Dear Family,

How are you guys?
NATE -HAPPY BIRTHDAY! What are you, 12 now? haha You are really growing up. I assume. You don’t really write to me anymore, but nevertheless I bought you a cool gift here that I will give you in T-8 months. But happy birthday and I will sing to you and to Anna and all of the others that celebrated birthdays in 2 WEEKS!!! (Mother’s day)
So lets see. Really probably the weirdest week yet on my mission. As we were writing our letters last week, one of the Elders was like “We have something to tell you guys…” and we asked and asked but he was like “No we will tell you guys in the noche, we cant talk about it now.” So that was bizarre. Anyhow, as we were waiting for an investigator in a noche dehogar, the dad was like “Wow Elder Orange has transfers! He was only here for like 3 weeks!” And we were like whaat??. Crazy. But THEN the Elders found us and were like: “Hermanas. We are so sorry. But all of us need to pack our bags and we have to go to Guayaquil tomorrow morning. They are closing the Galapagos.” WHAT?? NO WAY.. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So anyways, we packed all of our suitcases and stuff and we flew to Guayaquil.  One of the Elders had cambios (transfers)and my companion as well (oh no.. so, so sad).
BUT THEN the next day we were crazily blessed and had one of the seventies (Elder Montoya) come speak to the people that were in Guayaquil. And then after, miraculously, they sent me back to the Galapagos.It has never happened before. But it was a bizarre week. My new companion is Hermana Reyes from Peru ..my 3rd companion from Peru .
So anyways. I was pretty nervous coming back to the Islands, I didn’t know where we were going to find our Investigators and stuff ,but actually the Lord blessed us so so much and we had a bunch of people in sacrament meeting and we have 4 people preparing to be baptized on the 7th de Mayo and it was really cool.
As for the conference we had with Elder Montoya and Elder Torres,our mission President, who became a seventy at conference. It was AWESOME. I dunno how to quite describe it, but it rocked. The highlight: when he looked at the people that were finishing their missions and asked them how they felt about returning to real life and then pounded on the pulpit and said “THIS is real life. You CANNOT lower your standards because you are now more accountable to the Lord.”Chuzo. It kind of freaked me out. But it was super awesome, also. I also found out that Elder Rasband will visit Guayaquil in June and I will go back for that meeting.(I probably will be transferred by then)
We talked about the earthquake in our meeting. I saw a lot of damage in Guayaquil, including the bridge that collapsed.There is a lot to be done to help rebuild. There was another earthquake we felt while I was on the airplane ready to take off back to the Galapagos. CRAZY!
We had a U.S. family of 11 come to our church yesterday. They are touring the islands and they were all blonde. The mother took a picture of me and said she would email it to you. The ward members said”Hermana Brimley we cant find you there are too many blonde people here” and then they left and the members were like “Oh there you are Hermana!!”haha.
(Mary received this email this morning…what a treat to hear from someone who has seen Alex!)
 
“Sister Brimley,
Our family is vacationing in Galapagos, and when we went to church this morning we met the most adorable sister missionary. I thought maybe you would like a picture of her and a report–she’s working hard and she has such a cheerful countenance and is filled with love for the people she serves.”(The picture hasn’t come through yet. She was having trouble using the internet)

Love,

Kristin Kent and family

Wow Nicole is going to have her baby so soon and WHOO we get to talk so so soon! I am so pumped for that.  I love you guys! The church is great and I am feeling more than ever that the Lord WANTS to help us. We just need to be obedient. I have capitalized a lot of words in this letter. Sorry….
LOVE YOU GUYS
HERMANA BLING BLING