March 2015

3/2

Today was the last P-Day for Elder Cuberos. He is from Colombia and he heads for his house in one week. We had a zone activity to see him off.

This was a pretty cool thing. It's in remembrance of a treaty of some sort between Ecuador and somebody else... clearly I don't know much about it, but it was big and cool!

3/9

This is Elder Lund. He is my new companion. After just 3 weeks with Elder Figueroa he got moved. Elder Lund was born in San Fran, but his family lives in Utah right now. The Gringos are going tear up barrio PONTON!!! 

For the most part your first companion is one of the longest of your mission because you're getting trained. After that we normally have a sector for about 3 or 4 months with a month or two with the same companion in this mission. But right now we have a lot of missionaries going home, and we don't have many coming, so there are more changes than usual. We should get some pretty big groups of new missionaries when the summer starts though.

We made ourselves some empañadas the other day. They are Argentina style and pretty delicious! 

We live in a house with just us two. It's small, but pretty nice. One thing it's missing is windows. The lights went off for like half an hour when we got home one night, and we couldn't really see anything. The showers are still cold, but it's better than a lot of the houses. There's a water shortage here, so most of the houses missionaries live in have their water shut off at 10 pm, and when they do have water it comes in bursts. That is so annoying that some people just fill up big buckets of water, shovel smaller buckets of water, and splash it on themselves. Our house has good water, it's just cold. It's all OK though because we really are only there to sleep, study, and get ready for the day.

3/16

I didn't take any pictures this week... whoops. More than anything we are looking for new people to teach. We found lots of them, it's just a matter of doing check ups and seeing who is going to progress. We also worked a little more with the members. There is an RM we have gone out with a couple times this week. He served in Guatamala like 4 months ago. He's super cool, but he's leaving here on Friday and going to Mexico. Next week we're going to try to go out on visits with all of the Elders Quorum. So that's where we're at right now.  

3/23

So I don't really have much to report. We did meet one really cool family this week. The dad was doing some cleaning outside his house and he started speaking to us in English. A lot of people here do that, but his English was a lot better. We found out that's because he studied in New York. We asked if we could come back another day to visit his family, and he said no problem come on in right now. We met his wife and his four kids. This week only one of his kids came to church because the rest were sleeping, but we're going to visit them again and I hope they all come to church next week. They're really nice and cool and everything that is good!

This picture was taken at a historical park in Duran. It shows the progression here in Ecuador from old to new. The bummer is that they have a pretty good sized zoo, but its not open on Mondays. So nobody really goes to that place on Mondays except missionaries... But yeah it was still pretty cool.

3/30

 Last week we had a Zone Conference. We went through the temple in the morning then we had a meeting with President Riggins. I sat with him at lunch and he has a sense of humor like Dad. It's pretty funny. :)

 Our really awesome family of 6 is progressing well, but they are moving out of our sector in a couple of weeks, so they may end up being a reference for other Elders.

Baptism! 

This is Fransisco, Carolina, and Omar. Fransisco is a member, but he and Carolina aren't married, so she couldn't get baptized. Omar could though, so we started with him. Now we're going to work on getting his parents married. Omar's grandma tried to talk him out of getting baptized, but he shared his testimony of the church and told her my mom and your son are going to get married and sealed and we're going to live together forever and if you want to join us you need to get baptized too. I was like dang!  He's only 9, but he's super smart, has a super strong testimony, and he's my homie.

February 2015

2/2

I'm sure you've been amazingly busy lately with all the wedding stuff going on. It's weird to think I don't actually know what my sisters last name will be in a couple hours. I hope everything turned out the way Shayna wanted it and that it's a fun day for all of you. I hope you have a cardboard cutout of me, that or you'll have to photoshop me into all the pictures.

So from my end it's a little small this week. We had a bit of a sad thing happen. One of our investigators, Judith, who was showing so much promise with some awesome questions and good desires decided she didn't want to talk with us anymore. We got a text Tuesday during lunch, and it was like "sorry I can't make the appointment we have today at 3 and also I can't accept you anymore because I've decided I'm not interested." So like the stubborn missionaries we are, we went to her place anyway, and we asked what the heck happened, but she wouldn't give us a straight answer. So yeah... that happened.

In other newz, this week there was a missionary leaving and a missionary returning home. The leaving is Elder Zamora and he is awesome. He is a convert of just over a year and he's headed for Paraguay after 2 weeks in the Argentina MTC. The Elder that came home is Elder Calle. He is part of the biggest family in the ward. He is the last son and he got back from Peru. 2 days after coming home he received a calling as Ward Secretary.

We also had a little meeting with President Riggins. It wasn't an intense meeting with big time teaching or anything. We sat down and he told us we were going to watch a movie and then get back to work. That was pretty weird to me. I was ready for The Hunger Games or something, but we watched Conozca Los Mormones (Meet the Mormons) instead. It's pretty cool. I don't know if you have seen it, but if you haven't you should.

Okay that's pretty much my week this week. 

2/9

So this week I experienced some stupid Ecuadorian weather. It's a strange thing to get used to. It will be one of the hottest days of my whole mission when we leave the apartment, and before we get back the streets have turned into rivers and we are just absolutely soaked. So yeah, that happened like 3 times this week. Luckily we have almost always found ourselves in houses while it was raining hardest so we can wait out the worst of it. Other than rain, the only news I have this week is that Jackie Chan (Angel) is progressing really well. He is reading what we leave for him and yesterday he was waiting for us at church. It was super cool that he was just waiting there for us. That's what I've got this week.

2/16

 So I went to bed last night and I slept like a baby, and apparently everybody else did as well, because when we woke up in the morning we realized we had missed a call from the assistants. Elder Magallanes and I had cambios today. We had to be in the terminal in Quevedo at 8am, so I had about an hour and a half to pack all my things. That was pretty crazy! I was throwing stuff all over the place, and then I realized my suitcases were full, and I still had all my shoes to put in. Everything ended up okay with that though, and Maggy and I made our way to Guayaquil. I'm in a city called Duran and my companion is Elder Figueroa. He is from Argentina and he has two months left, so I will be his last companion. I don't really know too much about this sector, just that today we went to a super nice mall that looks like a mall in the United States.

2/23

So here in Duran there's a lot of money. My ward goes right up to the river, and then on the other side is one of the richest wards in the entire mission. My sector is a little more humble than across the river though.

Our ward only has an attendance of like 100 and we don't have many investigators right now. The idea is that we really have to search for people to teach this week. Last week we found one family that's pretty cool, and we're going to keep working with them too. So that's pretty much the plan. 

We're pretty close to Guayaquil, so this week for P-Day we went to explore the city a bit. We went to a place called Malecon 2000 and the plan was to go climb a hill that has a super old catholic church up top that is supposed to be super cool. But we were with the zone, and Elder Cuberos goes home in like 2 weeks, and he wanted to look for recuerdos, so we went to a shopping place nearby and shopped for a while, and then we just explored a little before we had to leave to get back to Duran. I have some cool pictures I took but I can't send them right now because the computer is being a pain. DUMB! We're going to go back to visit the Malecon again soon though. 

Love y'all and miss y'all!

This is us at Familia Menoscal on P-Day. Hermana Menoscal is taking this picture, and it's really funny cause shes trying to be all artistic and take a cool picture, but it really just made me dizzy.

My addiction here in Ecuador, en serio! OREOS I currently have 4 different flavors in the apartment. My favorite is Cookies and Cream, which doesn't even make sense because Oreos already are Cookies and Cream, but yeah...

I had to take this pic because I had an intercambio, and this shower in the apartment of the other Elders was magical. It was the first hot shower I've had in months. 

I also got to teach some cool people. One was a family with one son on a mission in Argentina, and another son getting ready to serve a mission. They live right across the street from the church, but the mom isn't a member and has never gone to church. We're working on that.

                                       

This pic is from a talent show in the ward. It was kind of sad because only something like 40 people came and there were only 5 talents (two were from missionaries). But yeah... it was on Valentines Day. I didn't even realize it was V day until we got to the activity and there were hearts everywhere, and I was like OHHHH!

I'm not sure if you can tell what's going on this picture or not... but I have a big plastic bag over me. This was my "poncho" this week. It rained super hard a couple of times, and one of the times we were with a family we are teaching, and as we were leaving the dad asked if we had paraguas (umbrellas). We were bad boy scouts and weren't prepared, so he said don't worry I have something for you. He works in one of the giant banana fields, and he made us ponchos out of the big bags they use for the bananas. It's so weird here how the days are super, super hot and sunny and then out of nowhere comes a huge storm.

January 2015

1/12
This week Elder Ulloque had a meeting for the District and Zone Leaders so Monday and Tuesday I was with Elder Accordino. That was pretty fun. We worked in his sector for a while and he has some really cool investigators.The rest of the week was pretty normal. We did have a new investigator who is pretty interested come to church, so we will see what happens with that.

Then Elder Ulloque got a call from the Zone Leaders last night. He has cambios today as do Elder Arnell, Hermana Ticeran, and Elder Gomez, who is one of the Zone Leaders. On top of that 3 hermanas from our zone ended their missions yesterday; Hermana Tistoj, Marroquin, and Lopez. So now the zone is going to be half new (only 7 of 16 left).

My new companion is Elder Rabago. He looks like he's latino, but he's actually from Riverside, so we live pretty close. He has about 15 months in the mission. I don't know much about him yet, but I'm excited, he seems like a good missionary. That's pretty much all I have this week.

1/19
So my first week with my new companion... cool stuff. It was pretty funny, Elder Ulloque broke his chair, but it was still pretty much sittable, so he just used it broken. Elder Rabago lasted less than one day before he was like I need a new chair. Later we went to visit with Familia Menoscal and we said something about how we were going to buy a chair and they were like, "no take one of ours" so that happened. I love that family!

This week we were working with one of the members a lot. She is a ward missionary and wants to pretty much introduce us to everyone she knows, so we got quite a few references from her this week. One of the families she introduced us to is married (which is pretty unusual here) so we worked with them quite a bit this week.

The rain started pretty good this week, which means it rains during the night and early morning, and then it's super sunny and hot during the day. That pretty much sucks for us. I had to buy so much water this week! That was pretty much the week.

1/26

As far as your weather question, during this part of the year there is a lot of rain during the morning and night, but during the day it is super hot and super sunny, so that's interesting. Today it's actually a little cold though. I almost pulled out my jacket for the first time here, it feels weird to be cold. 

So this was a pretty cool week, nothing really special happened... but I don't know, I just kind of had a little more fun this week. On Wednesday I had an inter-cambio (exchange?) with Elder Mendoza. We talked to a lot of new people and we found 1 or 2 potentially really good families to teach.

My new companion and I are in a finding investigators stage because before we just kind of kept teaching the same people who weren't really progressing. So yeah. We found some new people this week, and we had an investigator attend church for the first time in a while, and we have a couple more people who are really interested but had to travel this weekend so they couldn't come to church. Also they have to get married, so that's a bit of a challenge.

As far as the whole no marriage thing, many people simply don't have the money to get married. To get married is about $80, which might not sound like all that much, but for people who barely have enough to buy food and necessities it's tough to save that much. More than anything I think it's the culture here though. Most people pretty much feel there's no point to get married because it's just an expensive piece of paper that doesn't mean much.

We also starting teaching Jackie Chan. We actually found this guy a couple weeks ago, but we didn't think he was really a solid investigator, so we didn't drop by much. But yeah, his name is actually Angel. He is slightly Asian, and he was drunk a lot, and that made him act kind of crazy, so pretty much everybody calls him Jackie Chan. But we taught him The Word of Wisdom about 2 weeks ago,  and then when we dropped by his house this week and he was like, " Why didn't you come back? Why didn't you bring me to church last week? What are you going to teach me today?" Apparently he hasn't had a drop of alcohol since we taught him, and he has been reading and re-reading the pamphlets, so that's pretty awesome. He came to church with us this week and he really liked it. We also have another guy who is super curious and who started asking us about baptism and all that good stuff this week. So we have some good investigators, which is cool!

Elder Rabago

We played Ecua-Volley as a Zone activity. The net is a little bit higher, and the ball is harder, and there isn't really anything similar to volleyball other than the name. It was pretty ugly. We were basically playing catch with a net in the middle. It was super hot and sunny too, so it was miserable weather to play in.

This little bugger runs around the church every Sunday. There is also a cat. We pretty much keep the dog out of the sacrament room (I have forgotten how to say that in English, in Spanish its la sala sacramental) but the cat sometimes gets in there. Its an interesting thing...

This is Moroni (Alexander). We had a FHE with him and his family and celebrated his birthday with cake. He turned 17 and his parents want us to invite him to come out with us a lot so he gets excitement built up for his mission.

1/5

I'm short on time today, but I think my pictures pretty well describe my week. One thing not there is that we found a new investigator. We just talked to him once and invited him to church, and he was like yeah I'll see you there, so we figured he probably wasn't coming cause everyone says that to us... but then he was waiting for us inside the doors of the chapel Sunday. That was super exciting! We're really going to try to focus on him this week. So yeah, that's it.

The Fab Five say Merry Christmas - all back together again!

Got to get those floors nice and clean! This is at the service project we did as part of our trip to Guayaquil.

This is Elder Maggys idea of cleaning.

Here is my church building. Its bigger than our cute little building, but smaller than the Stake Center.

We found Cristiano Ronaldo! This is the type of thing they set on fire here on New Years.

Here's Familia Menoscal. They have three daughters... and now 4 sons. They honestly treat us so well. They recently got called as Ward Missionaries so that's super awesome!

  This week was crazy with New Years and such, but we worked in a cram course on pretty much all of the lessons in one day for a boy in the ward. His parents wanted to be sure he was ready for baptism. They also asked us to sing a song, so we did that as well. We got rewarded cake, and also the opportunity to see a baptism! 

It was Bishops birthday this week.

12/29

Editorial note: Double post to start off the new year.

Tanner sent e-mails as scheduled in December, I just didn't get them posted. 

This week we had a really cool reunion with the entire mission. We left Monday in the afternoon for Guayaquil and got there after 4 hours in the bus. We ate Pizza Hut in the bus terminal then went straight to the mission home to sleep. Tuesday morning we all went to the Temple, then did service as a mission. We got split up and went to the different Church buildings in Guayaquil and Duran and cleaned the chapels. After that we all gathered in the Stake Center. There were 250 missionaries and we all ate a nice Christmas dinner together. We had turkey and stuffing and all that good stuff. Then there were some musical numbers for Christmas from the different zones.

We left Wednesday morning again for Quevedo. Wednesday night was my skype call home to my family, and also a small service activity as a zone. We went to the hospital and gave out Hot Chocolate and Pan de Pascou and sang for the people there. We had dinner with Familia Menoscal (recent rescatados). They are the best and always have us over for dinner.

On Christmas we had an activity as a zone. We cleaned the chapel of one of the companionships, and after had a Secret Santa gift exchange. I got a wallet from Elder Gomez. After we ate with Bishop and his family. They also gave us gifts, a tie for each one of us. Then we visited some of the members of the ward and shared a small message for the rest of the day.

Then Friday we did another service project, this time for Familia Valencia. We hauled a big mountain of dirt up the stairs to their house. 

This week was interesting because we really didn’t do to much work with our investigators or menos acitvos, but it was still a really nice week. 

Much love for everyone back home, hope ya’ll had an awesome Christmas and will have an excellent new year!

Elder T

This is the only stadium in Quevedo. I have been dying to go in since I got here and we finally got to explore a little. It was exciting, but also a little bit of a let down, as it's not super nice inside. But hey it is real grass! There's not really grass here...

  

This after a big Championship game between the two most popular teams in the country, Barcelona and Emelec. Barcelona was the best team for a long time, but recently it has been Emelec. Emelec won and after the game it was INSANE! People were in the streets pretty much all night!

 This is the Latinos getting introduced to Candy Crush. They were like this all of lunch!

This is the view from a members house that we visited this week. She is super cool! She has a son on a misison in Pennsylvania and another just about ready to put in his papers. She also gave us a hammock to put in our apartment so that's really awesome!

12/22

Editorial note: double post to start off the new year.

Tanner sent e-mails as scheduled in December, I just didn't get them posted. 

This will be a short message because we don’t have much time today. We will be visiting Guayaquil today and tomorrow and returning Wednesday in the afternoon. So yeah... here it is... 

This week we had our little Christmas Show and we did a lot of practicing for that. We had chorus practices in the morning, then we went home to study, then we went back later because Elder Ulloque played the piano and he had to practice for that, so we didn't get much work done. The program turned out pretty cool. We were told to be there at 5... so we got there at 5, and there was literally no one there. Slowly missionaries started trickling in, but the chorus director didn't get there until just before 7. He had the piano and the music so we couldn’t even practice till he got there. The event was supposed to start at 7, but we were working on South American Mormon time, so there were like 10 people there then. No one really showed up until 7:45-ish. We sang our songs then we got to stay for a little bit to watch. Really all people did was dance, but it was fun.

This week we found a promising new investigator. It’s interesting because we found out that one of  her kids was baptized 2 years ago. She wasn’t at his baptism, and he only attended church 3 or 4 times, and then was never visited again. So now we’re working with the family and we will see how it goes. This week 2 of the kids came to church without their mom... we were hoping to see her there as well, but hopefully next week. Okay I think that’s about it.

Elder Roberts

At the baptism of the other Elders.

 Got to carry on the tradition of hamburgers after baptisms!

 This is during the Christmas Show. President Riggins and his wife came, which was pretty awesome!

 Shout out to my Canadians! We did these flags for all the missionaries in the show. Pretty cool.

12/15

This week we watched the Christmas Devotional thing. I'm still not used to the whole lips don't match up with words and not hearing the voices of the apostles and such, but it was pretty fun. Each time the MoTab came on we played a little game. How many pairs of glasses can you spot? How many this or how much that. It was pretty fun. Then we had a meeting with President Riggins to do a little verification on what we learned in the meeting with Elder Uceda. 

There was supposed to be a baptism for the other Elders in our ward on Saturday... until the person getting baptized didn't show up. That was a bummer. There was a baptism for a different ward though, so we stayed for that. 

We had an Amigo Secreto (Secret Santa) with the YSA in our ward. All 4 of the missionaries got ties, but that was a fun thing. This past week has been pretty hot.. and that's NOT very fun. I've been sweating a lot more than normal. But yeah... it's whatevs. 

Almost forgot, yesterday we had some interesting things happen with the meals. We ate lunch with a family and last time we ate with them Elder Ulloque didn't finish his food, which is pretty much rude here. So this week after I finished my first plate they asked me if I wanted more, and I said yes and I got seconds. The only problem was the hermana put way more food on my plate than the first serving. I really struggled to finish it, but I did finish it! I was just super full. Then for dinner I wasn't hungry like at all, and I could barely finish the dinner. But then we got dessert too... doughnuts. I didn't have any trouble eating 3 of them. They were very good for home made doughnuts. 

A normal week really, and I don't think I have much else, so yeah!

Much Love, Elder Roberts

This past week a Subway opened like 2 blocks from our house! Its pretty expensive, we're talking 10 dollars for a footlong, so I just went with a 6 inch for 5 dollars. But yeah it feels bit like home and its really good. The owner of the Subway is from Guayaquil but he studied in Canada and Miami for 8 years so he speaks like perfect English and is super cool.

This my Secret Santa. She's the bishops daughter and is a missionary for the ward, teacher of Gospel Principals, and a seminary teacher! Crazy!

This week we had an activity in our ward. We played futbol with our Elders Quorum and some menos activos and investigators. I'm getting a little better at futbol, not a lot, but a little. It was pretty fun, but we played with the hardest ball of all time, so my foot hurt a bit. Then right after futbol we did a service project where we were in the sun for hours and I got nice and burned, so that was fun...