Hermana Moriah Lee Gamble: Quito Ecuador Mission: December 26th: My First Week!!

Oh my goodness where do I even begin!

Day 1:

EXHAUSTING!!! literally the longest day of my life... we had a bunch of orientations and meetings and a CHASTITY lesson out of nowhere. We met our Spanish teachers who literally don´t speak a LICK of English and needless to say..... I was stressed, sad, lonely, and tired. I have never wanted to go back home more in my life! My casa mates asked me about my family and I couldn´t even get ´´I have 2 brothers´´ out with out totally losing it. But I made it to bed time and just tried to keep on truckin´.

Day 2:

This was probably the hardest day in terms of ´´wanting to go home-ness´´ I had a small melt down after our long day of more meetings and teaching our first investigator and hearing everyone speak a language that I CLEARLY don´t understand. But lucky for me I have very thoughtful people around me to help me by sharing scriptures and writing me encouraging notes and just being loving.

Day 3:

We met our branch president after another Chastity lesson and teaching our investigator! We have THE greatest zone in the who CCM. That´s one thing i know for sure! I had a little interview with him where he asked me about my family and I got to ´´Well I´ve got 2 brothers..´´ before I TOTALLY lost it and started crying again... so that´s an improvement!!

Day 4:

That day was basically the best! It was Sunday and I didn´t need to worry about teaching ANYONE especially in Spanish! We just had a little Christmas themed RS lesson lead by Hermana Pratt (President Pratts Wife and RS President) Then we had a Zone Sacrament meeting which was in Spanish so I just sat there and smiled. But it´s okay because I just love our Zone. We had a devotional that night from a man who is in a bishopric just outside of the CCM and HE´S FROM OREM! LIKE NORTH OREM! LIKE NORTHRIDGE 4th WARD! HE WENT TO OAK CANYON AND TIMPANOGOS THE FIRST YEAR IT WAS OPEN SO I WOUNDER IF STEVE KNOWS HIM! GAHH I WAS SO EXCITED! His name is Elder Kates...Gates? Grapes? jk I´m Pretty sure it´s Elder Kates.

Days 5&6:

Pretty much twinner days, wake up, eat, read, study, preach, eat, preach, eat, sleep!!

Day 7: CHRISTMAS!

It was SO fun to have Christmas here! All of my casa mates and I woke up really early, like 5am and opened the presents that our parents had sent us with us and had a BALL because one of my roommates Hermana Blau´s mom sent her with four stockings just CHUCK full of candy and AWESOMENESS! I don´t think I´ve ever loved anyone that I have never met more than I love Hermana Blau´s Mom. We had a breakfast provided by Costco because the workers were all on Vaca for the holidays so it was COSTCO MUFFINS FOR US! yahoo!! same with dinner and Lunch we had turkey sandwiches and Tyson chicken and CHOCOLATE CAKE!! needless to say it was a good day! I could have very well been the best day of my life EXECPT for one thing... only 5 of the Christmas hymns and 3 of the Christmas children songs are translated into Spanish...and Presidente Pratt REALLY likes us to sing...so we sang those songs like...14 times each. AND THE FUNNY THING IS I´M NOT EVEN KIDDING ONE BIT!!! but ya Felize Navidad.

Then comes today! day 8:

We went to the temple this morning! IT WAS AMAZING! I got these little head phones so that I could listen to it in English which was really nice! then we went around the temple and took a bunch of pictures and then a ton of us went to this cute little store like RIGHT there and got to buy these SICK scripture cases and they´re just really cool and I got a HLJ bracelet which is like the Spanish equivalent of CTR. I dunno it was pretty chill I guess! I just finished cleaning our casa and after this I´m going to play FRISSBEEEE! yay!

The first few days were really rough but as I became better friends with more people I´m really starting to enjoy myself which is REALLY nice!

Alright! so now for some Descriptions of my Peeps!:

Our Zone Leaders Elder Forest, Elder Jepson and Elder Johannson (trio) are THE BOMB! They are SO funny and friendly and they helped me feel really at home so that's nice of them :)

A member of the other district, Elder Mckenzie, brought a Frisbee so we play a HUGE game of Ultimate Frisbee every day during Gym time! It basically rocks. but yeah he´s pretty cool except for we have this war waging between us where we have to secretly steel the others stuff and then we have to get it back somehow...He currently has my watch...but that´s okay because I stole his water bottle this morning muahahaha! ;)

My District leader, Elder Shank is pretty cool! he´s always making sure that we´re on task and loving to everyone :)

There´s an Elder in my District who is LOGAN! they look sorta alike but what really freaks me out is that they ACT EXACTLY THE SAME!!! If Logan was from Nampa, ID and liked to wear Converse All Stars...he would be Elder Harrison.

Mi Companero es Hermana Jones. Although she may be all of my pet-peeves rolled into ONE human being. I love her! we are SO opposite. and I mean SO opposite. but we teach well together and we always ending smiling and laughing together too so that´s nice!

My roommates, Hermana Blau and Hermana Dunne are pretty sweet too! Hermana Dunne and I get along really well and i haven´t really had time to spend much with Hermana Blau but she´s supper sweet and smiley which brightens my day! :)

My FAVORITE Hermana here is Hermana Miller, She´s in the other district that´s in our Zone but I LOVE HER! She´s a lot like Sami and she REALLY makes me feel like I´m at home! She´s been such a good friend to me and we just Joke around ALL the time and it´s the best!

And this Email is long enough so I´ll send my pictures in another one.

Live long and Prosper!

-Hermana Gamble!