sista b: I haven´t ever been this happy in my life :) :) :) Lotsa pics

Well howdy.

So we had cambios (transfers) last night and guessssssssssssss who is going to TRAIN and OPEN A BRAND NEW AREA!?! Did you guess Hermana Bowman!? Because you are correctomundo! :) I am so stoked. Yay! I´m not exactly sure what to do to open a new area, but I am so very willing and I will do absolutely everything I can! I'm excited to learn, woooo. It´s in the same zone as my old sector, Peguche. So I´m still a part of Zona Imbabura (yay).

Me in front of our majestic church building, it´s WAY NICE. Like creme de la creme. Like, la mamaaaaa de las cappillas (chapels). (And a dog in the background...)

My new area is called QUINCHUQUI! (pronounced keen-chew-key) I know that we will see miracles this cambio. I am very excited. It´s real crazy because apparently in this mish people don´t train or open an area so young (3 months and 4 days old, heh, I am a baby) but I guess that Presidente and the Lord have a lot of trust in me! I get to be the jefe (boss), as Elder Bowman says, lololllllllll.

ceviche!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I realized that once you say you´re ¨in love with your area and please please please Presidente, don´t change me!¨ Then he will change you -- hahaha. But, I am so excited, y'all. :)

Our sweet shirt I designed for the zona.

So, our President introduced something we are doing as a mission these next few months. It´s called ¨El fe de febrero trae el Milagro de marzo¨ aka, the Faith in February will bring the Miracles in March. So basically we are sacrificing a ton of stuff in our day to day lives, and we have an even stricter study schedule, we can only listen to MoTab (Mormon Tabernacle Choir), and we can´t have any activities with our zona (zone). They did it last year and had a toooooon of success. We´ve been doing it for like a week and HOLY COW the results are incredible. I'm like 89349034 times more focused on the work and have been able to feel the Spirit even stronger. It´s totally inspired. We have like 9 baptisms scheduled for this next week. (In Peguche, my old area, awwwww.)

Speaking of baptisms! We had a baptism in a river! It was suuuuuuuuuch a cool experience. Richard´s Dad was supposed to baptize him but he straight up didn´t show up. So that was challenge number 1. Then, the baptismal font drained itself (because the drain is ghetto and doesn´t work and we had put rocks to stop the drain), challenge number 2. Then, there wasn´t any water, (typical Peguche Probs, the water goes out a lot), challenge number 3. But nooooooooooothing could stop us! I was like, ¨Why don´t we just baptize him in a river!?¨

RICHARD Q. at his bautismo (baptism) :) cutie

So we called the assistants and they gave us permission. We had a super special, spiritual baptism in the river down the street from the chapel. It was perfect. I spoke about baptism, and how Christ was baptized in a very similar setting. Richard was sooo happy and so excited. The birds were chirping and we were in nature next to a corn field and could see the chapel´s steeple in the distance; it was picturesque. But even better than the scenery, was the Spirit there.

Me with Richard, Stanley, and Fernanda

Awwww, and the next day, he was walking to church all by himself! (His family showed up way later) But it really showed how committed he is. I am so thankful for blessings and miracles like those.

It was cool to see an article in the Liahona magazine this month by Brother Mark Ogletree! https://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/02/young-adults/speak-listen-and-love?lang=eng&cid=email-shared McKinney repppinnnnn. Wut wut. It´s a reaalllly good article on communication between spouses. Spous-i? Whats the plural form? I cannot speak my native tongue anymore, hahah. But instead of getting trunky for my future husband, I shall apply it to communication with my compañera (companion). :) Communication is key, y'all.

James is such a good book in the bible. I loove studying with the footnotes. It´s so fun to do a scripture train. THE SCRIPTURES ARE SO COOL. I love them so much.

We taught primary this week (the 7 year-olds) because Hermana Campo´s brother-in-law passed away and she needed teachers at literally the last minute. She grabbed us in the hallway and we totally agreed to help. I LOVE KIDS SO MUCH; they are so awesome. We talked about choosing the right. CTR woo.

Cori, Caya, and me with quinoa from their backyard. (Like my cousin Elena´s quinoa salad! And Meryl made some one time too. Delicious.)

It was a really good week. There are so many miracles that happen. I wish I could just scan my entire journal and email it to y'all. I love being a missionary -- it is my favorite. I haven´t ever been this happy in my life :) :) :)