NBA(NegrosBastantesAltos)

Haha so this week was pretty good. My companion is super funny and so we have been having a good time. So since my comp is a lot taller than me I tell them he's from the states and they believe me. I kinda stopped doing it because after like the 3rd time of being raged on for my spanish I was like yeah this joke isn't funny anymore. Its because I say hes from the states and they respond saying but your spanish is really good to him. So the joke isnt funny to me anymore. But I told someone that my companion played in the NBA before he came on the mission and they believed me and then my companion said the joke of what the NBA stands for (see subject) But things are going great here. 

Well in news of whats going on, they closed down the other sector in my ward in emergency changes and so we have the whole ward to our selves. Its a little intimidating because its a VERY big sector with A LOT of recent converts and A LOT of work to do. We are trying to figure out a good balance between the work in the sectors but hopefully we can get that all figured out. But because the hermanas got taken out, we had another baptism! It was honestly pretty crazy. Her name is Magaly and I have taught her one time. It was pretty cool though to know that she was getting baptized because she knows that this church is true and not for the missionaries. She may have not the strongest knowledge of the church but she knows its true so its a start. We will be working with her a lot and her sister accepted baptism but not a date. Hopefully we can get things going a little more there.

Well family and ya else, its been a good week. I drank a lot of mate, learned a lot about soccer history and uruguay history, but my testimony got stronger this week. So its been a good week. Ill be talking to you all lates. Love you all 

 Picture of Daniela (sorry its super blurry. Not my fault haha) 

 Picture of Magaly and her baptism (Idk why she's posing like that)

Since you guys went to disneyland, I learned how to make chocolate and we made disney chocolates because im still hurt

Training Your Mind

It was change day. It was a good 6 weeks with my companion elder chavez but it was for sure the quietest 6 weeks of my life. I can only hold a one way conversation for so long. The changed passed by super fast though! I stayed in my sector and I recieved a giant as a companion. Hes about 6 foot 6 latino from uruguay. You know what that means. We gonna be drinkin mate all day yoo. He unpacked his things and had about a 5lbs bag of that stuff haha. Time to learn to like it. Its awesome though. Hes super out going and funny so we are already having a good time.  

In return, with this past weekend, we baptized the very last what was in our investigator pool. We literally have nothing. I was kinda nervous for this and a couple baptisms almost got pushed to this change but they didnt. We have a LOT of work to do. A lot to get going. Im excited though because its going to give me more of a chance to improve my finding abilities. Contacting, or tracting, doesnt really happen here. If you talk to people walking down the hill, they either ignore you or just get mad. If theyre walking up the hill you can talk to them but those are pretty hard to find because they are all on the bus. I honestly dont know what we will do to find the news but I know its gonna happeen because its gotta happen or ill lose my mind haha.  

Something that helped me this week was I got really bored the other day while my companion was sending in a letter that I started rereading a lot of old letters that I have. I read one from Tyler that I think was his second letter to me on my mission. He said that even though he wasnt necesarily having the greatest time on his mission, he always put that he's living the dream. He said you gotta learn to train your mind. So it got me a little animated for this change. Because I knew that this change was gonna be a LOT of work and a lot of difficulties but if I learn to train my body to my mind, it'll all be good. Just gotta keep those positive thoughts and success will come!  

Thanks for the letters. Talk to you lates! 

Book(s) of Mormon(s)

So some crazy stuff is goin down! To start, the mission wont have or receive any book(s) of Mormon(s) for the next several months. Its gonna be pretty difficult to help the new investigators progress the next several months when we only have 3 copies in the house. Thats a book of mormon a month if my math is right. Its that supposedly the distribution center in the states doesnt have any copies of the new version in spanish so we have to wait for them to print it out, then send them to us. By new versions I mean that the book of mormon I have now, is out of date cuz they changed a few words in some verses in the spanish book of mormon...

Next crazy thing, we got these books about "how to use technology safely" and they gave them to all the missionaries in the mission and said its to be studied to help you after the mission. I think they are lying and that ill be getting an ipad woooooooooooo! I hope so but honestly, id rather have a bike than an ipad...

On saturday we were supposed to have a baptism. It was the baptism of Daniela. Jose's little sister. She was FINALLY excited to get baptized it was awesome! So friday we went to their house we talked to the mom saying hey at this hour we are gonna come by and go to the church with Daniela and with Jose. She was like yeah thats fine. What we didnt know is that she told Daniela that night when we left that she couldnt leave till she got home and then they were gonna go down together. So we followed the plan that we set the day before and so did Jose and Daniela. So about 30 minutes before the baptism started the mom calls me yelling at me like a psycho latino that you would see in some crazy mexican telenovelas. So i made my companion talk to her. She went pscho wanted to talk to Daniela and she yelled at her made her cry then told us we never told her we were gonna go down with her. We said yeah we told you last night and she said but you have to call and tell me when you got her and say shes with you. Well we didnt know that and so Daniela was still crying and so the bishop talked to her then Pte Christensen was at the baptism too and so he talked to her and told us we should wait to baptize her cuz shes too upset to be able to focus on the spirit. The worst part was that the bishop told her she wasnt prepared to get baptized now the mom wont let her. It was a BIG mess! MADNESS! Hopefully within the next several weeks we can get this all taken care of and she will be able to get baptized!

Other than all that news.. this past week we had a meeting with president and the assistants talked about something that really made me think. They talked about the phrase "returning with honor" they applied it by saying we all know what it means, but it can be applied to more than just going home after the mission with honor. It means going back to your house every night with honor. Every time you walk in the house at night you should reflect and think if really, you came home with honor that day. It really does make you think a lot about your diligence. If really you gave everything you had that day. My new goal is to have a personal evaluation at night to see if really im coming home with honor. If not, what did I not do and how can I make sure I do it the next day. Everyday times running out and its crazy how fast its going. I gotta make sure im doin all I can in these next months so not only everyday I can go home with honor, but when the time comes, I truly come home with honor knowing I did all I could with what I was given.

I love you all! Thanks for the love and the support. I gots pictures so yeah! Ttyl

 baptism of the familia moreno!

 My favorite activity of my mission so far! As you can see it was a monster! 

Letter Home

So last night I ate probably one of the grossest things of my mission. I ate pig intestines with a nasty side of something that looked like meat but tasted like crap. Honestly I was trying so hard not to gag and every time I put that nastiness in my mouth I hid it under my tongue and waited a sec then gulped down some liquid without chewing it cuz it was full gross! Seriously the worst ive eaten until then was cow utter and let me tell you Id rather eat cow utter and fu with a side of beef balls than eat that grossness again haha. My companion said he really liked it though... Lts are weird sometimes.

So this week we heard a capacitation that I really enjoyed. This Elder is one of my good friends cuz hes a super funny chubby latino and just honestly makes the mission fun! So he was talking about the mission horario and was talking about how we need to follow the rules cuz if we show up to the house too late, we dont plan, when you dont plan you say youll do it in the morning but then if you over sleep you dont plan and then your day is garbage just wondering all day in the streets just looking to get into a house. He then shares the scripture of Abraham having to sacrifice his son. He says, now if that angel would have woken up that day and gone "naw im tired im gonna sleep a little more" then shows up even 2 minutes late, Isaac would have died. So when ever you dont want to wake up in the morning, maybe you kill an Isaac. Dont kill and Isaac. It was the greatest capacitation ive heard in a long time haha not only because it was super funny the way he tied scriptures in, but he made it super awesome that you just wanna be more obedient with everything!

So other than all that jazz, it was a pretty good week. We had 2 more baptisms of the moreno family and it was so awesome to see them get baptized! They bore super strong testimonies at the end and even the 13 yr old jordy started crying in his testimony. The spirit was for sure present at that baptism! It was a little hectic though because the bishop was gonna baptize jordy but he called us 15 minutes before the baptism was gonna start and told us. I already lent my pants to one of the investigators getting baptized cuz they dont even fit me anymore. So I had to run home, grab extra clothing cuz coach put me in and it was game time. So I showed up about 5 minutes late and our mission president was there haha. I was like ahhhh no because he is huge on starting everything on time. The point is it was crazy, we started late, but the spirit was still there and we now have 3 new members of the church! (1 of the sisters)

I started restudying a talk this past week and I focused on Elder Nelsons because everyone told me that was their favorite. The biggest thing I loved from that talk was when he said "only latter day saints can have joy under any circumstance". It really made me think because its raining here nonstop which makes it a lot harder to work and im still sick but im happy. Its so weird. Because I have a better understanding of my Savior now, I understand everything He did for us and it makes a lot of things that happen in the mission seem like nothing. You just have so much love for Him, that you love doing what He would do if He was still on the earth. I also loved when he said "missionaries dont leave their homes to increase the number of members in the church. They do it to bring joy to the world!" I have receivedso many blessings and im honestly happy. Im here to share it with the rest of Ecuador!

I love you all and thank you for all you have done for me! ill talk to you all next week! 

PS. I forgot my cord to my camara so i cant send pictures. Ill do it next week and btw I went fishing today and it was awesome. Wasnt no hot dog catching catfish, but it was good enough! 

Tu Eres Todo... Poderoso

Man I cant express to you all how much I love conference. Just like Elder K. Brett Nattress I hate to admit this to you all but, I was not listening when I shoved my head between the cushions to listen to conference. I seriously feel the urge to go back over the past like 19 yrs of my life and listen to every conference talk given. However as awesome as conference is I tell you what, I am so excited to only have one left on the mission and not have to worry and stress all day about trying to get to watch it in english. Also super excited not to be thrown into the secretary´s office with other gringos to listen to it haha. Ill write more about conference latuh on 

Unfortunately, the rat killing did not happen this week. I would say im disappointed but ive been pretty sick all week and killing rats probably would have only diagnosed me with the plague so its all good. The sickness, its going on day 6 right now. Nothing serious just bad headaches and a super sore throat to the point where i sleep every other night because one night i dont sleep cuz im coughing all night and the next i do because im just so exhausted from working on 0 sleep. I tell you what, im not gonna miss these experiences but its something that truly makes you grateful.

So to start out I would like to talk about seriously how inspired these leaders of the church are. Within the first 2 talks, my question was answered. Its something I already knew the answer to apparently but it really hit me right in the good ol bosom. The trick to missionary work is love. In my last letter I talked about service. Putting the needs of others before yours. In those first 2 talks by President Uchtdorf and Elder Hales the parts that had the most impact on me were the parts where they talked about love. You can do all the service you want in the world, but if you dont do it with love it wont change you.

However, the talk that stood the most out to me was by Elder Rasband. They really saved one of the best talks for the last. Something that I loved was how he said "we cant forget our personal spiritual experiences" It really was something so obvious but something I needed to hear. He talked about how sometimes we give our children names so they wont forget. The other day I was watching Monte del Señor, I dont know what its called in english, but its about the building of the salt lake temple. In the movie, President Woodruff says "ive always kept a record ever since the prophet joseph smith said we should everyday. No matter how tired I am, I always do it." So when I heard the part about "we cant forget our personal spiritual experiences" I thought about my journal writing. These past several weeks Ive had the most spiritual experiences just sitting on buses and thinking and reading a lot but at the same time, my journal writing has been the worst its ever been my whole mission. Not only that, but ive decided I need to change the way I write in my journal. Ive normally just been keeping a track of everything I have done that day so after the mission I can remember everyday, but now im changing it to what President Eyring said in a talk not too long ago about how have I seen the Lords hand in my life and also to my personal spiritual experiences. Somedays on the mission you just are on fire and nothing slows you down, then the next your just there working because you know you should which isnt nearly as enjoyable. With that talk, I determined its because im forgetting my personal Spiritual experiences. I know that if we dont forget those experiences, being able to endure to the end will be so much more enjoyable and easier because we remember the love of our Savior and have felt the spirit testify to us of truths. I invite all of you who dont, to keep a journal of those personal spiritual experiences. If you feel like church things sometimes are a chore, its because you dont remember those experiences enough to know that those are blessings.

I truly am so grateful for such inspired leaders of the church to guide us in these last days. The church is true! I love you all and have an awesome week! 

BTW a new investigator started giving me all this christian music. The subject is the best one ive heard so far of like the 1000 songs hes just giving me haha 

 1st i found kolbe. Hes really skinny now but its good for him. Maybe he wont die from diabetes this time 

 would you check out that view