Week 53 Ecuador

Family Home Evening...

and you thought it was a Christmas party;)

...just goes to show I CAN plan things, when I want.

Baptisms in the Murillo family! You know the gospel is true and the Atonement is powerful when you see it bring two separating parents together as they strive to come closer to God. Result, kids baptized, happy family. This cracked me up, dad and son looking up (with the picture of the first vision in the background, haha)

Jump-suits are the bomb

Assistants being goofy.

Us, always happy doing weekly numbers!

9/28/15 voice message

Hi family. I hope everyone had a wonderful week. It probably wasn’t as fulfilling as mine though…just sayin’. We had some fun. I got to go out and play basketball a couple mornings. When one of the assistants was here, Elder Ryelch, he’s gonna go play for the University of Utah after, so he’s pretty good. He’s like 6’ 4. I’m about as good, or worse than I ever was at basketball, but you know…I can play around. Everyone says I shoot like a wrestler…ya that’s deserved I guess. My companion, he’s super good at basketball too. He played two years in high school. 

We had the biggest family home evening last Monday I’ve ever seen in my life, because Miguel Penafiel our old mission leader was leaving on the mission. He’s a pretty popular guy it looks like. We gave a message, I think it was pretty good, got some references (not really), but you know we tried. During the rest of the testimonies and things that went on for like 45 minutes, me and Elder Albrecht secretly played checkers behind a table. That was pretty fun. Won two times, lost once. Then we got some food. That’s the fun thing about being a missionary, the people always serve you first, so you never feel left out. 

Mexicans are few and far between here in the mission, but I got to go on my first intercambio with one, Elder Abendano. He’s a pretty cool guy. We ordered in some pizza for the six of us when we were doing the intercambio, and I didn’t get home ’til like 10:30…shhh. Don’t tell anyone, but it was mainly because a returned missionary drove us home in his car, and he was driving suuuper slow with spanish rap music blaring, mainly as a joke. It was kind of funny, but it got old, but whatever, we got home. All you can do is laugh about it. 

Some good things happened as far as the work this week. We found some good new investigators. We’ve got baptisms lined up for each weekend in October. We got to keep finding to fill up the month, but we’re just going to keep the baptismal font full so we can throw them in at any minute. Speaking of that though…keeping the font full. Me and Elder Albrecht forgot to drain the font from our last baptism two weeks ago, and we went to use it again…to clean it out. It was full of four dead cockroaches, and these nasty worms that were dead and floating on top. The water was like green and moldy. It was So disgusting, but when we tried to drain it, we figured out that there’s an electrical problem, and it won’t even drain. So that water is just sitting in the font at the church. It’s so gross. We don’t really know what to do, but hey not our problem I guess…whoops! Luckily we have another baptismal font here in the zone, and if that one just happens to go out then we’re running for the river I suppose. Doing it Jesus and John the Baptist style. I suppose that allows the more open, exposed heavens aspect when you come up out of the water. According to Ecuador, every time you give a baptism talk, they always say “there’s a party in heaven today, we’re so happy for you”…every single time. It just makes me laugh. I haven’t been to many baptisms in the states, but is that like a common thing to say? 

Towards the end of this week we’ve had some special opportunities I guess you could say. An area seventy came, Elder Calderon and his wife. They visited the mission, and shoot, brought the spirit. Poderoso! A few things I learned mostly, I recognized the most powerful teaching comes by personal experiences, our testimonies. We should ask to recognize how the spirit speaks to each one of us. Finally, I learned that faith never looks back, it is based on the hope of the future. My mission is my time to kill the things that can impede me from moving forward in life, and perfecting myself. I am to live out my youth to the fullest, yeah…pretty much that. #foreveryoung. I only have 6 more months of being 19 years old, and then when I hit 20 I feel like that’s when you have to be a man or something. I don’t know, I guess we’ll figure that out when it gets here…ha That’s sure not the case in Bryan I suppose, so maybe I’m good? Just kiddin’ Bryan, you’re a stud. Elder Albrecht just discovered that he’s gaining a widows peak, so it was a tough moment for him. I’m good though. I’ve always known that I have a widows peak…thanks dad;) 

Lastly, if one day with Elder Calderon and his wife wasn’t enough, we got another one! In the leadership conference Friday, two back to back meetings…gotta love that:) I pretty much fell asleep traveling both ways, but luckily nobody stole the pouch, all the goodies for the zone. We gained a priceless perspective on the mission and life. In short, the Lord has greatly blessed each one of us with abilities to adapt to our situations, circumstances, and lead in life. Out of love we can feel a true desire to serve by teaching others and upholding his standards, and hope to influence others to do likewise. We should be patient with ourselves and others, and that will truly honor God. Our personal progress is almost imperceptible, yet if we’re obedient it’s certain. Life’s not a race, our greatest enemy’s ourselves, and we should just enjoy the journey. Like people always say, but I really felt that was true as he was speaking to us. After giving us the feel good speech, he brought out four chairs, and every missionary knows what four chairs means…practices. He and his wife sat down, and Elder Albrecht and I had the privilege of volunteering ourselves to go stick our head in the guillotine and get it chopped off in front of everyone. They were like, we want you to teach the doctrine of Christ and we want you to invite us to be baptized. We were like easy enough, that’s our job as missionaries right? Well they stopped us every 30 seconds, and they’re like ok, what could you be saying right now? They analyzed every little thing, and all the missionaries from three zones were smirking, glad that it’s not them up there. Two other pairs of zone leaders went up too, and it was good. It was a good learning experience. It’s helped me and Albrecht perfect our teaching a little more. More and more I’m just realizing that the gospel is just principles that if we apply in our lives, we will see the blessings and we’ll come to love them, and it really is the best way to live. It brings happiness, and joy, and peace. I’m seeing that in the mission, and that’s what I want other people to realize. I only have 19 years of personal experiences, and that’s short in comparison with a lot of other people. I can use those to testify of what I know is true.

Finally, we ended this week…well, not ended it, but Saturday we had two baptisms. 

They were fun, little kids you know. I don’t know how touching they can be, ha. 

Elder Albrecht forgot his baptismal clothes, so we put on some of the wards. The suit was Way to small for him. It was riding up hard, but you know I had my classy jumpsuit. Everyone was super impressed, dad the bishop was diggin’ the jumpsuit. I think we had inspiration honestly…I’m going to wear that thing for my honeymoon…that is going to be my nightly gown;) You can know all is good when the spirit is felt. It will be something they can remember. 

If any of you have the opportunity to select the hymn that you’ll sing this week, maybe in your Noche de Hogar tonight if you get this message in time, my new favorite hymn…well, one of them is Brightly Beams Our Fathers Mercy, Brillan Rayos de Clemencia in spanish. In our hymn book it’s 208, but it’s probably not in yours. Sorry, I got talkin’ there in my spanglish, and Noche de Hogar is Family Home Evening if you guys didn’t catch that drift. 

Anyways, Garrett I’m rootin’ for you. I’m still waiting to hear about that first home run slammer for the year. Your all number one in my heart. Keep going strong. Love you all. Chau, chau.

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.