Week #94

8-30-14 

To let you know about my week a little,

Monday: normal Monday, just verifying and getting ready for the trainings of the week!

Tuesday: we drove to Esmeraldas on the coast! We go there at like 1 PM and trained and then went to the ZL’s house to sleep.  I got to stay with elder Pinta! It was sweet!

Wednesday: We trained at 9AM and got done at about 4PM and that was cool because it gave me time to work with Elder Mazzarelli. He was the one that I was put with when he was struggling more and now he is a district leader, which makes me so happy! He is going to be a zone leader soon I think and it made me feel super good that he told me I was a huge part of helping him!  It makes me feel good to know I actually make a difference.

Thursday: We drove home from the coast and on the way home we ait in a cool place called sasha which is like in the jungle! I was talking to my president and on the way home I was thinking about how my life later will be and I was thinking that it would be soooo sweet to have a ranch for like troubled boys.  If you can actually get one running people pay a lot to send their kids to them the President said and it helps pay for the ranch, but I am not sure how you get it going yet.  I was just thinking about it haha. 

Friday: Wejust hung around the offices getting ready for the council next week and then we worked in the night and got to teach one lesion to this woman who confessed to us that she was so tired of her husband beating her that she cheated on him and I felt so bad for her knowing that she could feel so bad to go so far.  Marriage is a huge problem here and usually only happens when someone gets pregnant.  That is the only way that people actually get married here! It’s soooo freaking sad!!!

Saturday: Like I said we had to go save Gorge from the stuff he read on internet which was making him super weird because it was a bunch of anti Mormon literature! like he wouldn’t answer the phone or anything! It sucked but now it is better!!! but yeah now all is well!! I am still working hard!!

That’s my week in a nutshell! 

Love,

christian

Hey and watch these videos! They are super cool!!

https://www.lds.org/bible-videos/?lang=spa

Week #93

8-23-14 

Hey, this week:

Well, we trained in Quito Este Zone and then just started getting ready for the mission council that we have in two weeks! haha the truth is that there is not much to talk about!

We had a few things happen with missionaries having trouble this week, and it was really eye opening for me.  Since we are the assistants we have to go and investigate when things get reported that missionaries are doing and if we ever find what we are looking for then we are supposed to report to the President.  Well, that is what has opened my eyes so much.  At first when it would happen I would feel like the President would be maybe relieved that we found what we were looking for, but if anything ever goes wrong with missionaries obedience then the President will cry instead.  It is such a great example to me of pure love. He loves the missionaries all so much and wants them to do their best and become their best. 

Oh wait and we met this member from Bolivia who lives here and is super less active and he invited us over to his house and he lives in this 3 story house with 3 spas and 4 hot tubs and he lives alone!!! It was crazy but super cool! And then he went with us to visit another inactive sister in our ward named sister Gallegos who doesn’t go to church because she is sickly and the last week we had the young men take her the sacrament and then when we showed up to visit her today she started to cry and thank us because it had been more then a year since she had taken the sacrament and she made us lunch today! It was super cool!!!! I love old ladys!!!!

As far as being sick I’m not sick anymore!! I feel great! I ran once this week, which was nice!!!! But my knee is going to be a problem! We will have to see how to fix it when I get back!!! 

And you asked if we see the news ever... no ... but the pres. wife always tells me about things and it soooo sad that that stuff is going on in the world!!!! If I didn’t want a family so bad and to be with them I would want to join the military so bad!

Christian

This is Marina Gallegos the woman who fed us lunch today that I love!! 

Week #92

August 16, 2014 
Hahaha Remember how I told you that I was sick last week? Well it let’s just say that I only thought I was sick the week before this one.  It was really just getting me ready for this week! I have been so sick! It just keeps coming out both ends like every 20 minutes this whole week! I am finally feeling ok today but I have been seriously nonstop throwing up all week.  You don’t even know!!! This week was a huge week for interviews in Otavalo so I had to train the same thing 3 times everyday for 4 days hahaha! I was like running to the bathroom in the middle of every lesson! I am so beat! It was from 9-8 everyday! Then I couldn’t even sleep because I would have to get up so much, so it has been a crazy week.  I am hoping it is over now!

Sunday: Nothing really happened we just went to church! and then I got sick and started throwing up and well the mission nurse made me to go home and sleep so I did like all day!

Monday: The same thing as always, just doing the verifications of the zone leaders and then we had to stay a little late in the offices to get all of our stuff ready to go for the week with all the interviews!!!! Then we had a visit with Jorge, who was baptized this Friday!!!! And then went home!!!!

Tuesday: We started out by driving to Ibarra! We had our interviews there until about 8:30 at night but then we figured out that we had no place to sleep for me and my companion, so we had to drive a good way to the Imbabura zone and then we stayed there!

Wednesday: We had interviews with the Imbabura zone!!! It was good, but it was just the same thing!! Train, be sick and sleep at night!!!!!!

Thursday: We had interviews with the Otavalo zones and that was still the same thing! Just training, being sick and sleeping, but we did get to go to this place called ‘Plaza de Ponchos’ which is like a huge art place that they have in Otavalo. I bought a duffle bag for 10 bucks! Pretty cool!!!!!

Friday: We got up and the President picked us up and took us to play tennis with his wife and daughter. It was fun! We played for like an hour and then we had to go to Cotacachi to pick some bookmarks up that the President had made for those who go to there house! He was asking me which kind I wanted because the ones that he was buying are for my group! Hahaha that is crazy! He was making me sooo trunky!!!!! Then we drove home and me and Elder Miranda went straight to the house to pick up our baptism clothes for Jorge and for Jarbey, who baptized him!!! Then we went straight to the church building!!!! It was a good baptism! Jorge has a cool testimony!

 The cool thing here about baptizing in Quito is that when people get baptized they have to really know what they are getting themselves into. This guy that we Baptized is super funny because he is super ADHD!!! It is sooo hard for him to sit at church, but he knows it is all true so he knows he has to but it practically kills him!!!!! I die laughing every time I see him at church!!!!! But yeah it was really cool! And his mom came to the baptism and we have a visit with her today at 7:00!!!!! I am pumped!!!! But yeah then after that we went and tried to visit some of our other converts but they were not there!!!! Oh well, we will probably try to visit them today!!! There is another lady that we have been visiting named Marina, who is about 65 or 70 years old and is sooo nice!!!!!! And she loves when we visit her!!! And you know that I have a soft spot for the old ladies!!!!! I love talking to old people!

Saturday: The morning started out a little crazy by finding out that some of our zone leaders had gotten home at about 10:30 at night, when they should be home at 9:00, and yeah it was this whole big deal because a bunch of missionaries saw them out so late and we had to go talk to all of them to make sure that they understand that it was not ok. Then the President talked to them over the phone and yeah it was really good and then after that we went back to the house and tried to study for a little while, but then there was a earthquak… I don’t know how to spell that... but yeah it was pretty big so we had to call ALL the missionaries and make sure they where ok! And yeah everyone was fine, but it did scare the hell out of me because we felt it pretty strong and we were on the 5th floor of our building and I could see the whole building moving a lot!!!! When that was over we went and played soccer and then came back and took a shower and went to go pick up my shoes that I had to send it to be fixed.  But the guy still hadn’t done them yet, so that was annoying.  I hate when people don’t complete their jobs! I try sooooo hard to complete what I am supposed to and I know I am not perfect at all and I let people down a lot too, but I always get sooo frustrated when people seem like they aren’t even putting effort in to doing their jobs!! Anyways, hopefully those will be done eventually because the President was getting on me about them.  Then I had lunch and ate chicken and now I am emailing home!

         How is everyone at home?! I miss everyone! Everything is good here and I survived the earthquake! So that’s good. 

         

These are pictures from the baptism of Jorge!

         

Love, Christian

Week #91

August 9, 2014 

 I was super sick allll week!!! But the bad part is that being the assistant it does not matter at all if I am sick I still have to train and take care of everything!!!!! I freaking hate it because I am a wimp about being sick!! But oh well at the same time I feel good doing hard things!!! It was a pretty normal week though!

Saturday: I was in Coca which is the jungle! But really it is a pretty lame jungle compared to Pucalpa or Tarapoto! but it was nice to get some sun! i trained for about 5 hours by myself because we only go out there every 3 months and the president only ever takes 1 of us out at a time. and then at night we went to a baptism which was pretty cool!!!! and then we went to the hotel and slept! It’s funny to stay with the president because we all see him like this super hero for us and then when you stay with him and you see him in his normal life it just makes you realize that he is just a normal guy like us!!

Sunday: well we went to church and then went straight to the airport to go back to quito and got there about 7 pm and then worked with my comp in our sector until 9 but I started feeling kind of sick so I just went straight to bed after.

Monday: we had a normal monday but the only real problem is that we had to get ready for the mission council the next day and my comp had not done anything for it while I was gone so we ended up staying there until about 1:30 Am to finish which sucked but oh well!

Tuesday: we had the mission council with all the zone leaders and sister leaders and well it went really good!!! we trained about AMMONITAS which is just something we made up! It’s like a visit to the missionaries in the morning to see if they get up on time and to make sure they study well enough! and yeah it went really well! We finished at about 7 pm and then went straight to the offices to get ready to train the next day in the interviews and left at about 9:30 pm to the house and I was still sick and so I crashed!!!! 

Wednesday: we had interviews in QUITO WEST ZONE and it was good! We did it pretty fast and we trained well! Well I trained well! I had to train alone because my comp had to look at all the aria books which is something that sister Richardson usually does but she wasn’t there this week! and then after that we finished at about 7 pm and went to the offices to get ready for our visits the next day!

Thursday: we left at about 6:00 am to go visit some missionaries in a few zones and well it was cool because we got there and they were still getting ready and they did not expect us at all!!!! and yeah I studied with them and it was a good time to be able to talk and teach them about studying and stuff!! Who would of thought that I might ever teach someone how to study the scriptures!! Pretty cool right!?  Crazy.   but yeah then we went to the mini conference of the Ofelia zone and yeah it was pretty normal!!!! and then we go back to the offices at about 3:30 pm and talked to the PTE. and then got ready for the training on Friday and then went to work in our sector we had a visit with Jorge the one who is going to be baptized really soon and well he also wants to go to see the temple this next week which will be super cool!!! I’m pumped!!!! 

Friday: we had interviews with the Calderón Zone and yeah that went until late and we had time to just do one leccion in our sector!!! we went to a family that the sisters had been teaching before and they told us that they where almost baptized but then all these really bad things happened to their family like people started to die and the whole house was robbed! and yeah they said they will NEVER let missionaries into there house again because of the bad things that happened to them and they don’t want anything to do with us, so that was kind of sad.  Then we went and found a less active family and that was also pretty sad!! They said unless the church started to give them money again they would never come back to church!!! I guess for like a long time they where on welfare in the church and the church cut them off because they didn’t even try to find a job and yeah that just sucks!!!! I HATE when people do only What they HAVE to and won’t try.  They just wait for their problems to be fixed for them!!!!! haha i mean there are for sure times when people need help, which is why church welfare is good, but just not trying AT ALL makes me crazy!!!!!

Saturday: well that’s today!!!! hahahaa and we went to the middle the world! It’s really cool!!!!! haha I took a bunch of pictures!!!! haha and then we eat CUY!!!! They are Ginny pigs!!!! It was not really very good but I did eat it!!! Also my President told me that I need to get new shoes because my shoes are so bad, and he said that my brown ones were too light colored, so I found someone to paint them black for me so that’s sweet! Haha

Sorry I probably sound negative I am suuuuch a wus about being sick! But I feel better today! Haha I am doing pretty dang good overall except I miss home when I think about it! Haha But I am happy here. 

Christian

 The old tribes here really did shrink heads (: This one is fake, but it is what they look like!

This is a real one though!

 Visiting the Equator Today (August 9th, 2014)

 It's impossible to walk in a straight line on the equator because the forces try to pull you to one side or the other.

 Balance an egg on the tip of a nail at the middle of the world.

 This is a little cuy, or guinea pig!

 This is the same little guy about an hour later... (: