 |
| The road to the goose house on a drier day |
Hello all of my favorite people! Happy Monday and happy week
#23. It’s a pleasure to be writing you all. This week I would love to share a
little story about the family of the loose geese. I’m not sure if I mentioned
this in my last letter, but one of the things that is different about Tulcan compared
to Esmeraldas is that my sector is quite large - like a 1-hour drive from one
side to the other large. Also, because we occupy the northern part of Tulcan,
one of those sides happens to be the Colombian border. Nonetheless, sometimes
we have to go out to the extremities to visit members and new converts. The extremities
is where we find the family of the loose geese.
The goose family are some of the nicest people that you will
ever meet, I promise. The mom is named Fatima Gordon and she’s awesome! She’s
the mother of 3 children and the mother to 4 pigs, 10 chickens, 5 lambs, 10-12
cuys (guinea pigs and for, well, at least a little while longer), and about 8
geese. It’s slightly funny but out of all these animals, it’s the geese that
are the pets. Well, to be a little more specific, the geese are the pets of
Fatima’s 9-year old and youngest son, Anthony. Just like his mom, Anthony is awesome.
He is super cool, rocks a bowl cut, is missing some recently lost front baby teeth,
speaks way better Spanish that I ever will, and is probably the most “with-it”
9-year old I have ever met. Anthony loves his geese and his geese love him. But
the thing about geese is one of them is always escaped, out of the cage, and
running around loose. I tell you all of this because it’s become somewhat normal
for us to be part of the goose collection process.
So we are out visiting the family this past Tuesday and it
was nothing out of the ordinary. This particular Tuesday it rained HARD for all
of the 16 hours I was awake. These showers were part of a storm that actually
brought 3-full days of rain and left all of the powdery, dirt roads extremely
sloppy and muddy. Out where Fatima’s family lives the roads have really fine
powder so adding water produces a Nesquik effect. Just like the last gulp of a
big glass of chocolate milk, with the little river of chocolate mush slurping
from the bottom of the glass, all of this fine dust becomes a slushy, rainy
goop. Anyway, Elder Miranda and I hiked out past Narnia, through middle Earth
and almost into Canada before arriving at the house of Fatima to find one of
the geese is loose and this time it has not only escaped the cage but also the
outer fencing and has gotten into the real soupy parts of the road. To make all
of this even more exciting, the goose is fleeing for its life from Bobby – the family’s
newly born puppy. (I’m not making this up, the dog’s name really is Bobby). So
we first catch and corral Bobby who was nipping at our fingers playfully. We
then went after the goose, who was screaming like crazy and irritating all of
the neighbors’ dogs. We managed to run it back into the yard, past the sheep,
and eventually back into the cage. This was all great and I was super delighted
to help, but I got soaked. My pants were dripping wet, my hair was dripping wet,
and my shoes were super muddy and dripping. But all of us were smiling and
laughing, when we took a breather and realized what had just happened. Hermana
Fatima thanked us and, being ever so generous, invited us to share a warm glass
of Calabaza juice. I’m pretty sure Calabaza translates directly to pumpkin but
I’ve seen these calabaza things before and it’s not pumpkin juice that we’re
drinking. They’re small, white melons that grown on these short trees.
Anyway, to connect all of this random information into something
to share this week, it’s that even though Hermana Fatima and I couldn’t be more
different in the way we have lived our lives or in the things we’ve experienced
in this world, we have a genuine friendship – we are part of the same human
family. Even though Fatima is a 46-year old lady, living on a finca on the
border of Colombia, I deeply care about her concerns and want nothing more than
for her family to be happy. It’s been really interesting to see this change
happening in me and I’m really glad that it’s happening. I think it’ll be
really great to come home with all these new character traits – a new
confidence. I don’t know, maybe I think too much. I hope all of you are
enjoying your lives. Please remember if you ever have something you’d like to
talk about, write me a letter! I sincerely care about all of you and am so
thankful that people read these letters. Have an amazing week.
Elder Ericksen
Some other tidbits:
- We are teaching 3-4 people who would like to be baptized but can’t because they are not married. It makes me appreciate all the great families back in Rancho – the Bakers, Hendersons, Mason’s and Mitch’s families – because marriage just isn’t important to the majority of people here. They just don’t understand [it’s importance to the family].
- Crazy testimony builder which has been kind of hard to help with is a woman we’ve been teaching who has been having lots of problems with her boyfriend who said he doesn’t want to be with her if she’s going to follow the gospel. So she decided to move out of her boyfriend’s house to live with her parents to continue receiving the lessons. She says that she knows God has a better life prepared for her. I’m so taken back by it all and it has really boosted my testimony. Back home, testimonies seemed so automatic – almost superficial – but being here and seeing what people do for their faith makes it so real and shows you how important it really is. I got a little sense of this in Aire Libre when people would walk a mile or two in the sweltering sun just to go sit in a sweaty church with a stray dog at their feet even though they haven’t the slightest sense of Utah or the apostles. I don’t know, it’s been very humbling and good for me.
- I’ve eaten 5,000 potatoes this week. The food was definitely much better on the coast.
- It took 4 full weeks of being here, but we finally had a full day of sunshine this week – not a drop of rain. It was so clear, I even got a picture of the volcano. The area here is so beautiful…it’s magical.
- Something funny happened this week – I was helping this 50+ year old member of the branch with some English homework. One question was “describe yourself” so she asked me to help her write “I’m gordito and cortito”. So I told her that means “I’m a little short and a little fat.” I don’t know why, but I thought it was hilarious and I laughed way harder than I should have. But it illustrates a major cultural difference – back home we’re so concerned about appearances and other people’s opinions. It’s also a good example of how blunt people can be in South America.
 |
| This is "Ecuador Natty" - she follows Adam around church and makes him homesick for his younger sister, Natalie. |
 |
| Apparently they're also catching pigeons - this one got into this family's home while they were visiting. |
No comments:
Post a Comment