Feliz Navidad

This week has been sooooo good!!! I love being a missionary so much! I still have super duper embarrassing moments cada día with the language and the food kills me every day, but I love it! jaja

Christmas in south america is a party and I love seeing all the locura. But there are more drunk people than usual so we have to have cuidado. Lots of "vamos a cruzar" to cross to the other side of the street to avoid some crazies when we are walking home. Its great!

Lots and lots of miracles here in Cuena. I´ll get better at writing these blog posts in the next year (maybe), so that you guys can here about it.  I´m going to try, okay? Training has been really interesting.  My daughter told an investigator that they looked like Jackie Chan the other day and I was like mmmmmmm (the people are very blunt in the way they speak here). She´s getting used to the missionary walk poco a poco (practically has to run beside me).  And I only almost left her on the bus one time.  So yeah, everything's great.

Love you all and I wish you a very merry Christmas! Enjoy your turkey and ham and I´ll be down here eating cui and hígado. ;)

Hermana Blazzard

Nueva Companera - fotos

La Vista

Dia de Servicio

La Comida

Hermana Dahua y Yo

Mi Hija! Hermana Guevara de Peru

Y Ahora, Baptismo en Horas

Hey Everyone!

Remember that miracle from last week? Well this week she gave us a reference. It was a friend who was also from Santa Rosa.  We met her and started talking...turns out she was listening to the elders three years ago and wanted to be baptized but her mom wouldn't let her. Now, she is studying in Cuenca and wants to start talking to the missionaries again. Well the next day we planned to review lesson one with her and her friend. We tried to get started with the lesson, but they started talking about baptism.  We were like bueno vamos entonces. We started trying to pick a date in December, but they were both really busy.  The friend (that we already knew) had to leave to take a test. After she left, the reference told us that she felt the need to get baptized that night (in dos horas folks).  She bore her testimony about the restored Gospel and the Book of Mormon. We knew she was ready.  We told her that we would get everything taken care of and she just need to show up church and have her interview and after would be the baptism.  Right after we left we called almost every single contact in our phone to get people to show up to this baptism and help fill up the font.  The church is farish from our sector and there was tons of traffic so we ended getting there thirty minutes before the baptism was supposed to start. We were the first. ones. there.  I ran to the font to get the water flowing. The font takes four+ hours to fill up people...we had thirty minutes.  Finally some members started to show up to help.  And we started filling up buckets with water the spigots outside and transferring that water to the font. The water was really cold...but it was either the font with coldish water or the river.  Everyone was doubting us but in the end she was baptized...practically had to lay down in the font for the low water level, but it all turned out good. It was one of the most spiritual (and stressful jaja) nights of the mission.  This girl is nineteen years old and has a powerful testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  As missionaries, our purpose is to help people come unto Christ through sacred ordinances, one of them being baptism.  When this girl told us that she felt the need to be baptized that night...it was super inconvenient and not very logical...but it didn't matter. We couldn´t let inconveniency impede in the desire of this young woman to draw closer to Jesus Christ.

Hermana Blazzard

Tengo Frio

Hola Everyone!
 Sorry I haven´t written in a long time! Quick Update.

 Transfers happened! I abandoned the coast and now I´m here in the Sierra in a city called Cuenca. It´s absolutely beautiful. My area is huge (I don´t know how I´m going to memorize it, but oh well). It includes parts of the countryside, super close to the mountains, and also the center of the city. The countryside is classic Ecuadorian culture and the city is kind of Europeish. It´s weird, but really awesome...and suuuuuper cold (well, maybe like 50-60 degrees but it feels like antarctica in comparison to santa rosa). Huge, beautiful catholic churches here too...jaja. My companion is Hermana Dahua from Peru. She is super awesome! She is also bien salada. Being together is kind of dangerous, but has made for some really funny moments.

 Milagro de hoy: My previous companion and I were teaching a family in Santa Rosa. They had a daughter who really wanted to learn more about God (investigadora de oro), but we could only teach on the weekends because she was studying in Cuenca hint hint. ya sabe. I didn´t get a chance to see her my last two weeks in Santa Rosa because she is suffering a little bit of anxiety and depression and didn´t want to travel. When I found out that I had transfers to Cuenca (they tell us in the bus terminal) I had a little tiny bit of hope that maybe I could find her. But then I arrived to Cuenca, and it´s a huge city and there are a lot sectors, so I knew the chances were slim. ya sabe! We found here today! We both screamed a bit when we saw each other. Her university and where she lives is super close to our apartment. Seriously, what are the chances?? A miracle folks, that is all.

 That´s all I have time for today! I will send pictures next week! (hopefully jaja)

 Hermana Blazzard

Cambio - Cuenca Ecuador

Hermana Blazzard has been transferred to Cuenca which is located at a higher elevation, more interior of Ecuador. The weather is cold and the people are more conservative.

barro y intercambios

Hola Everyone!

Quick story.  We had intercambios (exchanges) this week. I hopped on the bus and fled to a town called Pasaje for two days.  Super fun, learned toooonns.  Pero, one day we were in a little pueblo trying to find a reference.  It had rained a lot that day and we were walking (slipping/sliding) at snails pace in the super muddy path.  A older lady came up behind us laughing (of course, she was holding a baby wearing flip flops and walking gracefully). We started talking to her and found out that she was a member of the church. We wanted to visit her later in the week so she decided to show us how to get to her house. Luckily, her house was only about one hundred miles deep into the banana plants of Ecuador. After, she told us a "faster way" to get back to the pueblo. We followed her directions and walked for about three days in the middle of nowhere...I think we trekked into a bit of the Amazon. I was laughing because I was getting tired and my companion called the hermana that we were talking to "hermana arroz (rice)" on accident and it was so funny to me (the littlest things are funny on the mish). But the weird part is that about in the middle of this journey, all of a sudden, we heard the same ringtone of the cellphone from Jurassic Park...you know just before the giant dinosaur appears from the trees. My companion and I looked at each other and accepted the fact that maybe we were going to be missionaries for a lot longer than 18 months and we had just received our new calling to the spirit world.  All of this is an exaggeration of course and eventually we made it out alive...but I´m still confused and I just wanna know how in the world....jaja

But yeah that random story is all I´m going to write for this week...here´s a pic from our trek, (before I slipped in the mud and got it evvverrrywhere)

Buenas

Buenas Tardes!

I hope you all had a chance to watch General Conference...it was amaaazzing. Although there were talks of various topics, almost every single one focused in one way or another of how we need to obtain the correct understanding of the character of Christ, His Atonement, and His Gospel.  We listened to a lot of talks about love and service, and how Jesus Christ is the perfect example of both of those things. They talked about how to conquer the difficulties and trials of life, and how we can only obtain true peace through The Atonement. Finally, it was made apparent that we must learn and apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to obtain salvation, which is the life eternal in the presence of God, our Heavenly Father.

If you missed conference, here are some questions that can be answered by listening to the corresponding talks:

Why must we face hard things? 

How do I conquer fear?

What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

How can I feel closer Heavenly Father? 

How can I find true, long-lasting happiness?

Why must I forgive others?/How can I forgive others? 

When you feel like life isn´t fair/When we receive unexpected trails/How we can heal from those unexpected trials 

What does it mean to take upon the name of Christ? 

What is God´s Plan? 

These talks are really awesome, but if you really want to feel good just watch all eight hours jaja

That´s all for this week! Love you all and thanks for the support. I love the mission and I am thankful for all the embarrassing and hard experiences. "Experiences help us teach with authenticity." I am learning and growing a lot spiritually and mentally (and physically gracias al arroz) and discovering what matters most as everyday I focus on the bigger picture.

A scripture that I try to read every single day (Matthew 16:25):
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

- Hermana Blazzard

A Week of Whoops

Ahhhhh this week was interesting folks. 

- My new companion Hermana Manuyama is awesome! Super duper sweet and is very patient.  Good thing too, because our first day together, I took her to what I thought was going to be a family home evening with a member in the ward who has family that aren´t members.  Sorry nope. We show up and I´m really confused because there are a bunch of chairs set up and a tent thing and a bunch of people.  Five seconds later I realize it´s a memorial service for someone who passed away.  10 seconds later I realize its the members brother who passed the night before. I´m really confused because I called him that morning and he sounded really good and was excited for us to come and share a message.  I´m feeling super bad because we kind of just barged in.  But the member acts like it´s all normal and asks if we are ready to give the message.  So we did. And the people were nodding and saying amen and shouting out scriptures from the bible so yeah it went fine. 

- My new companion is already recognizing how unlucky I am. She dies laughing every time i step in the popo on the street.  She´s keeping a tally in her journal. 

- This weekend we had a bunch of conferences because we are transitioning from a district to a stake here in Santa Rosa. I had to play the piano for the Saturday conference.  We had a lot of people to visit on Saturday because we wanted to invite lots of people to the conference for the following day.  Right before we are about to head to the church, an investigator (of the elders) calls me and invites us to eat dinner with him and his family for his birthday. I felt superbad saying no because they prepared a dish (I cannot remember the name of it) specifically for me to try, so I told him we could stop by super quick. We rushed to his house and turns out it was a soup with fish and onion and bleh this one was hard to get down. For the most part the food is good here, but I just cannot handle onion...especially with fish.  But I did it because we were going to be late for the conference. My companion and I started to sprint to catch a taxi but then I felt the soup coming back up and my companion did too so we had to just walk fast. I was laughing so hard because we were in such a bad situation.  I told the cab driver to get us to the church fast (which is always a bad thing to do here because they already don´t give a rip about the traffic laws).  So we got to the church as the mission president wife was calling me..so we barged into the reverent chapel sweaty and dirty with "called to serve" blaring from my backpack (our ringtone).  whoops.  Lo siento.  And then I´m sitting at the piano and they announce the opening song as a different hymn than what I was told.  And I´m not very good at the piano. But everything was fine in the end and that investigator has a baptism date set for two weeks from now. 

Jaja and there are other stories too but that's all I have time for right now!

I hope you all have a good week!

Soy Viejita

Hola mis amigos!

Another transfer came and went here in Santa Rosa! I am technically no longer a new missionary as I have finished up my first twelve weeks....yikes. This morning I said chau to my trainer (que triste:() and hola to my new companion, Hermana Manuyama.  She is twenty-two years old and from Peru.  She is very petite and we are a funny sight to see when we are walking together in the streets.  jaja I can´t wait to get to know her better!

In my first few months here in the field, I´ve come to realize that I´m not only learning the language of Spanish, but also learning the language of the Spirit.  It does not matter how bad or how well I speak Spanish, if the spirit is not present, or if I´m not following it´s promptings, the person I´m teaching is not going to learn or feel anything.  It´s a process to learn how to follow its promptings and trust in the Lord.This process has required me to become more humble and submissive (and patient!!).  I´m grateful for these experiences that I´m having that are allowing me to draw closer to my Savior.

Alma 26:12

Until next time,

Hermana Blazzard

El Temblor

Hola Everyone! Sorry I haven´t written in awhile...it´s hard for me to remember everything that happened in the week and I only have like 5 seconds to write so it´s a mess. But here we go...

Still making a fool of myself in Spanish on the daily.  The progress is slow folks...very slow.  My accent is horrendous.  I cannot roll my "r"s to save my life. When walking in the calles, I always have to repeat "ra re ri ro ru" over and over again to practice.  Es una vaina but oh well.

Still having mini heart attacks everyday from those dang dogs.  I also step in their gifts they leave everywhere almost twice on the daily.  My companion says I´m really unlucky.  it´s a fact.

We had a earthquake this week! I think it´s the first time in my life I`ve ever felt an earthquake.  We felt it around 9:30pm one night while we were getting ready for bad. When our casita started to shake I was confused jaja I thought it was because a giant truck was going by until the other hermanas started yelling "temblor temblor!!!" We grabbed our emergency backpacks and bustled out the door, in pajamas, without shoes and looking like messes (not like representatives of Jesus Christ).  But the earthquake was small where we were at and there was no major damage.  So it´s all good. 

 - dad add -  https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us2000ha13#map

yeah, that´s all for this week.  The work here is progressing quickly and I`m grateful to be part of it.  We are actually going to have a stake here in Santa Rosa soon! It`s really exciting and busy at the same time.

Also, Ciao is italian. They spelt it Chau here. La plena. Lo siento.

Chau,

Hermana Blazzard

Days in Santa Rosa

Hermana Blazzard has written in the last few weeks only personal notes about the mission and mission life. They have had a baptism or two and are very excited over the progress of investigators and the members involvement. The Church is strong but still culturally hurdled in Ecuador, imo. This week she sent a clipping from her MTC days in Provo during the Mission Presidents Seminar meeting with Elder Cook.

https://www.lds.org/church/news/elder-cook-four-ways-missionaries-can-love-others-and-deepen-their-conversion?lang=eng 

1. Deepen gospel knowledge and understand principles.
2. Witness the hand of the Lord and receive spiritual promptings.
3. See the Savior's Atonement work in other lives
4. Act in a consecrated fashion.

fotos

Tamales Tamales

Quick email today.  (lol like always)

-Can someone tell me what tamales are? Every day there´s a guy that comes down our street on his bike at 6 in the morning...i repeat six. o. clock. in the morning honking his horn yelling ´´Tamales!´´ (excuse me, it´s  ´´¡Tamales!¨) over and over.  I may not know what tamales are, but I´m pretty sure it´s healthy to eat them that early in the morning. 

-Down here I´m known as Hermana Blassard, Hermana Blah, Hermana, blanca, guapa, bonita, muñeca, and even elder at times. 

Sorry don´t have time for more.  Haha but here´s a picture of me holding a bag of plátanos (I´ve probs eaten 5423544 plátanos during my first month in Ecuador)

Zone Conference

Platanos

Zona Santa Rosa Norte and Naranjas

Another week in the books down here in Zona Santa Rosa Norte.  I have just a couple quick things to mention this week.

We had a baptism for a sweet lady named Belgica last Saturday. She is the first person I ever taught way way back in the day that first night we arrived to the area.  She is incredibly humble and kind. Also, she never makes fun of my terrible Spanish so basically she´s the best. 

There´s a picture attached of an orange.  People here eat oranges by shaving off the outside of the peel and squeezing the juice out through the top. It´s completely illogical and messy. I´ve decided that the way people eat oranges just sums up a way of life down here in Ecuador.

Well, that´s it for now.  Life´s good for the most part...I´m just ¨patiently¨ waiting for my Spanish to improve.  Haha love you all!

-Hermana Blazzard

Rolling -n- Rice

Wow, all I can say is that the mission life is like a rollercoaster ride. One minute I´m high off the Spirit, walking the streets of Santa Rosa to the beat of the latin music (i mean jk jk I never ever listen to that wordly music), and then the next minute I am on the verge of tears because someones showving a another plate full of rice and onion in my face when my stomach is already about to explode.  But it´s all good fun.

Other random stuff:

- "Peace" is "paz" in spanish.  But "peace" in english sounds like the word for pee in spanish apparently. So you see where this is going.  Yeah I blessed someone to have pee in their life last week in a prayer.  I didn`t think I was going to be that gringa missionary, but yes I`m that gringa missionary. 

- How to eat a million pounds of rice a day: start by scouping it  into the giant bowl of soup that`s a "sidedish" Then just eat as fast as you possibly can so you can't feel how full your stomach is getting. Then pray for help. 

- Avocados are giant here.  We have an investigator that keeps giving them to me every single time we meet with him.  So my backpack is always full of avocados.  He also gave me two giant yellow things the other day.  The look and smell like giant lemons.  My companion keeps telling me they aren`t lemons and they are something else but I can`t remember the other name so they are lemons to me.  I wish I was hungry so I could eat this fruit but my belly is always full of rice and mystery meat so rip

- Our sector is made up a part of the city of Santa Rosa and a bunch of pueblecitos as far as a 30-minute busride away.  On the way to the farthest pueblecito, there is a lake.  There is a legend that a black figure that looks like a man snatches people that walk by the lake and drags them into it.  Also apparently the lake has no bottom.  My companion does not want to tract near this lake but I told her we have to. I mean, how could we not?  I`ll tell yàll how things go...or maybe not. 

Okay I don`t have any more time.  I love you all. CIao!

Hna Blazzard

Ether 12:27

Hola from Santa Rosa!

Hola Mis Amigos!

This week has actually been nuts!  Last week at this time I was sitting in an air-conditioned and clean building with other white people.  Now I'm currently sitting in a...not actually sure what it is...some sort of store I think...with people ar​gu​​ing right behind me in incomprehensible Spanish with matted hair somewhere in the middle of Ecuador.

My first couple of days in Ecuador were sllllooooowwww. ​ A​ll day Tuesday, me and the other newbies just waited around with the APs doing basically nothing.  We ate dinner at the President's house and had some quick training.  Wednesday morning we attended the temple. After the temple we waited around some more and then in the afternoon we finally met our trainers and got assigned to a sector.

My trainer is Hermana Rodriquez.  She is 22 years old and is from Bolivia. She is super nice and very pa​t​ient (which is extremely necessary with my terrible Spanish).  She does not speak English.  She does not understand English.  Thus, communication is very difficult. However, she has a good sense of humor and we've had some good laughs.  I don't really know much else about her, I´ll let ya'll know in a couple months after ​I​ learn a few more words.  But I do know that this is going to be the last area of her mission.  Which mean I'm going to kill her. (Mission slang...it just means I am her last companion before she goes back home)

Our sector is Santa Rosa Rama 2.  Santa Rosa is about 4 hours in a bus from Guayaquil.   I live in an apartment with Hermana Rodriguez and another companionship.  Guess who's in the other companionship?? Hermana Hales! She just can't get rid of me.

Right after I dropped my stuff off at the apartment, my companion and I went straight to an appointment with an investigator. I didn​'​t understand ​a ​word of that entire lesson.  My companion had me bear my testimony in Spanish and pray.  I guess it went fine.  Every lesson since then my companion has been making me say more and more.  Yeesh it's been rough.  I have to concentrate extremely hard on what the person is saying just to understand a few words.  Then I just have to guess what the conversation is about and pray that what I say has any sort of ​relevance​ to the lesson.

Now I can almost understand everything my companion says because I´ve gotten used to the way she talks (she rolls her 'r's like a madwoman).  But with other people it​'​s 50/50.  Some people I can kind of understand, others I can't comprehend a single word.  My head hurts all the time.

Music is always blasting here.  Dogs are always barking (btw I still hate dogs...I've had approximately 500 heart attacks already here with dogs running at me). The air is always wet.  Need a drink? Just take in a big gulp of air. People are always yelling.  Roosters are always...can't remember what its called...but that thing they do every morning. ​ ​I didn't sleep at all the first two nights...but then Hermana Hales gave me some ear plugs (bless her soul) and now it's fine.  But it's all good fun!  haha

Also, I'm now basically the designated sacrament meeting pianist. No one knows how to play piano here and when my companion found out I could, she volunteered me to play during church. It was extremely difficult, because the people in our branch sing extremely loud, very off​-​key, and very fast. I had to focus so hard to keep the right tempo...I think I'm going to bring my ear plugs to church next Sunday.  I think I have to give piano lessons later too.  I definitely don't know how to teach piano, but I'll just pretend like I know what I'm doing...that's kind of how I've been living life lately.

There's tons more I could write, but I don't have much time right now. Just know that I'm doing fine and the Church is still true! haha I love you all!!