Tour DE Ecuador...and Peru

Hola familia!!

OKay, so you may be wondering why I'm sending this email on a wednesday instead of Monday.  Let me just explain, these past two days have literally been the craziest ever! I'll try and fit everything in here and help you understand how awesome these days have been.

Last week an Elder from the offices called me and said I needed to be at the offices at 8am on Monday to go to the migrations office and to bring money and clothes in case we got back late and I had to stay the night in the offices. Well people do that all the time so it's normal but at 10 on sunday night, another sister called me and asked what I was packing to go to Ecuador.  I was quiet and asked, "ecuador? what do you mean ecuador?" and she said, "oh, you didn't know? We're going to ecuador tomorrow." 

What?? Like the country??? 

So yeah, I'm not sure how that detail got left out, but about 15 of us had to go to ECUADOR!! Basically we are the ones that are here without visas and our time went up and we were illegal so we had to fly to Tumbes, the city closest to Ecuador, and take a bus to leave the coutnry and then come back so they could give us six more months legal here.  I was so shocked! But that is what happened.  We left and flew to Tumbes, up by the border and it was an adventure!
We got off the plane and it was incredibly hot and humid. We all got in a bus and drove to Ecuador, waited in a line, entered the country, then turned around and waited in a line to get back into Peru and they give us six more months! Woo! So we finished all of that at about 3pm and our flight back wasn't until 9pm. SO the driver took us to the center of Tumbes and we just walked around and took pictures and ate and it was great! Tumbes is so cool and green and has a million mosquitos! So we finished up and went back to the airport and it started pouring so our flight got delayed but then we finally made it back to Lima at about 12 at night! 

We drove to the offices and were getting ready to go to bed, at this point it was about 1:30 am, when an Elder called us and told Hermana Alonso and I that the next morning we had to be ready at 6:30 because President was going to take us to the temple for being the comp of the month. Yay! So we slept a good three hours, got ready and went to the temple. We did a session, my first session in Spanish! And my first time seeing the new movie! (It's awesome!) and it was so refreshing to be able to go after almost a year! I loved it. So then President drove us around central Lima to see all the fancy places and we went and ate at Tony Roma's on the beach! IT was so delicious and I was in heaven.  We went back and after about 30 hours being out of our area, we finally made it back to our area at about 5pm last night.  What!!! THat was the most eventful to days of my mission haha.  It was incredible and I can't believe I went to Tumbes, Ecuador, and The center of Lima.  I took a million pictures and it was paradise.  

We got back and were worried because we had been away from our area for so long, that gives Satan a ton of time to work. Luckily we were able to get to teaching again last night and everything is good so far.  Oh, and I'm extremely tired.... haha.  

Now every week that I don't go to another country is going to seem boring haha. But they were good experiences.  I absolutely LOVED going to the temple and being able to just sit and clear my mind for a bit and remember the covenants that I've made.  There is a constant mission stress here, worrying about all the people we meet and such, but It was great to be able to sit and just enjoy the Spirit. To just think about what I've done here and what I still need to do in these six months. I was able to reflect a lot and feel the Spirit testify to me that the work I'm involved in is true, and that I need to keep on keepin on here in the Lord's vineyard. The church is so true!!!!
This weekend we are excited for Pamela to get baptized, pray that everything goes well for her! She's awesome.

Thanks for all the love and prayers, I hope everything is going well back home! 

Hermana Jones