Week 52 Ecuador

"Day as a missionary" wrapping up...these youth were my crew.

Betty Crocker Brownies

Hair-cuts! It was E' Albrechts first time cutting hair soooo we can say it ended up a lil shorter than we originally intended. No worries, it grows back. Not having to do my hair in the morning has been missed too;)

Crazy Ecuadorian fruit!

This boat-bar was pretty cool, I drank water at it:)

The end of the sector...

where the rice-fields start!

Week 51 Ecuador

Congrats to Radolfo Torrez and Mariana Salvatierra on their wedding...

baptism...

& reception!

9/14/15 voice message

Hi family, how’s life? Well, for the first week solo in our sector I guess you could say that it turned out pretty good. Elder Albrecht and I, we’re learning stuff. We have to call and ask where lunch is every day, but we have eight new investigators…we’re finding, we’re chugging along. 

We got the zone together to clean an elderly man’s home in our ward. There were eight of us, and we scrubbed walls, furniture, floor, everything. There just cement boxes that they live in, but it took us like two hours. It was good. Hopefully get them excited about service, and maybe train them how to clean their houses a little bit. That’s a big struggle in the mission, elders cleaning their homes. The whole ordeal definitely made me miss home luxuries, like power washers, and shop vacs, and things, but you know Ecuador…livin’ the simple life. 

After that, the next day an assistant to the president Elder Saucedo came out to work with us for two days. He’s really direct with people, almost like he’s in a big hurry. I’m direct with people, but I’m not pushing them. I didn't like the vibe, but hopefully he can teach us something. I learned from him. 

We had to go out to a meeting with Pres. Riggins, and the stake altogether too. Um…shoot, we have a lot of meetings with stake and everything. I think I may begin counting them as lessons;) 

Well, at least we have some good activities coming up this month. We’re doing this casa obierta, and open house of the church, doing kind of a Meet the Mormons type thing. Hopefully we’ll find a lot of people that are interested. 

A couple really cool things happened this week. We had the wedding of Mariana Salvatierra and her husband Radolfo Torrez, and also the baptism which was sweet. After the baptism the church threw a little reception for them in a room, a cake and all that. I got some pictures I’ll send out to you guys. It was fun though. It’s the third family that I’ve married, and baptized, so It’s fun. It’s a big pain in the butt, but it’s worth it in the end. 

We had a new investigator come to church this week too. We met him, he’s the brother of a recent convert. He’s a little bit older, he’s like forty…dad I think he’s your age, but he’s lived a rough life, working on the farm. Now he’s working as a mechanic, but he got into drinking, and he’s getting out of all of it. We gave him a blessing at the end of a lesson, and he came to church. He accepted a baptismal date, and I’m excited to work with him. In the mission I haven’t worked with somebody with an addiction. I don’t want to say he has a hard addiction, but I think the key is when somebody has to leave a bad influence that takes up so much time in their life, you have to replace it with something good. So, we’re going to teach him how to read the scriptures. I know he’s got a good family behind him, and we’ll think of some other stuff to help him out as we go ahead praying and everything. 

Life’s good though. Elder Albrecht and I have a new tradition of eating 10 cent chocolate covered bananas every day with sprinkles. They’re really good actually. I’m kind of a fan…Ecuador thing. Last night, the end of the week, we buy all our food Monday so Sunday night there’s no food, and you can’t buy anything. I ate pancakes and oranges. 

The other elders in the house, they only come here like three days a week because most of the time they’re running around the mission helping other missionaries out. They’re the traveling assistants. Kind of a cool idea. I would maybe like to do it someday. They’ve been playing their EFY church music all morning, and honestly after the mission I will never listen to that again. The cheesy stuff gets old. We’re in a good mood though, we’re in a good mood. Don’t take me on a bad note.

This week we did a day as a missionary activity with the youth. My companion and I gave a presentation before going out to work. It all went pretty good. I’m excited to get some new references to work with. 

We’ll make a quick shout out to 13 months in the mission yesterday! We’re count in up, we’re counting up. If I didn’t mention or make it clear, Elder Albrecht came in the same group as me, so we’re floatin’ in the same boat. It’s cool to be working with him. He’s a really humble guy, but he’s funny. He comes from a family of 10 kids, and his parents. They lived in California before, and now they’re living in Washington. Huge family though, still kind of boggles my mind. 

Anyways, so I got asked to speak this week in church, and I was the final speaker. We had a youth speaker, another lady, and then we sang a hymn, and as we’re all standing singing the hymn, the power goes out right before I give my talk. I go up there, and in a loud firm voice give my talk. I discoursed on stewardship. It was an interesting topic. It was fun to study, and I felt like that’s what the ward needed. It was about 20 minutes, and after my voice hurt. Everyone said they heard me, understood me, got a lot of compliments. I feel like I presented it well. 

The zone stresses me out a little bit. Our companionship, the two district leaders, are doing good, but the other four elders are in training. One of them is struggling with obedience, the other is kind of timid. Then we have the four hermanas. They didn't find a single new investigator this week. They didn’t have anybody in church, so it’s like struggle, struggle, struggle. They don’t know how to make goals, so this week we need to sit down in a meeting with them and make goals with them, and make plans to how we can accomplish them. It’s hard. It stresses me out a little, but it’s all good, because I’m just here to help other missionaries be successful. I’ll do the best I can. I can’t really hold their hand, especially with the hermanas;) I can teach them what I know, and hope that they apply it. Anyways, we’re going to get together with the zone this morning and play some soccer. That will build some unity.

Excited to talk to you guys later. Have a good week. Love you. Bye

Week 50 Ecuador

Crazy good fruit I forgot the name of...

Houses on concrete columns, over a rice swamp. haha Ecuadorians are so creative! Too bad I didn't get a pic of the houses ON the river yet.

Out with the old (Elder Alguera)

The Zone

In with the new (Elder Albrecht from Oregon)!

Sept 6, 2015

Ring, ring…Hello?  Um, hello?  Oh! Hi Family! How are you? Well, wouldn’t I like to know.  I guess I’ll find out tomorrow but I am doing wonderful. We officially sold $93 worth of Jell-O with cream and strawberries for our investigator Mariana Salvatierra.  Whose going to get married Friday and baptized Saturday the 12^th.  Yeah!  It was cool.  We got a few members to drive us around in cars to sell it.  When they couldn't help us out, we had a three wheeled trike/bicycle thing with a big cart up front that my companion sat in and I peddled around Babahoyo.  So that’s fun.  No, between that and lessons, leadership meetings and zone meeting we’ve stayed pretty busy this week.  Not that we’re not always busy but serious, I’m tired.  Its Sunday night 10 o'clock I don't even want to watch the 7 new church videos that I have on my pin drive.  Pretty awesome, huh?  God keeps helping us.  Really, every day.  Except for the two chess games I won the other day at lunch.  That was all me.  I won myself a free lunch.  Having cebollado for winning too, on a bet.  That’s good stuff.  It’s like fish soup with vegetables and chifles.  It’s really good.  It sounds really disgusting but, Tiffie, you might have tried it. It’s really good.  I’m gonna bring the recipe home and we’re gonna make it for Sunday night dinner, for everyone.  Not that we could ever replace chili or grandmas chicken noodle soup.  But, you know, a good addition.  Mix it up.

I'm actually glad to have my voice back.  I lost it a little bit like Tuesday. I think I wore it out and then Wednesday I had a really weak voice.  So I drank a bunch of herbal tea thinking it would help and, I don't know, I think it did.  But I realized that it is delicious and now I'm hooked on herbal tea. I make like a litter of it and then I just let it stay in the fridge and drink it little by little.  I think I’ve drunk like 3 liters of tea!

The zones doing really well.  It keeps us super busy with five new missionaries in training. Me and my companion have to go around and do verifications with them.  Whoo.  And they’re mew sp there’s a lot of checking in.  We’ve really been trying to help them with a bunch of references that we are passing over to them. But shoot, half of them haven’t even contacted these great people that I’m getting them to go and teach.  It’s frustrating.  There’s a couple of frustrating things about it but they’re learning little by little.  Two of them are super afraid to invite people to be baptized or read their scriptures and stuff.  They’re just timid.  Just stuff that they’ve got to overcome.  We have a goal 17 baptism this month as a zone, so…start inviting!  

It’s good.  I had two interviews that were really good this week.  One interview was with a mom that had just recently separated from her husband.  It was kind of rough.  We also met with her older daughter, she's like 20.  I feel bad for this girl because she’s pretty but she has like really masculine features.  Really bad.  She’s hairy and she has like a beard and chest hair.  I don’t even have that.  But she was super nice.  We had a great conversation.  The mom was like all nervous when she had a chance to come talk with me.  I love the trust that the Spirit can create between people.  Just like, in a minute and it’s right there.   It’s always enlightening to meet new, sincere people that truly want to do good and just do what's right.

So anyway, are the sister missionaries still coming over to eat every once in a while? Well, if they are and they offer to do a service for you, just give them something to do because I'm so sick of getting rejected by people.  I always have to ask if they need anything or if I can do anything for them.  Honestly I want to help.  I want to do something.  I mean, it’s not like I don’t have anything to do but, you know, just give them something to do so they feel like they’re fulfilling their purpose of helping people.  But don't make them wash the windows.  That’s awful.  Honestly you can save that for when I get home.  It’ll be for your birthday or Mother's Day, mom.  Something, I don't know.  I would mow the lawn though.  That sounds fun.  Or blow snow.  I'm in like the greenest part of the world but there's no lawns or snow.  

Anyway, I’m getting out of line.  Ha, ha.  Anyway, the bishop did ask us to do something this week.  He asked us to help all of the elders quorum do their home teaching visits because no one does them.  Like none of the men do anything here.  So I was reading one of probably my favorite chapters in the book of Mormon for this week and it made me smile thinking about all of these men.  It’s when Pahoran?  Pahorun?  Shoot, I can’t even say names in English anymore.  Anyway, he was the chief judge in the time that Captain Moroni was kicking Lamanite butt out in the battle field.  Anyways, the Kingmen, or what we would in modern language call, the liberals who wanted more government, more programs and a King.  They were really lazy and they didn't want to defend their country or their liberty.  Well they took over the kingdom and kicked out Pahoran, the buddy of Moroni.  Well Moroni stopped receiving food and soldiers and everything to fortify the cities that they were conquering.  So Moroni started writing some strongly worded letter's back home and he finally received one back that said they had been overthrown by the rebels or the Kingmen.  So Moroni leaves his army and takes a few of his best men and they march towards the land of Gideon where the government was.  And it said, he raised the standard of liberty in whatsoever place he did enter and gained whatsoever force he could as he marched toward the land of Gideon.  At it came to pass that thousands did flock unto his standard and did take up their swords in defense of their freedom that they might not come into bondage. So, anyway, he ends up showing up and there’s a battle and he ends up destroying them. After that, they all had their trial for the prisoners that were taken.  And it says that whosoever would not take up arms in the defense of their country but would fight against it were put to death.  So he put things right in order.  And he leaves us with these words. Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain. I seek not for power but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world but for the glory of my God and the freedom and welfare of my country. Powerful stuff.  Makes me want to just give a little bit of justice to all of these guys down here. But we have to remember that everyone in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day are all volunteers.  Nobody gets paid.  And so, we just have to treat them with a lot of patience and love.  We will all be rewarded one day according to our own efforts, works and desires.  So we’ll just keep doing our part and hold out for the justice of God to come.

To do a complete flip flop though.  Finishing things up here.  I do want you guys to know that I'm trying to love the people here, missionaries and Ecuadorianos alike. I was listening to some final testimonies of missionaries going home this week in the leadership conference.  They were talking about the atonement and pondering on it.  Everything that God did, His sacrifice, was in love. Love for all of us.  He died and paid for the sins of even the people that would hours later crucify Him.  So, I’ve really come to think and set the goal that I will understand the atonement more fully when I learn to love all people or maybe better said, learn to show love to all people through kindness, service and accepting them.  Trying to see them all a little more how God does.  So that goals gonna take me a good 11 months so I think we are set for long term goals.  Anyways, always wishing the best for all of you.  Have a wonderful week.  I love you. Take care. 

Week 49 Ecuador

8/31/15 (voice recording)

Hi family, one week down in Babahoyo, and I want you all to know that I’m super happy. The members here, everyone’s received me really well. This week (I love it when this happens, only the second time honestly), but I met a friend of Tiffie who served in Quito with her. Tiffie was actually ending her mission as the mission nurse when she came. Her name is Carina Cornejo, and she cooks delicious food. I’m really excited to go eat lunch with her again next Wednesday:) She’s really cool though, and seeing that, it makes me really excited to have some friendships when I get home too that will last a while; connect with people from the mission, and other things. 

The Ponce Familia are also one of my favorites. He spent 5 years in New York when he was younger, in his 20’s, and then came back for family/girls and everything. He now has an awesome family. His girls/daughters try speaking English; they do alright. He still speaks it really well, and the bonus is they gave me lasagna my first night. I love and miss lasagna very much. It’s one of my favorites here, but it’s rare. 

The members have a lot of trust is us here. Probably because there’s always been zone leaders here, and they’re a little more responsible. I don’t know, but the stake president called us and asked us to go out with him and do visits. That’s the first time that a member’s asked me to go out with them, so that was awesome. We had some really cool visits/experiences. There was one lady, Mariana, that has been inactive for a long time. She’s a good friend of his, and we went to see her. She explained that she got offended in the church because all the members think that Joseph Smith is a God, and she thinks he was a prophet. She was so, so confused...all bitter and everything. We said a prayer, and we taught the lesson. I know the spirit was there, and I hate saying doubts, but I guess we resolved her doubts, and taught her just like the simple doctrine. What we need to do, how we can act, and we got her to kneel down and say a prayer, and make some commitments. It was a super good lesson. I love it when the spirit is present in lessons and people feel it, and it touches their heart, and they change!

There were some fun lessons this week. We came to a man studying his scriptures in the street. I guess he was a less active member, I don’t know, everyone’s new here for me. He wanted to know everything about the millennium. Questions, questions, and they were legit. It was a fun conversation studying with him, and so it kind of left me thinking...so when does Jesus come anyway? Nobody knows...

We put some baptismal dates this week, and we got a lot of good goals lined up for September, so that’s really good. We have to marry one family. This week we’re selling food in the ward and getting money built up so we can go pay for their marriage. 

I love the trust that the people are giving us here. They trust you with everything, depend on you, and they ask for your help. They expect help from you, they want your help, it’s really great; I’ve never been so busy in my mission, and I love that aspect of it. There’s not a whole lot of time for yourself, but what do I need to do? We could clean the house, but that’s getting put off a little longer because today we have to go to a zone meeting, and then I have to go renew my Visa, and I have to give some Latinos an English exam/test (verbal) in Guayaquil, and then we have to sleep down there, and then we have a meeting with President tomorrow, and then tomorrow night we got invited by the stake president here to go to a leadership conference from the stake. That’s pretty dope. So, there’s a lot of way cool opportunities that I’m getting. I’m gonna get the inside scoop on all the church stuff so I can be a good leader someday:) 

Elder Alguera’s really good too. He’s a great companion, really humble. He gives me a lot of opportunities to teach, and I do really well with that. I love teaching. He was looking at a bunch of pictures of me that you guys have sent from a year ago, and he was telling me how much bigger I was. So I guess maybe I’m getting a little skinnier. I think I weigh 172#, about the same, but I don’t know I haven’t checked in a little while. 

One more funny story before I forget. I was teaching at a new investigators house. It’s like a concrete foundation, and then there’s a second floor, but it’s just wood so there’s cracks, and a little puppy peed through the cracks in the wooden floor in the loft onto my shoulder, and the couch. It was disgusting, but you know, Ecuador will never run out of surprises. That’s a certainty. 

The zone’s doing really good. I had the opportunity to go out with a lot of them this week...work a little bit. Elder Clark, he’s from Missouri, he’s a brother, he’s way sweet. A family out there when we were on an exchange took us out to eat Chinese food. It was delicious. The zone’s doing really well. We had 19 baptisms for the month. That was the highest zone for this month. I can’t take much credit because I got here a week ago, but we have great plans to do it again this coming month. I’m already learning patience, patience, because missionaries call you with everything. Hey Elder I’m sick, I can’t go out, then you have to verify and call everyone else. Or hey Elder, this happened, or that happened, or they don’t send you all your numbers and you have to send like 5 texts just to get the information that you want, and they won’t answer the phone...So frustrating. But, we’ve been listening to a lot of conference talks and things, and something I’ve picked up out of one of Elder Uchtdorf’s talks was...he said, “Humility doesn’t require that we think less of ourselves, simply less about ourselves”, and that’s true, that’s true. 

Well, I know that when we are obedient the Lord blesses us, and I’m really grateful for the experiences that I’m having. I thank you all again for allowing me to be here, for supporting me, for your love, and I love you all very much. Missing you...

Week 48 Ecuador

Out with the old...in with the New!

There was a Stake Art Show! We got the college fraternity to bring their art too, (that we had met 3 hours before)...will they come to church? Dunno, I won't be there...

Leaving Elder Cook and Duran to serve as zone leader in Babahoyo

more art...

Goodbye to Elder Cook

New companion Elder Alguera

8/25/15 (voice recording)

Hey family, first off sorry I couldn’t write you yesterday. It’s been a pretty busy week. Last Tuesday we had a district meeting and I went out with Elder Parkinson. I made a dice game, and we all practiced with the district. I only say this because of the four hermanas that were in my district. They’re awesome. The truth is hermanas make great missionaries, and I love having them in my district. 

This week has all really added up well. We put some baptismal dates with people, we got a lot of new investigators, we found 12 new investigators. We almost have our 15 families, which is kind of like a standard of excellence here in the mission. After my intercombio with the zone leaders, I went out with Elder Vance too, he’s assistant to the president. In all his dying glory I guess you could say, he went home today. I’m making this Tuesday morning. It was fun though. We did our intercombio, made macaroni & cheese. He ended up staying with us, so we pushed our two beds together and slept all three of us on it. Thank goodness we’re all from Utah. haha 

All this added up to the call that came at 7 o’clock Monday morning. They pulled Elder Cook and I out of Duran, and closed the sector until I imagine October when a bunch more missionaries come. They’ll open it back up, but there are two elders still working in that ward, so we won’t leave behind everything. 

After that I went to an unexpected leadership training with three other elders from my group. We now have a year to learn the ropes from president and the assistants. That all landed me in my first zone last night, in Lindo? is the name of the barrio, the zone that we’re serving in Babahoyo. We got here with just enough time to go out last night and visit the mission leader. My bags are still unpacked. We’re ready to go out this morning. I’m going to write you guys, and buy some food, do the necessities, and go out and work. 

If you happen to notice any scratches on my face, don’t worry. I didn’t get in a fight. I was just trying to be Parker again, I guess you could say, or see where I’m at in comparison to past physical limits. Well, I was doing backflips, and playing around on the court, playing basketball, and everything, and after a few backflips I slipped and bit the dust a little bit...scratched up my face, but it’s all good. I guess God’s trying to say focus on the work more than other past talents. I don’t know, maybe he’s taken some away, I’m losing a little bit of weight, and definitely some strength, but you know, he’s given me a lot of new talents too. I’m hoping he will because being a new zone leader, I’m gonna need a lot of help. 

Elder Alguera has 23 months in the mission. He’s here to show me the ropes in Babahoyo, how to be a zone leader. He’s not trunky though. He’s working hard, he’s a stud. He’s going to be going home to Costa Rica, so I’m definitely going to go visit him on vacation after the mission. 

I guess I’ll leave you guys with a quote that I liked from M. Russell Ballard. It says...If during the course of our time here on earth we learn to use that wonderous gift of agency in positive ways to bless our own lives, and the lives of others, then our journey will have been successful. No matter how long it lasts, and how much is accomplished. So, I’m super honored to have this opportunity to serve other people, the missionaries here in Babahoyo. I know the Lord will bless me, he’ll bless all of you guys too. I’ll be relying a lot on the atonement honestly, to share the love that God has for each of them, and help them obtain their potential. So, anyways, I love you all. Have a wonderful week. Talkin’ to you soon. Bye

Week 47 Ecuador

Food...

Food...

& more food.

:)

Bye Vargas

1 year

For those who aren't up to date on the whole "shirt" story. The lady that washes our laundry lives amongst pigs I guess, and informed me that one of my shirts had been destroyed by the pig. Hmm, interesting conversation. To my surprise the family had not disposed of my shirt and the other elders brought it home on my 1 year mark to dispose of properly.

Happy Mission adventures to all:)

August 17, 2015

Hey, what’s up family?  I hope Red Castle was sweet and that you guys caught a ton of fish, didn’t see a single drop of rain, and that it was super awesome.  I’m excited to see photos and hear stories from you guys.

I’ll start from last Monday when I wrote you guys.  We went out to a restaurant; its called Grand Chef.  It’s an all you can eat buffet, and it’s delicious.  They specialize in seafood.  There’s sushi, shrimp, fish, and they have a pasta bar, meat bar and they make postres…I mean, pastries.  I’m getting my words mixed up.  So that was fun.  It was really expensive, it’s like $18 a plate.  Thank you, grandma.  I finally put your Christmas money to good use.  We ate so much that I walked out of there nauseated and feeling like I really wanted to puke.  I didn’t eat for like a day and a half after that, honestly.  It was a good experience.  It was fun to eat some good food and hang out.

The next morning, half of the mission gathered together for a Family History Conference.  You all know that I am gung ho for that.  Honestly, it was pretty boring.  We learned some new stuff, but the typical broken family lines here in Latin America will create some projects that will confound us through the millennium I fell like.  People get separated and their lines are destroyed, but we’re figuring it out.  We’ve got some families that we want to take to the temple once we get their work going.  We’re helping them out.  At that conference I ran into my old companion, Elder Morga.  He’s still in our sector in Milagro but he’s about ready to leave I think.  The exciting news was to hear that Guillermo, Roberto Cheriguay, Marcos Herrera and his son, Rocio and Alex Campos were all baptized.  These guys all had baptismal dates when I was up there.  It was awesome to hear that they continued and got baptized with our plans and everything.  Rocio and Alex actually had to get married first.  They got married and got baptized this last weekend.  The other ones were baptized 2 weeks ago.  Ricardo was actually a contact that I made and so he is the first contact that has ever been baptized.  The rest were references from members or members of a family, cousins… something like that.  I was super excited to hear about all of them.

I guess summing up what I have talked to you about to this point, we all know without a doubt that the greatest miracle in the gospel is the atonement.  But baptism is the door that opens the blessings of the atonement for both the living and, thanks to the restoration of the gospel, the dead as well.  I really have a strong testimony of that.

Anyway, this week had a couple of other surprises.  We had an emergency transfer and ended up on an exchange with Elder Parkinson.  We had to drop Elder Vargas off in Quevedo which is almost 4 hours away from here.  Then we had to pick up Elder Pimentel in Babahoyo and then finally hooked up with Elder Cook, my new companion, in Milagro to come home to Duran. So that’s how I passed my 13^th of August, my one year birthday in the mission, I guess.  It was chill, honestly.  The assistants called me up and said they needed some help getting guys around so off I went.

The Elders that night bought me a cupcake with a candle.  You guys remember by pig eaten shirt?  Well I thought the family had disposed of it but the Elders went and asked for it and brought it home, the filthy thing.  We disposed of it properly by burning it.  So I did burn my year mark shirt.  Afterwards, I gave a speech, not a testimony, and followed that by an Indian dance/chant around the fire with all the neighbors watching us, yelling and all this stuff at like 10 o’clock at night.  It was fun.  It was a good moment.

Elder Cook really is a good guy.  He’s from Woodscross.  He was a wrestler too.  I feel like we get along really good.  We understand each other.  He’s 21 so he’s Darby’s age pretty much.  I feel like he’s my same age.  He’s helping me find the balance in the work again.  I feel good.  We went out at 7 o clock in the morning before church and we didn’t get home until a little after 9, like a 14 hour day.  It was super long but we really are getting a ton of work done.  We’re getting some help from the members that we haven’t had before.  Getting to know some new areas and new families.  I’m excited for what we’re getting set up here.

Anyway, I’ll end with something kind of funny.  We haven’t had water in our house for 3 days because they dug a pit to put in a water tank.  They shut off our water and so we have to go and get it turned back on.  Anyway, I hadn’t showered in like 2 days and so went over to the missionaries that have the house out front.  They have a water tank and everything.  Their house is so set up .  They have air conditioning, whatever you want.  So we went over there, me and my companion.  We wanted to take showers.  They were kind of bugged about it, they’re kinda weird.  But they let us in.  So we go up there and they thought it would be fun to shut off the water pump while we were in there.  So there was no water right as soon as we were soaped up and wet.  My companion started yelling , “Turn the water on!  Turn the water on!  The soaps getting in my eyes!”  I feel like I’ve come along ways after a year in the mission with my patience.  I just waited quietly, lying on their beds with my soapy wet body until they finally turned the water on and I could get rinsed off.  I was about air dried anyway with soap plastered to my body but we all laughed about it in the end. It sucks to suck.  Anyways, I love you, you love me.  We’re all a happy family.  Hope you have a wonderful week.  Chau, chau.

Week 46 Ecuador

The Island...

Hiking, Crocodiles...

Baptism pictures...

Congrats to Elsa!

Hump Week:) 8/10/15 (voice recording)

Hi family, It’s been a great week. I guess since I’ve been studying about the work, we can start off talking about that. We had Elsa Chavez baptism this week. It was Saturday around 7 o’clock. It was planned for 6, but it began shortly after 7, that’s how things work here. ha To fill up the font we had to call in a water truck, to fill it up because there’s no water in Duran. There’s water trucks that pass through every 2-3 days and fill up everybody’s big 5 gallon or more barrels. 5 gallon, that’s a lie, more like 100 gallon barrels. 5 gallons wouldn’t last very long, that’s how much I need to take a bucket shower every morning. Elsa did wonderful, and her husband who is accepting of us, but not really about the whole church thing, he even came to the baptism. So, they were all happy about that. She also was confirmed as a member of the church by the bishop on Sunday morning in sacrament meeting. Shoot I wanted to talk to her after the meeting, but surrendered to the smiling, hugging sisters, crowded bigger than at my farewell, but that’s great, that’s great. Everyone’s really accepting her well. Really, Elsa is awesome. I have not seen such faith as she displayed in her progress in my mission. Three Sunday’s ago I arrived and made a goal with her for that very day that she was baptized. She came every Sunday, she read her scriptures, she studied, she did everything that we asked her because she knew it was true. She was ready. Really, I believe the Lord does prepare people, and we just have to come here and find them, help them out. We have plans to get her family history work going, and go to the temple with her to do baptisms. She has this great, great desire to go to the temple, so that makes me feel good too that she’s not going to fall off flakey. She’s excited, she’s ready to go. 

Other points concerning the work, we officially rescued 3 members Sunday that we’ve been working with since I got here. Juleca and Francisco they’ve progressed so well. They’re awesome, and they also have goals for the temple. They’re in a temple prep class right now, to go in 6 months or around there. They’ll get sealed, they have great plans. I hope I’m invited, I want to go!

I had a meeting with the assistants of the president, and then went out and worked with one of them all day. I guess they’re taking this zone leader training pretty serious. I feel like it went alright. I saw some good things as we were persistent in searching for references, and getting to know an area. I began working in a new untouched part of the ward, hoping to bring the 60 estimated members back to life and baptize their close ones. It’s not easy starting new, but were not going in blind either. There’s some members that are helping us out, and we’ve got some good plans. I’m excited because this past four weeks, my numbers here have stayed the same. Not that they’re bad, but they aren’t progressing either. So, this new area I’m hoping we’ll find new work, new opportunities. One of those members helping us served a mission in Quito. He also worked in Santo Domingo, and some other places that I remember hearing Tiffie talk about, but he was here like 21 years ago, before Tiffie came out. What was cool is he had a 31 year old triplet in English from his trainer in California who 3 years after the mission died in the Gulf War serving in the Navy. It was a powerful story. Otherwise, his stories sounded familiar from his mission to what I’m doing now, and it makes me anxious to share with you guys, and to swap stories with Tiff to see how our missions have related. 

About an hour later that same day, I met a 23 year old blonde, finishing up a years service for the Catholic church. Next week she’s going to return home to Rhode Island. She had served as an English teacher and other community programs. We chatted in English she preferred. My poor companion couldn’t understand anything. We probably talked for 10 minutes or something. I asked her about her belief, about several things in the Catholic church I’ve always wondered about their belief in Saints, in like Mary, their manner of prayer, and I had others, but friendly concluded after asking if she believed in eternal families. Her reply was I don’t know if that’s possible, but I hope so. To her amusement, I have obstained from sex, alcohol, gambling, etc. in living a life in hamony with the Lord’s commandments, though not so much worldly norms. She had asked me if being a Mormon, getting out in the world was kind of a slap in the face? I said not really, but it’s different. We live very differently than the rest of the world. I thought despite all of her notable service, it all lacked a lot of purpose. I have built my testimony and consequent motivation upon. Anyways, they are enlightening conversations I enjoy running into when opportunities present themselves. 

Well, if you all haven’t realized it yet, the mission is an unchanging routine, but a good one. I try throwing in some basketball, or morning sports, try to change up my food, other things to keep it live. Last Monday we went to an island that is on the Guayas river between Duran and Guayaquil. In all we did about a 5 mile loop on a boardwalk through an otherwise untouched natural habitat. There was a museum at the end, some slushies, we saw some crocodiles, that was pretty sweet. I woops didn’t have my camera. My companion did. I’m going to see if he can pass me some pictures. On the way out though we took another bridge that takes you to a small though active naval base. I enjoyed peeking down on a few ships though up there on the big river. 

The time was short, kind of reminded me a little bit of my time in Annapolis Maryland, seeing all those ships, walking on them, getting the tour and everything. That’s actually another thing that came up in my conversation with the blonde, about my time in Annapolis Maryland, and that I had left that opportunity to come to the mission. She was very surprised, impressed, however you want to say it. I said, yeah well ok.

Well, to wrap things up, Ecuador amazed me once again this morning. As I went to retrieve my clothes from the laundress. She informed me in a “whoops” kind of innocent attitude that the pig had taken a bath, and partially eaten my long sleeved dress shirt. I refrained from asking any details, and thanked her for telling me. I guess this will have to count for my one year shirt burning in the mission. Walking home with the rest of my clothes that were fine, I recalled the parable of the prodigals son who after recklessly wasting away his noble inheritance found himself in a drought doing the lowest imaginable work of ancient Jerusalem, herding swine and eating amongst them. Ecuadorians live in a deprived manner, with the pigs. They fail to comprehend, dream, act, preferring I supposed to simply take what is given them of their socialist society. Well, I thank God for raising me with education, empowering me with opportunities, guiding my paths with inspired leaders. He has filled me with a vision I must help others see and obtain. We must teach all to be leaders who govern their families, callings, and lives with self sufficiency according to the laws of God. That’s power, that’s Zion. 

I thank you all for your support in this, and I hope you’re all seeing the blessings of what we are doing out here. I love you. Wishing you all a great week. Darby, Brian congrats on the triathlon. I hope it went super well. I’m excited to hear, and tear it up Wednesday up in the Uintas, Red Castle. Take lots of pictures, send them to me. I know you will. Love you all. Bye