160 days, 05 hrs, 07 min, 56 sec

Good Morning Everyone! Today is a very special day, you see today marks my exactly half way done mark! So Happy February Fifth everyone! Yippee! There are exactly 160 days, 05 hrs, 07 min, 56 sec until I touch down on the Salt Lake city run way…I cannot believe I have been here so long, and that there is such a short time left to go! I´ve been here long enough to see fashion styles leave and new ones come in, I’ve been here so long I don´t know the new movie titles in English, and I’ve certainly been here long enough to feel like this is home, and that when I close my eyes I can no longer see a clear picture of Weston. It´s like I have said before, time is very tricky….when you look forward it seems to DRAAAAG on, but when you look back it will always catch you off guard!
My last blog entry wasn´t very up beat and positive…I was really struggling with the thought of still being here, of not being able to get out, and sometimes that leaves you feeling a little claustrophobic. I felt like the next few months were going to drag on, and that nothing was going right. Well after a few days of just straight tears my parents in the states broke down and called me. It was so awesome to talk to them, (it´s been since Christmas) I love hearing my daddy´s voice, and Quinton´s voice is soo deep now, and Cynthia just keeps getting bigger and older! My mom and I have this very strong connection, and even though we are billions of miles away from eachother she always knows when I am sad, when I need an extra boost, or just when I need to talk. And so we talked, and I think it was the first time since I came here five months ago that I cried and cried to her. But I got off the phone with a new determination, and some solutions to the many problems I felt that I was going through.
Sunday brought a beautiful day as I headed off to church. After the meetings I caught my bishop and asked him if maybe I could talk to him for a second. He said sure, and as he closed his office door, I fell apart, I explained everything I felt like I was going through, from language, to feeling friendless…he listened with a caring and loving expression on his face. Then he called in his two counselors and they gave me a beautiful blessing, and I understood it all! (The spirit speaks the same language). We then read some scriptures like D&C 58:2-6. We talked about how even though things are hard that all of these “experiences” really are for my own good, and that even though I can´t behold with my eyes everything that they mean, we talked about how they are turning me into the person that God wants me to be. We talked about how many friends I have in the ward, and how really the next few months will go sooo fast, and before I know it, the ward will be the one´s crying because I will be leaving.
I left the bishops office feeling so great! I came home and I read an article in the ensign called “Achieving your Full Potential” it really was written just for me, and I have made a lot of new changes in my daily schedule in order to make sure that I am doing the things that Elder Staheli suggests in his talk. And it seems like since I changed my frame of mind things have really started to look up.
This week has been so crazy! I haven´t had much time to sit and feel sorry for myself. Monday I went and cut my hair…(yes I cut I all off again!) you all know me, I get too bored too fast, so it´s all short again. Also Monday I spent about three hours at the post office getting a package from the Birky´s which was great! Suzy our maid went with me, and we talked a lot, and it was so much fun! Tuesday at Institute I made a new friend, and we talked a lot. I asked her what the youth and young members of the church do here for fun on the weekends…she explained to me that there are always activities planned for Friday or Saturday nights to give the members of the church something safe and fun to do on the weekend nights, she said that she would make sure I knew about them from now on. There´s a valentines dance on valentines day, who knows maybe I will go?! Yesterday was such a fun day! I went with Gaby Mora, her adorable little girl Anabel, and David Gaby´s brother. They took me down to the old town. (I love it down there!) Gaby majored in tourism, and David is a history buff, so I think I learned all of Ecuador´s history in one afternoon. We went into a ton of old beautiful churches, one is full of pure gold on the inside, every inch of the walls are beautifully crafted with pure pure gold. It was spectacular. They pointed out some of the world´s oldest architecture, and explained to me old myth´s and important things to know about Quito´s history. We then went up to the Panicillo. The HUGE statue of the Virgin Mary that sits up on top of the hill. The view from up there was fantastic! I can´t wait to go back and take pictures…also up there on top of the hill there is a big fire place which is where in the ancient times the Indians would stand up and send smoke signals…you can stand up on that hill and almost imagine what it would have been like clear back then. The Panicillo sits in the middle of Quito, so stretching out to one side is the north, then to the south. It´s almost like two whole different countries. The difference between the north and south is incredible…but just in the one afternoon I found five new LDS church houses…its incredible!
Today I am going out with Maritza, and then tonight it is institute again! Yeah! So as you can see, life really is looking up. I have only five months left here, I have to live it up! The time to live is today, right now! Not tomorrow or next week…so as I embrace everything here I try to remember that!
I hope you are all doing well! Thank you for all your love, support and prayers!
Love Emmy Ann