Greetings from Guayaquil!

Hola!

Guess who has an hour to write letters now! Wahoo! Maybe now I can respond to all the people who have been writing me emails and letters since I came out on my mission... Starting next week! Sorry about that....

We`re in Guayaquil today to finish up some VISA stuff. I love traveling to Guayaquil, but it puts a damper on our work with our investigators! Hopefully we will have time to visit a few of them tonight when we return back to Machala. 

Someone remind me next week to share the story about the lady with the bum shots... It`s hilarious. Bt I don`t have time now cause we`ve gotta catch the bus home!

The work is so great here! We have 2 baptisms planned for this Saturday! I will send pictures on Monday. Sorry I have no pictures today. And my Spanish is really progressing! How wonderful it is to have the Lord to help me learn this language. As I rely on His strength and serve Him, He blesses me in my efforts. I know that is the same for all of you. Rely on Him, and He will bless you. Follow Him, and He will make life easier for you. I know it`s true! I see it in my life and in the lives of my investigators every day!

Love, Hermana Busath

Mom asked me some questions, so here are the answers:

1. Give me an idea of what your day is like, what you usually do on the weekdays other than Pday, and also how far do you have to travel, and by what method, to get to a store for groceries? And do you have a "mamita", a woman who cooks for you? 

Every day is work, work, work. We wake up at 6:30, get ready until 8, study until 11 or 12, go to appointments, eat lunch with a member, and then tract and go to appointments until 9p. At 9 we plan for the next day for an hour, then get ready for bed and go to bed by 10:30. Lunches are HUGE, so we don`t usually get much dinner. We usually buy bread and fruit from the local tiendas (little stores) for dinner, but don`t really need more cause lunch is so big. And that is my day! Oh and Sundays are a little different. We wake up at 5:30 and leave by 7 to go around and wake up all our investigators for church. They won`t come if we don`t wake them up. So we spend 2 hours doing that before church at 9. Then after church is just the same as all the other days!

We have a mamacita for lunch. We don`t have to pay them, but a different lady every day of the week cooks lunch for us. Lunch is the biggest meal, so we get a lot of food!

2. What kinds of foods are you eating now that you are in Ecuador? 

I eat a LOT of rice. We get a heaping of rice with every lunch, then a side of something and a piece of meat. Also, before the main dish, we get a big bowl of soup. I`m starting to really use my exercise time wisely, because if I don`t, I will be very large when I get home! Let`s hope that`s not the case :) The food is not like what we usually have in USA, but it`s not bad or weird. It`s just cooked with different spices. And we are expected to eat every on our plate, which means practically licking the plate clean and eating absolutely everything off the bones. We drink coke with almost every lunch, and water the rest of the time. I have a really great water bottle with a filter that they gave us, so don`t worry about me getting sick from the water! And they DO eat with only spoons! It was true! The more wealthy families have forks and knives, but mostly we just use spoons.

3. Your pinky toe looked REALLY swollen and red in the picture of your feet that you sent last week. Was that a bite or was that from walking so much? I hope it's not like that anymore!! Made me really sad to see that!! 

Don`t worry at all about my pinky toe; I wore another sister`s shoes (she gave them to me while at the MTC because they hurt her feet...now I understand why) for like 15 minutes in the morning before we left our house. They fit weird and squeeze my toes, and that`s why my pinky toe was red. But I don`t plan on wearing those shoes, so don`t worry! The redness went down in like 10 minutes after that :)

By the way, I really like all the spiritual thoughts you send me! Please send them when you write me! It`s nice cause I print them out so I have them to read over and over. And I don`t really have any other way of getting quotes in English... It`s nice to get a little spiritual upliftment in English :) Thank you.