Week # 73

March 31, 2014

·      Oh yeah so this week was pretty good until yesterday but I will tell you about the whole week.

·      MONDAY: I had a normal p-day and we didn’t do much other than Elder Pinta got a third compañero named Elder Masarelli from Chile!

·      TUESDAY: Well this day Elder Pinta went with Elder Smith to his area while Elder Smith waited for his new companion to get there so I stayed with just Elder Masarelli. We went to go find a house for some new missionaries that are going to come to the zone. We finally found one and I talked to the lady and she said it was good to go.  I told the president and he said that it was fine and so we rented it. They said they were going to move in the next day so we had to get it ready. So me and my companion cleaned it and painted it and it was all good to go, and they still haven’t moved in. oh well haha. It was pretty nice to get dirty again. I miss working and being sweaty and filthy. That’s going to be sooo nice!!!

·      Then in the night we went to teach one family that is a less active family who hadn’t gone to church in over 4 years and well lets just say that it was a really good lesson and they came to church this week!

·      WENDSDAY: Well in the morning we had to plan for the week!! That was pretty fun! Then I got a call from the secretary saying that 11 missionaries were going to be coming to my house and that we had to clean it. My house is known as the hotel because it is a huge department and we have like 11 beds. You will see the video when it gets there but yeah its way cool. It kind of sucks because tons of people come all the time and eat all of my food and drink my milk which makes me mad. Then at night we went and taught a family who the only the kids are members and the parents aren’t and well, they decided they want to get married and baptized on the 19 which is way cool.  They are a cool family. The Arrollo family.

·      THURSDAY: Well this day was pretty normal and we really didn’t do anything exciting other than a tour of the church with the Rosado family (the less actives from the other day). Then all of these guys came to our house to be able to go to a meeting the next day.

·      FRIDAY: Well we went to a meeting in the morning with the whole zone and the president asked me to train on giving tours and that was fun. I love to train and the president always asks me to do it. I feel really good when I am teaching and everyone gets what I am trying to say. I was told by the President that I speak the best Spanish out of any of the North Americans in my mission, which I felt pretty good about! I have never been told anything like that about English! Haha Not even close!! Then, at night we taught a few lessons.

·      SATURDAY: This was a good day because at night we taught the Arrollo family again and they are way excited. They gave us the license and all the stuff to marry them. That was pretty cool. Then we went and taught another kid named Jesus who also wants to get baptized the 12 of April. He is a cool kid. He is only 16. I think he will be really cool.

·      SUNDAY: We went to go get the Arollo family to go to church and they weren’t in the house and then we went to the church and they weren’t there either and when I called him he had said he had to go to work which sucked and they couldn’t come.  But there were 10 people who went to church that we had never even met. We were really blessed. I feel like we just kept getting blessed this week.

          This is our last baptism! All of the parents of these kids are non actives and one is an investigator.

Week #72

March 24, 2014

·      Now we have an Elder from Chile! He was in Venezuela serving but the things got so bad there with the country that they took out all of the missionaries who where not from there!

 Then he got sent here!! He has 10 months in his mission so it is pretty much the same time as when I got switched to Ecuador!

·      I am super happy! My zone baptized seven people this week.  It looks like we will finish with thirteen baptisms.  We are going to break the zone record! 

·      Also, the President told me that he is happy that I am here and that he needed me.  I had a hard time when I had to switch missions so hearing things like that make me feel really good.  I like knowing that he wants me here. 

·      So what else can I tell you? I have about eight months left now! It is crazy to think that my mission has gone by so freaking fast!!

·      Oh yeah! I did have something weird happen this week! I got hexed! Like a curse!!! hahaha this like crazy old lady came up behind me and tried to kiss me on the mouth and I had to like fight her off. hahaha and then she got mad because I wouldn’t let her kiss me and she cursed me and my eye got all swollen up and I was like super tired and all the members saw me and said I was cursed so they gave me a blessing and it went away really fast!!!!! It is my right eye!!! It’s way red still! So, yeah that was like voodoo stuff. But I feel a lot better now! The weird thing was not even my eye it was just that it made me freaking really tired! Like I fell asleep during the lesson!!

 This is a cake that I made for the sisters as a reward because they taught 10 lessons in one day! I was pretty proud of it!

 This is my apartment!

 This is me right before church! My right eye is still a little bit red!

 I got my hair cut this week by an actual gay guy! Can you tell?!

Week #71

March 17, 2014

Everything is good! My week has been good! It looks like my zone is going to baptize more then 30 people this month!!!! And I have visited every single missionary from my zone this week! We have been working like crazy!! I really do love my comp I think he might be as good as elder Uribe! I really love him!!! He is soooooo much fun to be with!!!!

Oh and I made some girl from my zone cry on that phone when she was giving me the report from the week! hahaha and I thought she was like really sad and I felt bad like I had done something to make her cry because I was being pretty blunt about how her week had sucked and how she had been kind of lazy. but yeah I figured out she only wanted to have permission to go to the downtown part of Quito on p day! haha she totally took advantage of me! hahahaah I am such a softy for crying!

 I have a zone of almost all sisters. There are 4 elders including me and my comp and there are 14 sisters. which is kind of weird for me because I have put up like that most hard core anti-girl wall from being in the jungle and having so many girls try to get me to fall. I just like stopped talking to any girls. Now I have to talk to them and like be nice to them and even like be there friend.

I am not tempted or anything but I don’t know its been really hard for me to because I like to yell and make fun of and be really hard on the missionaries to motivate them, but with them I cant be like that at all because they are girls!!! Oh well, I guess I needed to learn that!!

We had those baptisms this week which was cool! The one kid named Dario is 12 years old and is the funniest! In his interview when they asked him about the law of chastity he gave us the weirdest look and was like “look here, I don’t get into that.”  He seemed disgusted that we had even asked. hahahahaha I almost died from laughing so hard.  he is a funny kid for being only 12. Then the other is named Paulo who is 17 and he had the coolest testimony when he shared with everyone at the baptism. He was like " Well thank to my mom and my aunt and the elders who have taught me so much, but I didn’t get baptized for them.... I was baptized because I prayed and asked God and I know it is the truth" and started crying!!!! It was pretty cool!!! He is a super cool kid!!!! I want to keep working with the missionaries when we get home!! I feel like I am always going to want to teach!  

 This was our baptism! They were children of less active members and we started visiting them and were able to baptise their kids and get them coming back to church! !!!

This is the biggest backpack I have ever seen!!!!!

Week # 70

March, 3, 2014

Well, this was a CRAZY week! The mission is sending home 15 missionaries early! for the last three days I have been up until about 1 or 2 every morning because I was helping the President. I am sooooo glad I have been obedient!!!! I feel sooo good about being a good missionary. hahaha but yeah its alll over now and the bad ones all went home!!!

Yeah that was pretty much all that happened this week. We were also going to baptize a kid but when we got to his house his mom told us that he had left really early in the morning stealing her cell phone and then never came back. I was pretty sad when I heard that but oh well I guess things like that happen.

The mission really is so cool Emily and you get soooo many cool stories! I thought I would like hate the idea of all the rules but it is weird how I don’t feel at all restricted for anything. I just want to do good so i don’t even have temptations to break the rules.

It has been sooo freaking cold here and I only have one little sweater which sucks because it just gets wet and then makes me colder. It has been raining all the time!! It doesn’t really rain hard just like freezing cold!!!! As far as my pants, I am having them made for me!!!! They will be done Friday!!! I’m pumped!!!! I really needed them!!!  

 Oh yeah and the rash hand thing is just starting to go away!! I was going to go to the doctor but i didn’t have time so I didn’t go. Plus he was just going to give me some cream and charge the church a bunch of money!

Oh yeah and right now we are in a time called carnival Gere in Ecuador with means that everyone is in like a all out 3 day water fight with the whole country! They like drive by in trucks and dump buckets full of water onto you and spray you with like this foam stuff! It’s pretty fun!! hahah but it sucks because its freezing cold here!!!!

         I am loving it here!

Christian

 This is Elder Pinta and I! And then one of us on the sign! And then one of just me!

 This is us way tired at night on the bus!

This is one of the times they got us on the bus! haha Part of the carnival that I was talking about.