Week Seventy-three: "Let us all walk with God this week!"

Walking as companions . . . 

Hola mi familia!

I have zero time to write but I just wanted to let you all in on the highlight of my week! We had a worldwide missionary training this week just like last year and it was the best thing ever! They announced a new missionary schedule and the new way we are going to work with key indicators! It will be very interesting to see how it affects the work! It is going to give missionaries the opportunity to use their agency even more and learn how to use time wisely. It´s great! I'm excited to see how things go. 

We had interviews with President right after the conference and while I was waiting for my companion I was talking to Hermana Christensen about some of the difficulties that missionaries have had in the past with obedience. She then said "if I could just have obedient and healthy missionaries and a Costco, I would be in heaven!" Hahaha it was the greatest comment ever! And so true!

I learned this week that enduring to the end is related to walking with God in the scriptures! If we walk with God we are willing to do what He asks us to do and live righteously! Striving to be the best we can be while keeping the convenants we've made! Let us all walk with God this week!

I love you all!

Hermana Beutler

Too much "matchy" :)

Entrevistas con Presidente

Hermana Adams (looks like we could be related?)

Jimena & Kerly

Kerly

Happy Kerly

ECUADOR AMA LA VIDA

This picture makes me so happy!

Literally eating friend bananas with chesse on top. It's the greatest. 

Enjoying the moment. 

CUYES!!!!!!!!

Time to feed the guinea pigs so they get fatter so they can be yummier...

Our neighbor's puppies!

Activity at Leadership Council

Leadership Council

Week Seventy-two: Soccer & Straw towers

hermana friends

Hola familia!

This week has been so great! Every night in my journal I have been writing down the miracle of the day and the funniest moment of the day. So that should give you an idea of how awesome of a time it has been. The work here is great! We have quite a few people that should be getting baptized this transfer. We have a lot of work to do! 

Today we went to the park for P-day with all of the hermanas we'll be working with this change to play soccer! It was so much fun! 

I've been seeing a lot of familiar faces lately from Pradera...its great to finally be able to talk to them now that I speak spanish...haha. 

Some days its burning hot here and some days its pretty chilly. My companion and I have just learned to always be prepared and bring the umbrella. Haha. Speaking of my companion, she's HILARIOUS. If you know my cousin Jessica, well that's my companion. We get along great as you can imagine. I'm glad Heavenly Father has blessed me with such a great companion to enjoy this precious time I have! I am loving mission life and I don't want it to end!

We have an amazing investigador named Mayra who is the wife of an inactive member. We taught them the Word of Wisdom this week and they were a little surprised about the tea and coffee part. Jorge (the husband) asked why we don't drink coffee or tea and mayra responded "it's so that we can be obedient and do what God wants us to do" That was seriously the best moment ever! The investigador teaching the inactive! She is truly amazing! 

Alright so our funniest moment this week...was quite embarassing. Haha. So our water is gas heated...not common in the mission but great! So my comp told me that the heater needed some maintenance because its been going pretty loco lately. Well up until Thursday or Friday we were taking cold showers. There was absolutely no hot water haha. So we talked to our landlord and he came over with his wife and checked out the heater and even changed the battery but nothing was working. Then his wife walked over to the gas and started checking it out. She lifted it up and yelled "there's no gas!" hahaha one of the most embarassing moments of my life. Yeahhh. So we aren't taking cold showers anymore. Hahaha. 

Well family. Time to get to work! It's the best thing in the world! I hope you all have a great week and don't forget the blessing that it is to have the Restored Gospel in your lives!

I love you all!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Beutler

Going for the goal

Our lunch - AREPAS

Chimburazo

Tungurahua

Building straw towers

Hermana Wyson

Half house 

The "got lazy" half house

Week Seventy-one: "Coming Home"

Hermana Wyson and I are in Ambato

Hola familia!

Today I went home!!! But not my California home of course...my mission home! That's right! I'm back in Ambato!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'm so excited! It's so weird being here in my first zone again but I love it! This time around I'll be serving in the Ambato ward instead of Pradera. It's the first time I'm outside of Quito in 9 months, so the climate change was pretty crazy (it's a bit warmer here). I honestly couldn't believe my district leader when he told me the transfers. I'm back in my birthplace! Haha. So many memories have been flooding through my mind today as we've gone around the first places I went to on the mission over a year ago. I'm with Hermana Wyson! She's from Orange County and she's so great! She's super funny and such a great missionary! We are going to work so hard this change! It's going to be great! 

This past week was so awesome! We worked really hard and gave it our all! Everyday we saw how the Lord worked through us to find new people to teach and it was such a great experience! On Sunday I got to speak in Sacrament Meeting and it was so special because the speaker that came before me was Brayan! I shared that the last time that I spoke in the ward was the day after his baptism, and so to see him speaking in front of almost 200 people just a couple months later was THE BEST! We spoke on missionary work. I shared about Elder Andersen's talk ¨testigos de Dios¨ I love that talk so much! Here's the link so you can all go and enjoy it!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/a-witness-of-god?lang=eng&_r=1

I am so excited for this transfer! It's going to be the best yet! I am so grateful for all of the experiences I've had on the mission and all that are yet to come! I love serving the Lord. I love being here in Ecuador. I love every little bit of it. It's not an easy task, in fact, it's really hard. But as a sister shared with me, the mission is the hardest thing I've ever loved so much. 

I hope you can all find a love for sharing the gospel with others this week! 

Fun moment of the week, my companion taught me Geringoso...it's basically the spanish piglatin...i'm working on mastering my third language haha. It's really fun!

example: To say...Soy un hijo de Dios...Soypo unpu hipijopo depe Diospo

I love you all!

abrazos,

Hermana Beutler 

Trying out some agua de savila in the freezing cold!

It's the strangest thing ever...you don't need a straw...
and you don't need to hold the cup up, you just drink it.

Bebe!!!!!! Pili and Galo's newborn baby.

Quito should be called Raintown...because it only rains...

I love Hermana Valdebenito!

Mipi compapapañeperapa! (geringoso...:)

:D

Zona Turubamba

Zona Turubamba selfie

Zona Turubamba - another selfie

Clouds covering Cotopaxi

Cotopaxi

Coming home to Ambato

Week Seventy: "It's them! They're missionaries!"

Hola mi familia!

Oh how time flies. MIRACLES! SO. MANY MIRACLES.

So after a few weeks of barely having anyone in church on sundays for all of the fiestas...the churched was jam packed on sunday! And we had a bunch of investigadors there too! It was incredible. A family I taught one time last change but that we haven't been able to find called us Sunday morning to ask for the direction of the church building. Yes, we were quite shocked. Haha that doesn't happen every day. 

Then, yesterday we were in this apartment complex that's pretty much on the side of the mountain and super far away to eat lunch (the lunch was delicious by the way, we ate this colombian coconut rice...wow...I could definitely eat that for another year and a half) and we were knocking on a couple doors of a few less actives with little success. As we were about to head down to take the bus the two kids walked up to us and the older boy yelled to his little sister, "It's them! They're missionaries!" We were a bit confused but we didn't have to wait long to find out what was going on. The boy told us "We're less active mormons. we've been looking for missionaries around here but we haven't been able to find the church!" we asked if their mom was home and they said "Yes! go visit her right now!" hahaha so we went and met Solange. Solange is a single mother with two kids, Sebastian (11) and the little sister we didn't catch her name but she's 9. They joined the church about 7 years ago but went inactive about 5 years ago and Solange was SO EXCITED to see us. She said that she went inactive because of her studies but now that she isn't studying and can now go to church she hasn't been able to find a church building because they got baptized in Northern Quito :D She said that she wants Sebastian to prepare to go on a mission and for her daughter to be baptized. I'll definitely be giving updates on them as things move forward :)

On Friday we had interviews with President and it was THE BEST! Every opportunity that I have to meet with him it's such a huge learning experience for me! It motivated me so much to keep going and keep giving it my all! I am so grateful for all of the things I've learned and am learning! I know that Christ lives! I know that the Atonement works! It truly does! I for one am living walking proof. If it weren't for the sacrifice our Savior gave, I wouldn't experience even a fraction of the happiness that I have up until this point in my life! I know its real! As a representative of Jesus Christ I testify that He is our Savior and Redeemer, our Hope, our Light in the darkness, and only way back home to live with our Heavenly Father!

I invite you all to go back and read the conference talks from October! They never get old! They don't have an expiration date! My goal is to study them all twice before next conference comes in April! Who's with me?

I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Beutler

P.S. I invite you all to go watch this talk! I studied this one this morning and its golden!

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/come-follow-me-by-practicing-christian-love-and-service?lang=eng&_r=1