(WEEK 52) Añito Jovenasos!

Well techniqually, I only have 363 days in the mission but whatever haha.

Finally we have a super solid investigator! Her name is Misleidys (Miss-Ladies) haha. She's from Cuba and she only has a month here in Ecuador. She also has family behind in Cuba that'll move here with her pretty soon. But right now she's living with some members that are her friends. It's unfortunate that the church isn't officially in Cuba because everytime we contact a cuban they are always really open and listen to us. Some members in the ward are even Cubans. But anyways, We've only taught her since this Wednesday but she already has most of the missionary lessons haha. We've taught her everyday and we have another apointment with her tonight. She just needs two more things: Tithing and the Sabbath Day. She has no doubts in the lessons until now plus she already has 3 church attendances and a friend in the church. So I'll be surprized if she doesn't get baptized for the 6th of September which is her baptismal date. Also this Sunday we had a miracle. We got a church member to come to church after being inactive for 25 years. She's still filled with apostacy in her head haha but hey! At least she came!

This week we had a couple activities. First we did divisions with Santa Anita (Elder Del Aguila and Elder Bell) I was with my ZL companion, Elder Santana and Elder Bell which Elder Del Aguila helped out Elder Araque in his sector. Kind of weird divisions but it was pretty cool. Elder Santana's back is killing him again so we had to end the divisions like 3 hours early. The next day (Wednesday) He couldn't even get out of bed. So Elder Araque and I just worked on trainings and studied for a long time until Elder Del Aguila calle dme because he needed a baptismal interview. So I did the interview and worked with them until the night while Elder Araque was watching Elder Santana. He has another appoinment in the hospital next week but I don't know how much they can do since we were just there last week and they didn't do anything (Being the best doctor of the best hospital in Ecuador hahaha). But Ill pray for the guy.

On Saturday we did a service project in the morning where we had to help handicapped people move from the cars to their new wheelchairs that the church was giving them. It was a huge service project with a ton of senior service missionaries from the United States that didn't speak Spanish haha. But it was really cool to help everyone out, even though by luck I always got the heaviest people while my companions would almost alwasy get tini grandmas hahaha.

I heard the song, Careless Whisper by George Michael in a lesson this week. Haha it made me laugh because of something on YouTube called "Sexy Sax Man." One of the many things that made me laugh before the mission. So if you're not in a mission right now, look it up, and laugh.

Eso es todo. Envíanme todos de ustedes un pastel esta semana cuando yo cumpla un año en la misión. No sean malitos :D

(WEEK 52)

(WEEK 51) Last weeks title was an understatement, this one should be called "¡Terremotos!" / "Earthquakes!"

Let's start with, Tuesday: 5.1 earthquake, epicenter at the "Mitad del Mundo.", Plus there were 5 tremors in total that day. Wednesday-Friday: I've felt probably about 8 little tremors spread out though each day. Saturday: Another earthquake at 10:08 in the morning, a 4.9, epicenter near Calderón (My old zone), plus a little bit of destruction on the hyways and some houses in that area, and Sunday(yesterday) about 2 or 3 tremors througout the day. Today: Nothing haha. But it's been pretty sweet. I've never felt so many tremors/earthquakes in one week. Plus they are happening not very deep under the surface, and my companion from Chile says that in can't be a shift in the plates because they are happening super close to the surface... The only logical explaination that I can think of is volcanic activity hahaha! But I'm not worried at all despite the fact that I'm surrounded by at least 4 active volcanos: Cotopaxi, Cayambe, Antisana, and Wawa Pichincha.

Talking about volcanoes, today we wen't up the teleferico(Cable car) Basically right near the craters of two volcanoes: Wawa and Rucu Pichincha. And it is freezing cold up there, freezing cold. Plus the wind was insane. I got some sweet pictures too. I was kind of just waiting for the volcano to explode due to the recent earthquake activity hahaha. It was chilly, I needed the lava and the pyroclastic flow to warm me up. (I'm not crazy, mom).

The Tene family finally came to church!! Elder Murphy was trying to get them to go to church for like 4 months and they never went, but this week we got em! So there's a miracle for ya. As far as the progression of investigators go, this week was kind of just a normal week. Avaneth now has her attendences to church, the lessons and everything. She just needs to get divorsed and married still. We've been receving a lot of referals again lately and I really don't know much about them yet but a couple of them seem pretty promising. One already has two church attendances. The only bad news is that we always recieve referals that live in other sectors haha, sometimes even from the church offices, oh well. On top of that this week we did divisions with the Elders from Iñaquito again. This time I stayed in San Carlos.

Well, thanks to the cybers in Ecuador, All of the pictures on my camera got erased this morning haha, silly viruses. The good news is that they are all backed up on my flash drive, and I have a lot more memory in my camera now. The bad news is that I lost like 5 pictures of me eating a fried guinea pig, so that's a bummer, but I'll try to get some pictures from my companions.

Eso es todo. Que tengan una buena semana. Busquen "los volcanes cercanos a Quito" en búsqueda de Google. Estoy cerca a muchos. No sé como, pero les informaré si yo muero por terremotos o volcanes... O los dos. Pilas.

¡Les quiero!

(WEEK 51)

(WEEK 50) ¡Terremoto!

So Friday at like 8:05 PM we felt a pretty good earthquake(At least for me). It was sweet! I think it was like a 3.5 or something like that. Plus the epicenter was on Cayambe. So I was just waiting for it and the 4 other volcanoes around Quito to explode, maybe next time...

Another busy week as far as meetings go. I'm always busy in Quito haha. On tuesday I had my second mission council. No one gave their testimony this time but next time an ex-assistant is leaving, Elder Ospina, so that should be cool. I love it when the coast and jungle ZL's stay with us for two days, they're pretty cool. Plus they always leave food behind in the fridge haha. They had nothing to do when they got here so they contacted for like 2 hours on Monday night and found a bunch of solid new people for us. Including an in-active family that wants to come back now. So we'll work with those people this week. On Wednesday the whole zone had interviews with President Richardson and on Thursday we did the mini zone conference with the whole zone. Finally on Saturday we had the leadership meeting with the district leaders and sister leaders in the zone. So like I said, busy! But I love it.

On Saturday we had the sweetest lesson with Miguel and Avaneth. They now have all the lessons and just love us. We just still have to be patient with the divorse problem. They were going to change houses and move to the sisters sector but they love us more so they moved into another house just barely in our sector. We finally found David again and he's progressing pretty well. He still has little doubts but he's progressing. It helps that he has a good friend that is a member and is helping him alond as he prepares for a mission.

On Friday we had to go to the hospital because my companion Elder Santana´s back is killing him lately. They siad he might had an infection or something so I hope everything goes well. We have another appointment tomorrow. Plus today I had to stay with Elder Walker in the hospital. He just got appendicitis, which really sucks. So he had to travel about 3 hours in a taxi from Ibarra to Quito. I stayed with him for like 45 minutes while his companion left with my companions to send in the weekly informs.

Right now I'm still pushing throught the New Testament and in the interviews meeting President Richardson gave us the goal to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days. I'm in 1 Nephi chapter 15 right now. By the way a missionary from Quito is going to South Salt Lake on his mission. I guess it doesn't help that I can't remember his name but at least you know that a piece of Quito is in the holy land haha. So if you see him, tell him that a random gringo missionary in Quito, that he doesn't even know, says hi.

Encontré una escritura que ayuda a los misioneros que están en Otavalo/Imbabura con la comida "tan rica." Lucas 10:8. Que tengan una buena semana. Les quiero mucho!

(WEEK 50)