How is everybody?
Quito is amazing. I don't know why I was so scared to come here. The only scary thing is that dogs poop on the sidewalk a lot and sometime it's hard to see. I haven't had culture shock really. It reminds me of a cross between New York and San Fransisco. PACKED with people. And its a huge mix of all classes all in once place. On the same street there will be nice condos and houses to little one room shacks. The people are like the people here, some are nice, some are jerks. They just speak Spanish. The ward members have gotten to know me well enough that they have no problem making fun of my Spanish. I don't care though, they can't speak ENGLISH!
It's beautiful here. Very green and surrounded with mountains. Quito is basically in the mountains and surrounded by volcanoes. It's been pretty overcast lately though, so I haven't seen them. Every morning we wake up to a pretty dense fog, like you would imagine on a London street in winter. There aren't very many giant bugs either which makes me happy. There are fleas though, and my companions legs are covered in flea bites. I think I may have a couple too......
The weather here is PERFECT. In fact, if anything, it's a little on the cold side. It's just humid enough to make it so I don't have to use lotion every two seconds, but it's not unbearable. Seriously it's perfect! Except it rains a lot. Yesterday it totally down poured on us while we were on on our way to an appointment. My feet were totally soaked and all the dumb taxi drivers wanted to cost us a fortune to get somewhere only two miles away, so we had to take the bus. I even thought about cutting my hair way short and cute when I got here, but I decided against it. I've had one too many cat calls and jeers by carnal and worldly men everyday simply because I've got white skin and blue eyes. If I actually looked good everyday.....I don't know what they'd do?
I do have a story about a creepy old man on the bus though. So I started to talk to him and tell him I was a missionary and everything. I asked him if he'd be interested to have the missionaries come over. "If you teach me" he says Aha, aha.
"Where do you live sister missionary?"
"El Eden" (name of the area I am serving in)
"No, where?"
"El Eden"
No, where do you live?"
"El Eden"
"What's your name?"
"Sister Cooper"
"No what's your name?"
"Sister Cooper"
"No, what's your first name?"
"My name is Sister Cooper"
"No, tell me what your name is"
"MY NAME IS SISTER COOPER"
CREEP
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I get grossed out!
So the food wasn't making me sick until last Wednesday. I kind of had a fever and a stomach ache, but it wasn't bad, so I wasn't worried. Then the next day I woke up with the worst fever ever and a horrible head ache. Halfway through the day, I felt so sick, I just wanted to go home and go to bed. So Hna Groesbeck fixed it all so she went out with some members and some sisters stayed home with me. I slept like a rock for two hours. The next day the fever was gone, but I had teh WORST stomach pain I have ever experienced in my life. We had to go to the office for my companions nurse stuff, so I slept on the sick bed. The same thing at night happened again. But we got some antibiotics. After blessings and antibiotics, finally on Saturday I felt well enough to work, but I didn't eat hardly anything all day. yesterday, I was back to normal again. I tell you, I have never felt so miserable in my life! I just wanted to cry my stomach hurt so bad. I felt like I was being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.
The members here are great and take great care of us. Sometimes I wish I could decline everything they give to me, but I know that they just love the missionaries so much, that I always have to accept. My ward is amazing and really involved, always giving such references and seriously following us everywhere. They all have such great testimonies of missionary work.
Oh and PS: It costs me $2 to send a letter to the states, so please don't feel bad if I can't write as often as I did in the MTC, I just don't have that much money......
Love
Hna Cooper
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