Staying on Top

Woo! Sorry guys, I´m still alive and kicking, I swear! Can I just say that this has been incredible? I have learned so much in my time here. Every day I learn something new! I am staying really busy, even when I´m not at work, due to the many committees I am on. Everything is super organized here; there´s a food committee, a housing committee, an activities committee, and a communications committee! And then there are site leaders for the different places we volunteer. I am grateful for planners; mine put my life back into order! In fact, I think that here I am more organized than I was back at home. Crazy! Hmm. ¿Que más? I went ziplining and learned to have a spirit of adventure! I think that Life´s Little Book of Instructions is the best thing ever! I am drawing a self-portrait of myself! I eat monkey brains and caterpillar bread! It is surprisingly cold for a country located on the equator! It rains every day! I haven´t been sick for a week! My birthday is in a week! I get to Skype with my mama tomorrow morning! I´m wearing a llama jacket right now! Okay, enough, enough. haha. Life is just beautiful, that´s all. Some day I will put pictures up...it takes a very very long time. haha. I love these kids.

Do Something That Scares You Every Day

Today that scary thing was getting pink eye. I know, I am brave! haha. I could use any spare prayers you have floating around so I can pull my weight again!

Well, I have not updated this thing in a while! I am definitely feeling at home here now. I love the children. I now am specializing with a group of special needs kids aged 3-5. And I love them. They are my babies!

A lot of my time here has been thinking about motherhood. Right now is really just the time to practice and experiment. Before I came, I was a pushover with children. They could walk all over me! Now though, I have learned to be kind and firm. The children respect me more for it. I´m having difficulty finding a balance now though. Where is the line between letting kids be kids and being a drill sargeant? One of my least favorite things to see is a child being told no to pretty much everything they do. If my childhood had been that way, I would have turned out a lot different!

In other news, conference was this weekend and I got to watch a few sessions when I was off! Hopefully I can catch up on the rest later today. I feel like the theme of conference was service. So many people talked about serving the poor! I have heard it repeated again and again to serve everyone around me, and that is what I will be focusing on more. The children definitely need love, and so do the volunteers! I hope to be there for my brothers and sisters in the work, because they are the best this world has got. :)

Watch conference here!

Too Much Fun

Okay, okay. Favorite moment of the day: my friends and I were in our Spanish class and the teacher asked, "¿Cuando vamos al mercado?" ("When do you go to the market?"), to which my friend replied "¡El huevos!" - which was hilarious to me because she just told him "Eggs!" instead of "Thursday!" Oh man. :)

Every day I work with the kids, I feel the Spirit. It is the best feeling. It reminds me of when I went to the Oquirrh Mountain open house; the Spirit was so sweet there. And it is the exact same here. It comes in little waves, and I love it!

Best shift ever yesterday! I was working with the babies again (my favorites). There is one little stinkpot who says "No!" every time he sees me. So I decided that every time he did I would respond with "Te amo!" and a hug and a kiss. It was a beautiful thing. :) My reward: when I was leaving shift, I asked him for a hug when he was in his crib, and he ran and hugged me through the bars! That made my entire day. :)

Sweet Mother of Pearl

Holy cow. These kids teach me so much without even knowing it! We went back up to the daycare in the mountains a few days ago, and man, oh man! The view was amazing. Some day I will post pictures. :) I learned a super important lesson from one of the kids. I just decided to grab him and sit him on my lap, and I realized that he loved it! It was such an eye opener to me of something I wish I had learned long ago: we do not have to wait until others love us to love them. I felt so much more connected to the kids after that, and I think they felt it too, because they were climbing all over me! Later that day I got to work a shift with los bebés pequeñitos, and wow. They need to feel a sense of security at this young stage in their lives, and it was beautiful to just sit and hold them for a while. I just kissed them all over and held them close and loved every second! I think God made babies soft and small and cute for a reason. haha

I am getting more settled in every day. I have been here for about two and a half weeks, and I love it! Rex Head, the director of OSSO, came here yesterday. Mama sent a package with him! I was SO happy. And I´m not even a missionary! Yet. haha

The Spirit

I love this gospel. I love the feelings I get when I feel the sweet spirit of the Church. It is true. And it is great to have internet connection and be able to watch CES firesides even in Ecuador! Watch Elder L. Tom Perry´s talk. Actually, watch all of them!

Por Favor

Okay, today was awesome! We went up into the countryside and played with mixed corn starch and water for an hour with some kids! It was the most beautiful countryside ever! I seriously did not believe that it is real life. I am so lucky!

¡Estoy Aquí!

First off, ¿cómo estas? You like the accent marks? Courtesy of a Spanish keyboard. I am having trouble finding the question mark? haha

Welp, I am officially in Ecuador! The flights were awesome, I did not have an ounce of fear or worry the entire time, even when our flight was delayed in Quito for five hours. God answers sincere prayers. :) I flew from Salt Lake (meeting a dad and his son at the airport at 4:20 am) to Dallas to Miami to Quito! Mi favorita was the sunrise on the Salt Lake flight - have you ever been above the clouds, looking at them turn gold and pink with the sunrise? EXquisite! My other favorite was landing in Quito. It was late at night and so all the street lights were lit up and I could see that they were rising with the hills of Quito! So cool. Once we landed in Quito we went through customs where I got to wrangle my three heavy "suitcase children" (as I call them) through security. haha. For the record, I feel like most of that poundage was from peanut butter and cheddar cheese. They don´t have it here and it was pretty much the first thing on the packing list. haha. Oh, and also books. I brought like fifteen. They are my solace! That night we stayed in Quito and it was grate(d cheese). I loved the first bus ride; everything was so new and exciting! And it probably should had been scary, but I am naïve. And I feel like since God called me here He will look out for me. :) The next morning...turned afternoon...we got on a plane to Cuenca! We met our people there and got taken to the house in Cuenca where the other volunteers pretty much thronged us and took our bags! And stole our passports and dentures! haha. Just kidding. It was great. We got shown around the house (actually two connected five-story houses) and met our awesome new surrogate parents, a cute Ecuadorian couple! They are so cool! I got settled in to my room and met my roommates, unpacked, and wrote in my journal a few goals I have while I´m here. One being waking up every morning to do a little devotional (a spiritual vitamin for the day, if you will) before I go to work with los niños. Ay, ¡los niños! Qué preciosos. Me encantan los already. Today (my second morning on a completely different continent, mind you) was my first day working con los niños! I work two shifts a day. The one in the morning goes from 7 til 12, then we have a 2-hour break to come home and eat, and then we go back out from 2 until 6! The spirit in the orphanages is awesome. Which is to be expected when you are surrounded by the best spirits on Earth. They are so loving! The place where I worked this morning has my favorite kids already, I´m convinced. One part of the shift we got to out with them and just play for about an hour, and while we were out there I caught a glimpse of myself in the window holding one of los niños. If it´s true that the Spirit makes us beautiful, then that´s what I saw. I was taken back a bit to see the spirit that shone through my face. Definitely the light of Christ. I looked so happy with a little niño on my hip, and it seriously would have been one of my most treasured pictures of my life. These kids are so willing to love, and so am I. Who couldn´t? I am so happy just being able to have little baby on my hip or feed sopa to a little kid or kiss a toddler on the head. (All of which I have done here already! What a privilege!) I have never seen this side of myself, because I have never really had a chance to! This is seriously life-changing already, to see that I do have the ability to nurture, and that I LOVE doing it. And it is grate(d cheese) to be able to share it with fifteen other volunteers. I hope I get to know them better and become really good friends with them. :)

I feel like I have had more life experience in these last 48 hours than in many years of my life. haha. It is incredible how quickly life can change. :)

P.S. I changed the first diaper of my life today! Alright! :D

I Love Babies!

Can I just say that there are not many things better than getting a group hug from the coolest little kids this world has seen?

This song totally describes this fast-approaching trip. It's called "While We're Young" and it makes Mama and me cry. :)

I haven't had a lot of experience with little kids, but I still love them! They are all precious, and I see such potential in all of them! They are the greatest examples of Christlike love that we have in this world. No wonder Christ told the children to come unto Him; they are so alike. In fact, I could sure learn a lot faster how to be Christlike if I just walked into primary! haha

I hope to be called childlike someday, because they are the greatest. No contest. :)

I am so lucky! :D

Dos Semanas

Can I say that I can't feel my feet? The blood stopped flowing to them when I looked over my itinerary! This is so crazy! I'm actually doing this!

The scary part: I am flying from Salt Lake to Dallas and from Dallas to Miami by myself. I'm a pilot's daughter! I can do this! haha. Maybe Dad can pretend to fly for American Airlines for a day...haha

The good news! I'm flying with three other OSSO girls from Miami to Quito, and the flight is only four hours long! Woot!

Ahh, the details make this so real. I am grateful that OSSO is SO incredibly organized. :) On the itinerary they have listed pretty much anything that could go wrong and what to do if it happens, along with several numbers of calm adults. :)

The other good news! Tonight at a Personal Progress recognition dinner, I met a family whose daughter worked in Cuenca with OSSO! And they said that the phone lines are open every night. Which I will definitely be needing the first week I'm here. haha

Phew. I needed to type out those thoughts. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do when stress builds up in your life? I'm sure it will, and since there are no private places to scream out the frustration, something else will have to do. haha. Exercise has worked for me at college; hopefully I will have the energy and running buddies to make it happen! :D

Hasta luego!

palabra del día: fe (faith) What I will be practicing very soon, if not starting now. :)

Tres Semanas

Donations are still coming in! Thank you everyone!

You are still very welcome to donate to OSSO as the children are in the need of specific supplies! I will have a hand in getting those supplies when I get there - cool, huh? Information for making donations can be found at http://www.orphanagesupport.org/donors.html.

Other updates: I have been sent an OSSO sweatshirt, which means I am official! haha. Other good news! I learned how to make an authentic Ecuadorian soup called locro. It is super good, like creamy potato soup - and easy too! Here's the recipe:

4 Tbsp butter
1 tsp sweet paprika
4 cups water
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 lb potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
1/2 lb cheddar cheese, grated
salt

Heat the butter in a large pot and then add the paprika whilst stirring. Saute the onion the butter. Add water, boil. Put the potatoes in (the smaller they are, the quicker they will cook) and reduce heat, allowing the potatoes to simmer uncovered, stirring every now and then. (At this point I use a "potato masha" to break up the potatoes more.) Just before the potatoes are cooked through, add the milk and cream, stirring occasionally until the potatoes start to break up. Add the cheese and salt to taste, stir it up, and enjoy!

My philosophy is that if something doesn't taste good it just needs more butter, sugar, or salt. Luckily locro is delicious already. haha

Also, I have been learning Spanish. Although I've taken five years of Spanish classes, I am sure that I am still considered a gringa language-wise. But! I do know how to say slobber: las babas. That will be very helpful. :) And I bought un Libro de Mormón! Exciting. :)

Ecuador is coming up quick! I'm so excited!

Palabra del día: la tiza (chalk)

Halfway There!

Total donations so far from family and friends in my community and around the world is 2000 dollars! Thank you all so much for your support! I hope I can pass on the kindness you have extended to los bebes preciosos de Ecuador. :)