New Change

So this past change just ended. I know seems pretty fast but this last change was only 5 weeks because they changed the time that people are in the MTC if its your native language. So missions either extended or cut the changes a week short, like we did, so yeah only 5 weeks. I was excited and not that excited for changes at the same time. I was excited because they are always exciting but not because i was getting along with my companion really well! It was a blast this past change buying machetes and having machete fights everyday. But I'm with my new companion, Elder Gallego from Colombia. He's cool and will make my 5th companion out here in Quito. So like i said my sector is HUGEEEEE so they finally split it again. SO my only change was like a 15 minute walk up a huge hill to my new house. My companion stayed and is still the district leader so really not that big of a difference! I'm excited for this change and to have to speak Spanish 24/7 again. We tried last change but we would only last like 3 hours everyday and just get sick of it and switch back over so this should help TONS! My goal is to go as hard as i can this change so that next change i cant haha 

So something that's super cool! My 1st counselor in the bishopric is moving to Dublin Ohio haha! He told me last night and was like yeah so if you want ill take home stuff for you and give it to your family! AHHHHHHH so cool! He doesn't speak like ANY english but says his friend that lives in Dublin is trying to get him a job! That's the big news haha 

So other news since we split the sector, Terrasa no longer belongs to me, but Melanie does! WOOOOOOO I'm super excited about that bc she is our only investigator with fecha right now! I'm a little bummed tho bc all my converts here in argelia live in the other sector. But ill visit them on sundays! So it was awesome we taught a few really good lessons with melanie this week! Its hard to get a man to accompany us on these lessons bc ecuador started playing games again for qualifying for the world cup so we have to take the oldest guy in the world haha. its cool though because he really helps a lot and NEVER says no! He just likes to ramble though. So anyways Melanie came to church yesterday and that was AWESOME! I was so happy for that! her fecha is for the first week in may because we cant baptize in April due to not being in regular church the whole month with general conference, area conference, stake conference and stuff all this month. So yeah shes getting baptized first of next month. 

I'm excited for this change! Keep praying for me and you all know ill do the same! I love you all tons! Have a great week! Talk to you next week! 

Week 4

Have you ever been trying to wash some clothes by hand cuz the member takes forever and so you decide to dump a bucket of water out the window, not once, but three times and it lands on your land lord and his wife and all their clothes they just washed? Yeah well i did that hahaha. So i was washing some stuff by hand cuz the member still isn't done with my clothes and I'm all out so the sink was full of dirty dishes and i was like I'm not pouring dirty water on that. So i looked out my window, only saw a roof and so i just poured buckets of water out the window when i finished. Then after the 3rd bucket i hear someone "HEY VECINO!!!!" I was like yep not answering and hid from the window. Then we come back from lunch and our land lord is like hey you poured buckets of water all over me my wife and all our clothes and it was dirty water with soap on it and he just went on and on and on! For like 5 minutes! I felt pretty bad so i just kept listening and then my companion is like hey I'm done with this and just goes yeah it was an accident wont happen again and he just keeps going on again so my companion just makes me walk away hahaha. I do feel pretty bad but man that conversation was awful! Hes like 75 yrs old so it makes it even funnier haha

So this week was pretty good! I told you last week we were planning on contacting the whole week or at least a lot of the week. So yeah we did for a couple days we just set a couple hours out of the day to talk to people. You know what happened? I got sunburned on top of my head. That really hurts and I don't recommend trying that. But I know the lord blessed us for our desire to find people! We had a few awesome things happen this week! So first we started teaching Melanie. She's a 19 yr old and when we first started teaching her she's like "yeah my cousin says that you cant dance and drink and stuff as mormons and i don't wanna stop doing that" (cousin is a member) and so we explained briefly on that stuff she didn't accept a fecha so we were bummed. But we stopped by one day to verify if she did the compromismos that we left with her and she explained something super cool! She said "I'm someone who really believes in coincidence (don't know if that's spelled right) and last night I was trying to watch tv but it was broken so i tried to play on my phone and my phone died and then i saw the folletos that you guys left with me and i read them and i believe that to be an answer from God that i need to be a member of this church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BALLIN it was awesome! Its so awesome how our Heavenly Father will answer his children's prayers in such a manner that they know that its an answer from him! Oh man that was just great! She said her only problem is right now that she wants to be sealed in the temple when the time comes but she wants her dad to be able to enter and she doesn't think he will want to join the church. 

Next we have Terrasa. So we started teaching her a bit last week and she said she lives in this one part and we found out its in another stake that has boundaries with us. She already has all the assistances and is begging us to baptize her! But since she doesn't live within our limits we couldn't. Then yesterday we went to go tell her that she needs to move in with her cousin (a recent convert that gave us the reference) who lives in a BIG house and all by herself then she can be baptized in our ward. And before we even told her that they told us the news that she's moving in with her! WOOOOOHOOOOO straight miracles happening in Argelia! I love this ward!

I almost got to eat guinea pig last night :( she told us she was going to make it for us but forgot. So bummed oh well I still got some time to try it! 

I love this sector and I'm lovin the miracles happening here! You guys are the best! I love your letters and appreciate it when you all write me! Love you all! Talk to you next week! 

Week 3

So yeah I had something I wanted to start my letter out with but yeah I forgot. Normally I write it down on the monday page of my agenda but I forgot to do that. Second you guys are probably thinking, wow its a miracle that I use an agenda. Yes it is quite the miracle. Its actually very helpful haha. The mission does build good habits

So this week was a little rough. We are having a super hard time with investigators. We are working hard but all that seems to be working is getting in with recent converts and less actives. We have no program right now so this week we decided we are going to contact like crazy and just literally ask anyone for references including contacts. We need to start teaching some investigators.

So this week we were able to go to a different part of our sector that I haven't been to yet, like I said last change my sector is HUGE! So we finally went over to that part of the sector and we got a hold of some less actives that I didn't know existed. They are a really cool family! The family Caldoron are super awesome but they've just stopped praying and reading over time so they started to lose their testimony and eventually fell away. Its crazy how necessary it is that we read and pray a lot throughout the day so that we can feel the spirit more and so like this family, we don't start to lose our testimony. I'm excited to work with this family and to help them out more! They didn't come to church yesterday which I was bummed about but through more prayers we can get them back to church where they know the need to be.
 

So yeah we did divisions a lot this week so we didn't get to work in our sector for the entire week. On divisions we just contacted like crazy and it was actually kinda fun because I saw some funny things. So we did divisions with the ZLs and so when you do divisions with them you both go to their sector. So me and my ZL, Elder Zelada, were contacting and I started speed walking SUPER fast to catch up to this girl, I get there and start talking to her and getting out the basic info and once I asked for her name she was like "NOPE" and sprinted! hahahahaha She ran like I was trying to kill her and I just stopped walking turned around and looked at elder Zelada and just shrugged my shoulders and he was just bent over laughing. Contacting can get pretty boring but Ecuador is full of interesting people so its fun sometimes to see how weird some people are haha

So yeah sorry about this letter and how lame it was. Don't doubt how hard I'm working cuz we work super hard! I love this sector and I love my companion. Probably my favorite comp of my mission! I hope you guys have a good week! Thanks for writing me! I love you all! Talk to you next week! 

The Miracle

So this past week early on, like tuesday something like that we were in a lesson and the bishop calls us and was like "hey I just talked to Joel and he said he got this weekend off of work for his baptism because you guys gave him fecha for that day" then he's like "Yeah so lets baptize him this week because he went to church for 7 months while he was in the coast and has all his assistances and hes ready and free" So we were like woooohoooo so we called and checked with the ZLs if this saturday we could baptize him and they were like yeah hes got all the assistances (I didn't know that because my last companion didn't communicate with me) so yeah we had his interview on friday and baptized him saturday!!!! CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYY it was a way awesome baptism and he bore an AMAZING testimony at the end! Such a strong convert! 

So this week was full of a lot of nothing because we were running all over the place for this baptism and our only other investigator left town for the week so we worked a lot with recent converts this week! So one in particular that I'm very upset about is the fam patiño. They are converts of like 6 months and when we went to go teach them this week the husband flew out of the house saying he had to go to work and the wife was like im gonna be honest, We don't want anything to do with the church anymore. We are back with the testigos and we like being there. before their baptism they were with that church for 10 years. The family gets offended Very easily and because the ward has made so many citas with them and haven't shown up i think they have gotten offended and stuff. So we are trying to gain their confidence back. We know the problem tho. Elder Holland talked about this when he came. He said when he was on his mission every time missionaries called him saying we cant get this investigator to progress, he would show up, ask them where they were in their lectura in the book of Mormon and 99% of the time they weren't reading the scriptures. He said once they started reading, they started progressing again. This family has stopped reading. So me and my comp go in and say look read this chapter and if you don't feel ANYTHING at all after you read and pray, we will leave you alone. But if you feel anything at all we are going to keep coming back. So the bishopric yesterday in consejo said they are going to visit them today. Tomorrow we will pass by and see if they did their part. Please pray for this family! 

Zamantha is in argentina for another 3 weeks so we haven't seen her

The Maldonado family is doing great! javier, the dad, just received the Aaronic priesthood yesterday and he's doing great! This family is awesome and are SUPER strong converts! Cant wait in years when people look at these fichas of converts and go Elder Welch baptized this guy, all he did was baptize converts! So far I'm 100%! Loving helping people find the path back to our Father! 

I love you guys a lot! Thanks for writing me! I'll talk to you all next week! 

District activity. 15,419 ft up in the air