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.