and Welch enjoying a meal together!
And speaking in spanish!!!!!

Hey!!!

   Well this week really flew by!  I had an exchange on Wednesday so I went to Santalana (It is just thirty minutes away from our area by bus).  I spent 24 hours with Hermana Calderon.  But the coolest thing was she doesn´t speak any Spanish and I survived!!!! I talked to her and she talked to me and I think she understood me for the most part!!! I was actually really sad the morning I had to leave.  I have had English my whole mission until that day!  But when I came back to my area I just said a little prayer thanking Heavenly Father for all the help that he gave me!!! I can´t believe how much I have improved in just a month in the field.  By the way today is my three month mark!!!! I can´t believe it!!! Sometimes when I go to church here I honestly can´t believe that I have been gone this long.  But things I hope will keep getting easier because I am understanding more and more and more.  

   On Friday Hermana Romero and I woke up at 3:40 AM and started getting ready to leave to Guayaquil.  Hermana Romero and I were at the bus stop at around 4:50 because we had to meet with two Elders in our Zone so we could travel together.  Well we waited and waited until 5:15 and then called them they said they were on their way.  Well we were there waiting until 5:45............. But we got to our meeting on time!  I was a little upset with the Elders because they said they would be there at 5:00 and no later than 5:15 but there was nothing we could do about the situation so....whatever;)  We had a meeting with the President and all the new missionaries and their trainers.  The church has a 12 week program and so we had a little workshop about how we can best utilize this program.  So that was cool, after all our meetings in Guayaquil we eat lunch at the church that some of the members have prepared for us.  

    As we were eating there was another American Sister there with her new companion.  She and I were talking about the Peru and Provo MTC and all of our teachers and the rules and things like that, well we were speaking in English since my skills are still pretty limited in Spanish.  But suddenly the President starts talking to me in Spanish and asks, "Hermana, donde esta ahora?"  I was a little confused because he usually doesn´t talk to me and asking someone where are you right now is also really confusing.  I thought I misunderstood him so I just shook my head and asked really politely, "Perdon, repeto porfavor?"  Then he said slowly the same thing, "Hermanita, donde estas ahora?" Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh "La capilla?" The chapel? I stupidly replied.  Then he said, "Cierto!" and then he started speaking to my companion and I caught almost everything he said which went something like this... "you have to speak in Spanish when you are not at home and English when you are at home... your companion could be progressing so much faster if you obeyed this one rule blah blah blah speak in Spanish with her and if she doesn´t understand try again in Spanish if she still doesn´t understand speak in English but only when she doesn´t understand........................................ ............................................   I felt so dumb..... he totally called me out in front of EVERYONE!!!!!  and what was worse was I had to ask him to repeat himself when I understood him the first time!!!!! Galalalala

    But I felt like -_____- I can´t even describe how I felt.  But after that I spoke in Spanish the WHOLE DAY!!! Uh that was hard.  Later, I was talking to another Elder on the bus on the way home (he is from salt lake)  I tried to describe to him how hard this all was... Well he mentioned that he worried about Spanish a lot for the first five months of his mission but he finally told me, Don´t even worry about it!  It comes so naturally don´t even worry!  I am so mad at myself because I have worried about it so much! So I am not worrying about it, I am just working on it!  So things are better now. 

   Well I guess I can tell you about some of the food here.  Lunch consists of soup, a mountain of rice and some kind of meat.  They always drink their own homemade juice and sometimes that is really creepy or really good.  But being raised on pulp free orange juice has kind of crippled my ability to enjoy these really thick, frothy, pulpy drinks.  For dinner it is always always always some kind of meat and another mountain of rice.  But the weirdest thing is when they eat their meat and mountain of rice they only use a spoon.  They don´t believe in knives and forks the only time they use a knife and fork is when they are eating spaghetti!  That is when you use a spoon and a fork.... but they cut up their spaghetti into bite size pieces with their knife and then they use their fork..... Cutting up your spaghetti in my humble opinion is against my religion... 

The food is civiche it is soooooooo good here. That is one thing I will have to learn how to make when I get back!!!!

   They also have more bananas down here than they can handle.  It is kind of like America with our potatoes.  POTATOES!!! Boil em mash em stick em in a stew! We use potatoes for everything.  Well they use their bananas with everything.  They cut them up thin and fry them with salt and they taste like potatoe chips.  They cut them into thick slices and fry them with cheese.  They also fry the whole thing and eat it like boiled potatoes.  But that is interesting but the bananas with cheese is really good.   They use a kind of dried mozzarella cheese so the sweet and salt really work well together.  

 

   Well I love you all more than I miss you and our President still hasn´t told us when we can call.  I know we can call this Sunday and we only have like 30 or 40 minutes but I am going to call from a members phone.  I will have to email you again sometime this week to let you all know what time I am going to call you.  

Love Hermana Welch #1