Treat Yo Self

So with school being out for everyone, my whole family at the beach and the deans about to party it up in Utah this next week and with 3 of our 4 investigators falling for this weekend for their baptism, i decided i would treat myself to a couple things. Since I'm in Ambato ive been saving a little bit of all the money that's been sent to me and this morning i went and bought one of the famous suits here in Ecuador. I'm sooooo excited to get that thing next monday! Its a super nice Italian custom made suit were i bought the material and he makes the whole suit for me! Its way cool! A lot of people come from the states and buy a couple because these kind of suits are wayyy expensive in the states but not too bad here so I'm treatin myself since i cant party with you all this week! 

So yeah like i said 3 of our 4 baptisms fell this week! I was super bummed about it. I was so excited, still am since we still have one, but its not the same. So Washo and Galo are 2 kids that are a bit older. Washo doesn't have any support from his friends and I'm pretty sure they talked him out of it and Galos wife said that if he gets baptized she's gonna separate from him. So he's scared about that and I don't blame him too much. We are going to work hard with these two to try and figure out what we need to do to help them out more! 

We do have one baptism though with Sissy (cece) Vera. Shes a 13 yr old Pilas girl that is just on fire! She does every commitment we leave her and she doesn't just do it one time! She does it several times! One night we left her 2 folletos and a chapter in the Book of Mormon and she read it all 3 times! I was so shocked she is awesome and will be a super strong convert! Her brother is a convert of my companions and he has been helping her out a lot! She has a lot of family (brother) support and help from the young women by being her friend! Its going to be a solid baptism! So excited and happy for her!

So with mom and dad traveling on mothers day i called president and received permission to call home this Sunday the 1st of may! Make sure that everything is all ready to go please I just need the log in to skype again cuz i forgot it. So excited to talk to you

Terremoto Loco

Yeah so every letter I got said something about the earthquake that happened here Saturday. Some people were more sympathetic than others about my health. Happy to know some cared haha 

So yeah it was pretty crazy! Ive been pretty sick and so we came back to the house to take a small little break and eat dinner and i was standing by the counter and like i said I've been pretty sick and the i feel the counter keep swinging and hitting my hip and in my head i was like oh no I'm about to pass the heck out hard haha! So I grabbed onto the counter and i felt that it was moving then i noticed the floor was too than i looked at my comp and was like DUDE ARE YOU FEELING THIS!!!??? and he's just like yeah! then the door started rattling and our beds and everything then he was like what do we do get in a door frame? i was like I'm going outside (we have a small patio) and he calls the ZLs and I'm just looking out at the city just seeing EVERY light go out. Some of the telephone wires started exploding it was so crazy! I felt like it was going on for 5 minutes but it was crazy! The whole power went out everywhere! Since I haven't unpacked my flash light i used a small pen i found that had a super small light to get us around to see if people needed help. Pretty scary walking around the sector in complete darkness we were just talking about now is a good time to rob us and what we would do and stuff but yeah we were all good! It was a fun experience to be in an earthquake once, but don't really wanna do that again. I had adrenaline pumping through me till about 9 and it happened like at 6:30. Absolutely craazzy!

So that's so cool that you guys got to meet someone from my old ward! He's super cool! Happy he brought all my presents I sent home to you guys! And from what he told you, yes I did get emergency changed on wednesday! It was crazy I was SOOOOOO sick on wednesday just dying and since we didn't have a cell phone, my DL shows up to my house at like 10 and says youre getting changed pack up your stuff they need you to leave really soon! So I started packing it all up and was just dying and then I had to go take a 2 and a half hour bus ride to get to my zone, then take another hour long bus ride to get to my sector. Im SOOOOO excited to be here! I'm in the zone Ambato!! Everyone always says that this is one of the best zones in the mission! I'm hoping to be here in this zone for a good chunk of my mission! My sector is a little big and with changes coming up on the 8th idk what will happen so I'm working hard to figure out everything just in case I'm left to run the sector.

As far as investigators go we have one named Washel. He's 18 years old and he used to have serious problems with the word of wisdom. He has gone through a changing mode and knows now that we can be forgiven of our sins and that's something he didn't know. He's just 18 tho and still has lame kid excuses so we are working with that.

I don't know the people too well yet so ill give you a better update next week on them! I just know as of now we have 4 people lined up for the 30th this month! Excited for that date!

I love being in this sector! I'm grateful for your letters you have written me! Love you all! Talk to you next week! 

These were at the terminal before I got on the bus and left! 

old comp Elder Memmott 

my homie from the MTC

my companion for 2 weeks, Elder Gallego 

isdgyaJKL

So yeah this was another successful week. May not be classified as success but I'm showing back up to the apartment freaking tired. My companion is taller than me (idk why every latino I have are the tall ones of the mission...) and he's not super chubby like my last one so he walks so freaking fast haha I'm not gonna lie, sometimes its so hard to keep up with him. I thought I walked fast, but nope. 

Anyways we found a new family of 4 this week. They are super friendly and I feel very welcomed over there and they are pretty rich so they feed us after every lesson and man is it good food! I love the family, I just don't love ALL the questions. So many questions. Normally that's not a problem, but these questions all come straight from the old testament. Like who on earth knows the old testament. Ive studied the Bible all this week after our first lesson with them on Monday. I am now ready to answer about 5% of his questions about the Bible. I just straight up told him in our first lesson after my companion tried answering all his questions, "look we don't know the bible that well to answer your question. What we do know is that our message is true and you can find out too. You just need to pray about it and that's how you receive answers" it stopped the questions for the night and we were able to salvage the lesson up after that. We have a lesson with them tonight at 8 after I eat some really good pizza from a member.

Melanie is awesome. Her mom is starting to listen to us too and we are going to try to put fecha with her too next lesson. Melanie was unable to attend yesterday because her parents are divorced so she left to go with her dad. It was a little frustrating because we confirmed with her like 4 times with her this past week about church. She said she was all good and ready to go but yeah. She HAS to come these next 2 weeks to baptize her the 30th still. We are going to work super hard to make sure this happens.

Ive been thinking a lot about conference this week. First thing I thought about was getting a temple in Quito. In order for that to happen there are a lot of numbers that need to be reached in order for a temple to be built that our mission president shared with us. Also members need to be paying their tithing and keeping all the commandments. One of the hermanas in our zone shared a story with us about what happened where she's from in Barranquilla Colombia. She said Elder Holland came to visit and some one asked when they are going to start building the temple and he replied with when are you going to have commandment keeping members who pay their tithing? After about a long time of years of waiting they just FINALLY started building that temple in Colombia. BOOM that was a big slap in the face! If we want a temple we have to do our part. They announced it but that doesn't mean they are going to start right away. We all committed as a zone about making sure members in our ward are commandment keeping members who pay their tithing. Then we all committed to contact every family we see in the streets. Ive been trying so hard to be diligent at that.

The next thing I thought about with a member in my ward passing away this week is the talk that some sister gave about "do I really believe it?" Because everyone bore their testimonies on the plan of salvation and I was sitting there the whole time asking myself do I really believe this plan? And I really do. I know that God has this perfect plan for us. Families are forever and her 3 boys are going to see their mom again. I'm excited for the day to start my eternal family, but until then I'm going to keep sharing this plan with everyone else down here in Ecuador.

I love this church. I love this experience that I get to have right now. I love the plan that our Heavenly Father created for us and for the opportunity we have to be sealed in temples and just for temples as well to make those covenants with Him. I love you all! Thanks for the emails! Ill talk to you next week! 

These are about 2 weeks old, but Zamantha came home and brought jerseys that are legit!