Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Taylor for the letter. I got it today.

Life is crazy, but so good. I think I have never really talked about my apartment here in the beautiful city of Ibarra. So let me tell you a little bit about it. The missionaries had been living there for like 9 years. It is two stories with like a terrace roof thingy. It has a great view from the kitchen and every single parade passes in front. When I got there the roof on the terrace fell down because all of the wood has termites. It is over a restaurant that we never eat at. Why? Because they have rats, cockroaches, ants, and it’s an all around hole. The apartment was also the home of many large spiders. Also the stairs were like a death trap. Remember when I fell? All that explained and now that you all might be worried I’ll tell you the good news. We moved today. Hermana Leslie and Hermana Meza and our other Ecua-moms that take good care of us encouraged us to look for a new apartment. So we now live in a very nice pestilence free apartment next to Elder and Sister Leslie, a missionary couple that serve here too. We have been moving and cleaning all day. That is why I am writing so late in the day.

We also had to go to Quito again for me to get some papers taken care of before leaving the country. Can you believe that the same Jean Claude Van Dumb movie played on the bus on the way home? How silly. I slept because the seats were more comfortable this time and we had gotten up at 2:30 in the morning to be in Quito at 6:00 AM. But everything worked out and all of my papers are in order.

It is really hard for me to believe that I will soon be leaving all of this behind. I am sad to leave but excited to see everyone again. I hope you are patient with me if I can’t speak English correctly.

This time for me has been more than amazing. Anyone who wants to is welcome to see pictures and hear stories when I get home.

I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all of your love, support, thoughts, letters, and prayers. See you in like two weeks. Call me on or around November 14th! Phone number # 925-###-####.

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Jones!

First of all, thank you to Katie, Denise, Laura, and Analiesa for the letters. I love mail. Also thank you Sarah, Alicia, Brooke, and Lauren for the emails.

This last week I went to Quito. There was a Jean Claude Van Dumb movie playing on the way back to Ibarra. How silly. I mostly ignored it.

We are working hard to find 30 new people every week. I don’t know why but some weeks it is harder than others.

We are teaching a lot of great people that are progressing so it limits our time to find more every week, but when we pray for help, our prayers are always answered.

Hermana Davis and I get along really well and help each other improve. I have really loved all of the people that I have been able to serve and serve with.

I have a lot of reflections but I think I might be able to end my mission with out getting too cheesy. I will save that for when we are in person.

I love you all and truly appreciate all of you love and support!

Love,

Hermana Jones

How are you? I am still doing very well in Ecuador. Yesterday was my 18th month mark as a missionary. Rainy season has also started again. I am debating whether I should buy a new umbrella for just three weeks, but in the meantime I am getting soaked.

It has been a good week. The presidential elections are tomorrow so we can’t go out at all in case there are some uprisings in the streets. We will just go to sacrament meeting and then come straight home.

I am trying to think of any adventures we have had lately. We found a new part of our sector that I had never been to. We also took the wrong bus and ended up way far out of our sector and had to ride the whole loop. Whoops. We are working with a few people that will be getting baptized on October 28th. They are so excited about learning. Sandra sings, prays, and reads her scriptures every day by herself. I love seeing how the gospel changes people lives. It has and continues to change mine.

A lot of people lately have been asking us why God lets bad things happen to good people. We almost always read in Alma 14 and 2 Nephi 2 with them. I think every trial we have is something sacred from the Lord that helps us grow and rely more on Him if we let it. I have learned more about some people and their lives than I thought I ever would. But as I have testified of the power of the Atonement to make all things right I have felt the Spirit witness that it is true. And that more than anything has changed my heart. I am so grateful for my understanding of the Plan of Salvation. It puts everything in to perspective.

I love you all! Thank you for your continued love, support, and prayers.

Love, Hermana Jones

How are you? I am doing well. Thank you Chelsey and Lauren for the e-mails. I always love to hear from you!

Today we went to the “Plaza de los Ponchos” in Otavalo. It was good times. I bought a blanket and some other fun stuff. We saw and met people from all over the world. One guy was selling didgeridoos and he was playing one. It was cool.

This week was pretty normal. We had interviews with President on Wednesday and Zone Conference on Thursday. They always make those going home give their “last testimony” There was only two of us. I talked about my testimony of the joy the gospel brings. I also commented on the fact that before my mission I had a testimony in English and now I have one in Spanish too.

We are teaching some really amazing families. I love this place. I enjoyed conference too.

I don’t have much else to write about for now. I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Jones

How are you? Thank you Laura for the letter and Elida for the Disneyland postcard. Also thanks to Isabel for the email.

I am happy and healthy in Ecuador. I am still in Ibarra but that might change on Wednesday because transfers are coming up.

In reply to a request I should let you know that I will be home on November 13th at night. I really can’t believe it and it doesn’t seem real how time has flown by here in Ecuador. I once described it as a blur in slow motion. What ever it is, it is coming to an end and that’s just craziness.

English class was fun this week. I brought everyone pictures cut out of old Ensigns and they had to describe what was going on the pictures in English. Some students have a really good imagination.

We are teaching a lot of families that come to church every Sunday and love it but have lots of things impeding them from getting baptized. One family has to get married, another wants to wait until their youngest daughter turns 8 in November. You know things like that.

The people here teach me so much everyday. I love meeting new people. We probably talk to between 15 – 40 people everyday, depending on how many citas we already have planned and how much we go out of our way to talk to people in the street. The other day I tried to talk to some women and I stuck out my hand to shake theirs and they wouldn’t but they did end up talking to us and we now have a cita to go back. Funny how quickly someone’s attitude can change.

Last night we had a talent show. It was really fun and funny. The primary in one of the branches acted out when Moses came down and saw the Israelites dancing and worshipping the golden calf. They made their own golden calf but it looked more like a golden cuy (guinea pig). My companion and I did mormoncita which is when I do the arms and try to get ready for the day and end up putting make-up and food, etc. all over my companions face. I couldn’t see but everyone was laughing pretty hard. Do you remember when we did that in 8th grade Laura? There where many other choice acts and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I love being a missionary!

I love you!

Love,

Hermana Jones

P.S. You should probably write me some letters soon if you want me to get them before I go home. Nudge, Nudge. Wink, Wink.

First off, thank you Katie, for the letter. Also Lauren and Jamie, I loved the pictures!! How cute you little mommies are! Congratulations April! I got your wedding announcement.

This week I will start off with a good and also very true story.

Yesterday we went to Zuleta again. It takes an hour to get there in bus and it is one of the most beautiful drives I have ever seen. But once we are there, catching the bus home is a little bit of a timing challenge. We don’t really know how often it passes or what the schedule is. So, we were sitting on the ground teaching Laura, a native woman, who was embroidering, surrounded by her piglets, chickens, mangy dog, cute puppies, and the two youngest of her 12 children when we heard the bus honking. We needed to be back for a cita in Ibarra so we ended with a prayer and started running down the hill. Now really, what looks funnier than two giant gringas in dresses running down a huge hill to catch the bus? Anyway, after the 7 minutes of running down the hill we saw end of the bus and realized that we had missed it. Once at the bottom we asked around to find out when the next bus would be leaving. They told us 30 minutes which really means an hour. So that’s when we started to pray. We jokingly asked God to send cows. Cows to block the road and stop the bus until we could catch up to it and then we started speed walking. You know “get on your knees and pray and then get on your feet and go to work” After several minutes of walking we kind of gave up on the cow idea. We met another nice native woman and chatted with her for a bit. As we were walking and talking an atypical bus for that area passed that was empty apparently it wasn’t carrying passengers, but we asked for a ride to Ibarra and they accepted. About 10 minutes into our trip the bus slowed to a halt and to our surprise we looked out the windows and saw surrounding us a huge herd of cows. At least 30. We both just started laughing. I know it wasn’t a coincidence and I am pretty sure that God has a sense of humor. We got through the cows and because our bus wasn’t carrying or picking up any other passengers we got home in half the time of the bus we missed. We even passed on the way.

English class was also a bit of an adventure. I was trying to explain about adjectives that end in –ed and –ing. I think I confused everyone…a lot. My English really has deteriorated and my Spanish isn’t much better. English words still pop out when I am speaking Spanish and Spanish ones when I am speaking English.

We set up a branch mission plan with our branch president and the other leaders on Wednesday. I think it will give us good results. Everything is so good! Do I say that too much? If I had to describe the mission in one word it would be, HAPPY. I love you all and miss you!

Love,

Hermana Jones

Today we had quite an adventure. We went to the volcano Cayambe and climbed up to the top. We are talking around 15,000 feet above sea level here. It was snowing a little bit and there was plenty of snow on the top. The climb wasn’t too bad except for the lack of oxygen at that altitude. It was so amazingly beautiful! I took lots of pictures but I am sure they will not do it justice. We went with our whole zone. That is why I am writing so late this after noon.

This week is the Fiestas de Ibarra, which just means that everyone is celebrating. Yesterday there was a parade that started at 3:30 PM and didn’t end until around 8 PM. Everyone and their dog was watching it so we had a hard time catching people at home. But we did find one family that decided not to go. They are excited for us to come back.

Also yesterday we went to a new part of our sector that I had never been to. It is called Zuleta and it is an hour from our house. We saw that there are a few families on our ward list that live out there that don’t come any more so we went to look for them. Really we know that God blessed us because the addresses said things like “left at the stadium, up the street, second house”. We found that house in the first knock. The son of the member happened to be sitting next to my companion for the hour long bus ride. They let us in and we had an amazing cita. Then we started looking for the other family and couldn’t find the house so we had to start asking for the person by name. We talked to two women who knew the person. As we stopped to talk to the second one she said, “that’s her right there” and pointed about 10 feet in front of us. We had been walking next to this woman for like 10 minutes looking for her house and there she was. She then invited us to her house and we realized that we never would have found it according to the address we had written down. We also met some other really cool people there that are interested in learning. It was a good trip. There is no such thing as a coincidence.

Everyday is so amazing and I feel so blessed for the privilege I have to serve the Lord and the people here in Ecuador that I love so much. I love you all!

Love, Hermana Jones

Happy September! Is everyone in school again? Thank you to Katie, Laura, Denise, Chelsey, Britney, and Kim for the letters and birthday wishes.

This week I was contemplating the eternal springtime climate of Ecuador. Everyday the weather is exactly the same. I mean yes sometimes it rains but really it is pretty much the same. It is hard for me to imagine your summer turning into fall. I think I will have climate shock coming home in November and not seeing green everywhere.

This week was a normal one. Today we ate a bunch of Colombian food that some members prepared for us. I learned how to make arepas which are a little bit like tortillas but not really. I’ll make them for you someday.

We have a lot of students attending our English class. I was helping them pronounce differently the b and the v so that they don’t say things like, “this is a bery good class.” It was good times. We have been getting a lot of references from our class. We have almost 20 students and maybe 2 are members. We taught one named Edison. He used to be and atheist but had a serious accident and lost his hearing and part of his vision. He also had to relearn to walk, eat, etc. So he shared with us some interesting experiences he had. He said that he died and saw the other side and what not. Now he believes in God and is looking for the truth. His hearing has come back a little but we still have to teach him practically yelling for him to hear. So much for a still small voice. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he is excited to read it.

What else? Life is so good. I am trying to soak up every minutes of this. I don’t want to waste any of this precious time. It is flying by at hyper speeds. Sometimes I think I can see the white lines flying by like in star trek when they put it into hyper gear or what ever.

I love my Savior Jesus Christ. I know He lives. I know He restored His church to the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith. What joy to know these things!

I love you all and miss you!

Love,

Hermana Jones

How are you? Thank you Brooke, Carole, Grandma and Grandpa, Cathi, and Isabel for the birthday wishes. It is so good to hear from you.

On to the news in the Mission Quito, Ecuador. Today we were walking down the street waiting to catch a bus and it just felt so much like home to me here. I just know every corner of this city and it has become so familiar. It will be weird to have to re-adjust to what used to be home.

My birthday went well. We have a district meeting every Monday and we usually eat as a zone afterwards. Everyone sang me happy birthday in the restaurant. Later that night we had a Family Home Evening with Edwin and Geomara, some of our good member friends that always give us references. They made us arepas. Mmmmm. Also some Colombian hot chocolate.

This week we had zone conference and they always sing Happy Birthday to everyone that has their birthday that month. So my birthday got stretched out a little bit. It is crazy to think that I am 23 and living in Ibarra, Ecuador. But on the other hand it just feels right.

My new companion is so funny. She is the first person I have ever met that is as blunt as me. We have a lot in common and we are both commited to working hard.

Tonight we have two people getting baptized. George, and Yajaira. They are excited. Yajaira thought she was already baptized when she was 8 but as it turns out she never was. She is now 17. George is 21 and wants to serve a mission in a year. I think his name is really Jorge but he likes us to call him George.

Our toilet broke today. My companion was mopping in the bathroom and hit the hose that sends water into the tank and it just broke off. That wouldn’t be that big of a problem but the part where you turn of the water was missing the handle and once we finally found a wrench it wouldn’t turn off because it seems to be broken too. So we had to turn of the water to our whole apartment. We are going to look for a plumber to fix it.

I think I told you about Sandra last week. She is preparing to get baptized the 16th of September. This week we found out that she is trying to quit smoking so we are trying to help her with that as much as we can.

Life is good. I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Jones