Nocha Blanca!!!!

So to explain my subject, yesterday in Consejo de barrio my bishop folds up a piece of paper and hands it to me. I open it up and its like you have been asked to speak next sunday for 15 minutes. I looked at my ward mission leader sitting next to me and I'm like hablame enserio! I'm so mad haha I've given one talk in english for 15 minutes and I'm pretty sure it was 15 minutes. Now my first talk in Spanish. ugh bahumbug. The bishop looks at me and is like since you don't like to speak I'm gonna make you speak for 15 minutes in front of everyone haha I'm like okay I don't like you. And I have to confirm Zamanthaon sunday too and probably the Maldonado family too because they all passed their interviews for this saturday. So this next sacrament meeting may only make sense to me because I'll be running the show and probably not speaking proper spanish. 

So yeah like i said the fam Maldonado passed their interview last night. We went and borrowed $100 from a member to get them married this week. Its all good I'm like 99% certain this week is the week for them! 

Zamantha passed her interview too saturday night. She is still doing really good!

So something cool our zone is trying to do is a noche de blanca. Its where we are going to go to the stake center and just have one big baptismal service together as a zone and since as a zone we are about to have like 15 baptisms this week, basically every elder will be in white and its going to be so sweet if we do that! Once all the interviews are over and they have all the names ready the ZLs are going to ask president. So you may be getting the coolest picture next monday!

Alright Saturday was honestly the best day in the world! Besides a service we did in the morning helping someone move it was awesome! Saturday was our conference with Elder Holland!!!!!!!!!! We got the whole deal baby! We got the yelling the pointing the in your face we got it all! With the sake of time I'm going to tell you my favorite part of the whole conference. So at the very beginning hes like alright i got a microphone on my tie so i can leave this pulpit and walk around and use the board. So he gets down he starts talking and then this is where the real magic happens. He starts yelling, I don't want to say yelling cuz that sounds bad but you know what I mean you have heard him speak. but anyways he goes "DON'T YOU DARE TAKE THIS CALLING LIGHTLY! DON'T YOU DARE! IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE HERE YOU COME TALK TO ME TODAY! THIS VERY DAY! DON'T YOU DARE JUST THINK OF THE MISSION AS A CHECKLIST!" It was honestly such powerful stuff and I'm kinda guilty of what he said as viewing the mission as a checklist. I always thought once I complete this mission I can get on with my life. Then he said "don't think after the mission you can get back to real life cuz this is as close to real life as you'll ever get" i was like woah I remember when Dustin wrote home and said that in one of his letters and I didn't get it then. I still don't so anyone who can explain that to me rocks haha. But yeah he literally killed it! He goes we have the same calling. Apostle means missionary the only difference between me and you is that I'm in here for life, i have some keys you don't, and I've seen some things you haven't. It was the craziest best thing I've ever heard. I want to hear more! I cant wait for general conference! Bet dad never thought I would be saying that one but that conference got me so fired up! Wow 

Anyways this week was good! Keep praying for me and my patience. I'm excited to work more this week! Thanks for everyone who wrote me! I love you all! Talk to you next week!  

 Us with our ward mission leader and Zamantha 

From left to right of the family photo: 

Elder fish(my brother) me, my dad, Elder calder(gramps), and my uncle Elder arambarri  

Maldonado family  

Learning Patience

Anyways to start out as everyone may know that I've decided to go to dental school and go into that field later in life I had some experience this week that has made me narrow down my decision of what type I wanna be. SO my companion was having a lot of pain in one of his molars so the other week he went to the dentist and she tried something it worked for a week then it came back the pain. So then on wednesday he just begged her to pull out his tooth so she did. I don't know why he wanted it out so bad he is already missing teeth but whatever. So yeah so we go to the dentist and she uses some xrays we got before hand to take it out. Then comes my experience. I was the suction guy. So while she was digging in his mouth and picking and pulling at his tooth i was right there beside him suctioning up all the blood. It was pretty gross I'm not gonna lie. I don't know if you have every seen a hole where a tooth used to be, especially one down here, but let me tell you its pretty stinking nasty and i dont recommend it. So here is what ive narrowed out of what I wanna do. I do not wanna pull teeth out and I do not wanna be a dentist in south america. Too much blood and it was just everywhere hahah all over his face and i was there sucking it all up! 

So this week was pretty decent. The day we got that tooth pulled we just hung in a members house all day and watched church movies. So the next day it still hurt to talk for him so i taught most the day. I'm super happy with the progressing of Zamantha and the family Maldonado. First I know weird spelling of Samantha but she said its with a Z and second yes they aren't married. So the family Maldonado hasn't changed yet. They just need $110 to get married and we are good to go so I'm gonna stop reporting on them until something changes. We have already taught them everything twice.

Zamantha is in Guayaquil right now for Carnaval. Which we cant do anything today or tomorrow unless our lesson is set for sure. other than that we have to stay inside. But anyways she is super pumped for the 20th of this month! She is way smart and its very impressive and she does every single commitment we invite her to do even if its a super long one. She's always done with it and it makes teaching her super easy! She is going to be a super strong convert after the 20th. I'm pretty nervous for the 21st though when I have to confirm her. She didn't want to choose who is going to baptize her so she made us do it. she said i want one of you 2 to do it so you guys choose. welp my companion pulled the DL card on me for the 100th time this change so I have to confirm her. I'm pretty nervous already because I don't know the tu form conjugations very well because we aren't supposed to speak in it. So I'm studying them. thankfully our ward is only about 75 people. 

Anyways I'm super happy about these 4 people getting baptized hopefully this change! The fam Maldonado has the mom dad and 8 yr old daughter and 2 more younger sons that will benefit in about 4 years of their parents decision! Another week down! Also this saturday is the big event! Elder Holland!!!!!!!!!!! Next time I write you I will have shaken his hand and will have looked into the eyes of an apostle of our Lord! So freaking pumppppppppppppppppppped!!!!! I love you all! Keep praying for me and my patience! I love you all! talk to you next week! 

Notha Week

so to start out i wanna talk about the weirdest lesson I've ever been in and possibly will be in for my whole mission. My comp said it was his weirdest lesson of his whole mission and he faults 2 more changes sooo pretty weird. So we were walking in this part of our sector that we never have been to before just contacting trying to set some citas then my companion started contacting this indigenous 90 yr old lady and i was like woahhh never have I contacted one before (most indigenous only speak quitchwa or however you say it and are super weird so yeah) so he starts contacting her and stuff and it was just a weird contact and she showed us her leg and stuff i was like yep nice meeting you and then he set a cita with her and i just figured it was just so we didn't randomly end the contact. NOPE we went back the next day and taught her with a member thats like 70 yrs old hahah. So to start off we get into her house and she had one chair a bed and then I'm positive she is a hoarder and so just packed full of boxes and crap so we had to teach her sitting on her bed. We start the lesson and we start asking her if she remembers us and she says nope, first clue of why the heck are we here, Next we started talking about baptism and i was like yep shes pretty crazy THEN, this is where it turns from weird to lets leave, she said ohhh i remember you! You 2 jovens are my kids! Where is your sister? Last time I saw you guys we were at the park as a family and she thought the member we brought with us was her husband. Seriously I was like yep I'm out lets go and I tried to finish up with a prayer and my comp was like no I have too many weird vibes and cant feel the spirit at all lets leave hahah! oh yeah she showed us her leg again and i was like seriously I'm gonna barf on your bed stop showing me that thing. And that's my weird lesson of the week. 

So something cool I saw a guy in a Miami Redhawks (Miami University, in Ohio) hat the other day and they actually had the colors correct so I was tempted to ask him for a picture but he only spoke quitchwa so yeah

So today being the first of February starts a annual tradition of fe de febrero. Its were you give up doing something (for me that's soda and bread) for February and march or you start doing something like my comp is fasting every week for the next 2 months. In addition we have to read the whole book of Mormon and start contacting at least 15 people everyday and find a new one every day. The sacrifices in feb bring the miracles in march thats the whole purpose. So for you guys if you wanna participate, How you could apply it is to helping you think of someone that needs the gospel and then at the end of feb when you got the name, You help the missionaries out in trying to teach them and watch the miracles happen! Idk you can apply it how you want but that's one way I thought of for you guys back home. 

So I got a few dates wrong with the family maldonado. The wife to be got the paper out today, or at least yesterday said she was today, they get married the 4th of feb, interviewed the 5th and baptism the 6th! So this should be an exciting week if all goes according to plan! 

So yesterday we started teaching a reference that is literally sent straight from Heaven no joke. She has always been kinda interested in the church since her boyfriend left on a mission and now that he comes home in 2 months shes really starting to investigate! Her name is Samantha and shes 21 and the best investigator Ive ever had!!!!!!!!!! She came to church yesterday without a single lesson or us meeting her yet, and during gospel principles she killed it and participated more than i did! Freaking crazy! later last night we had a family night at a members house and she was there and we taught her lesson 3 and she dominated it and at the end we quizzed her and she explained it back no joke perfectly! She said she wants to know more about God and Jesus Christ and thinks that this is the path for her! She accepted fetcha (date) for the 20 de feb and she was already talking about who is going to baptize her and all the little details! She is also canceling her trip to Argentina which she already bought tickets for so she can go to church and be baptized on the 20th! i was so freaking happy after that lesson! Makes me so happy when i teach someone like that cuz she is so willing to drop everything and do what she knows she needs to do! I was so freaking happy and still am! We are giving her a tour of the church right after emailing! 

I love sharing the gospel with people especially when they accept our message so well! The church is true and there is no where else i need to be in my life at this point than here. My time will come to an end, but until then, ill keep talking to everyone even if they don't speak Spanish! I love you all! Thanks for everyone for writing me this week! Love you guys! Talk to you next week! 

Exciting News

To start out, I feel a little bad for last weeks email so if I wrote home bad emails individually its because I was super frustrated and I really regret basically everything I wrote home last week including personal emails. So sorry about all that. 

I have exciting news and I had a couple pretty cool experiences happen to me this week. Based off the fact like I got like 4 emails 3 being from the Dean family, I now know who loves me most. But I bring up that fact because if I write home short emails individually its because I wanted to make this email really good and detailed and make up for last weeks mess. 

SOOOOO exciting news is the Elder Holland is coming to our mission and speaking to us along with one of the members of the presidency of the 70! How freaking neat is that!!!! The conference with Elder Holland is the 13th of next month. Also to top it off, WE GET TO SHAKE HIS HAND AND TAKE PICTURES WITH THEM!!!! This is just great! So lucky of us and I'm super excited for that day! Idk if the conference will be in English or Spanish or what since I heard Elder Holland cant speak Spanish, but I would love it to be in English so I can hear his real voice and stuff! Ill let you know when I know more details of this matter. 

Okay cool experiences of the week. To start the family Maldonado is getting married this week I believe! Or for sure like Monday next week! Because they needed to take out this paper, Idk what paper. I've asked and didn't understand and I don't think I would even in English, But anyways they are taking that paper out on friday! And then getting married like saturday or like i said monday then baptism i think next saturday! I begged them to get married this past saturday but the paper held them back. I wanted to have my own little wedding here since I was missing Tyler's. Anyways we had a family night with the family maldonado saturday night and that was the first time I've ever cried I think since I originally left home. So the family night we had with them was with another member family. We made the topic of the night marriage and families are eternal, my two favorite. So when it got time for me to talk I bore I think the best testimony of my life on no empty chairs, how I know families are eternal, my testimony on marriage and how I know they are making the right decision. I believe the reason i cried was for a couple of reasons. Number one I was pretty upset all day saturday knowing all our family and Ivy would be at this wedding and I'm out here a zillion miles away walking in the freezing cold rain contacting and teaching lessons. Number two, don't want to make Ivy feel uncomfortable, but the whole lesson and day just made me think of Ivy. I just wanted that day home with the family and spending time with Ivy and yeah just so hard. Number 3 and last thing, is that i believe my strongest part of my testimony is in eternal marriages and in that families are eternal. So yeah i cried while bearing my testimony of these subjects. It was a little awkward, but it wasn't like I was sobbing but it was enough to make me pause every now and then so i could speak. Anyways the lesson went super well. The family is so awesome and in one year from their baptism i cant wait to see them and their 3 kids get sealed in the temple and have that eternal family that I KNOW with all my heart is true! Families are forever! 

Cool experience and last experience. So Saturday also we had our regular 3 month interviews with Our mission president! Man was that interview I had with him tan poderoso! So started out with me setting goals for the new year. One of them was to be a good spanish speaker by the time i facetime home again. He laughed at that but something I liked is he helped me set a plan of how I can accomplish all the goals I set for the upcoming year. Then he told me the coolest story. So he goes "elder welch, turn around" so I did and saw a picture of the first presidency of the church and he goes "I know everyone of those men personal and very well. They are very good friends of mine" (he worked directly with the first presidency for his job before the mission how cool!) then he goes "President Eyring is the smartest person I have ever met! The man is absolutely brilliant! But that guy can not learn Spanish!" so I laughed and I was thinking where is he going with this? then he goes "He was called to work in Mexico and to dedicate the Mexico temple" (don't remember exactly what it was but something that was enough that he felt the need to learn Spanish) then goes "he asked me if i would help him learn Spanish and I of course said yes. Then one day he said to me "I'm going to pray before we leave, but in Spanish. If I mess up correct me right then please"" He said "I was freaking out. A member of the 12 is asking me in the middle of a prayer to correct him when he messes up" he said "we knelt down at his desk in his office and he started to pray. and about every couple words he would smack my arm and I would say you're good, keep going." Then he goes on to talk about when president Eyring was dedicating a temple in Mexico and had a talk completely written out for him in Spanish and he just had to read it. My president says "at the end of the talk, a lady in the back who didn't speak English yells in English "Thank you elder Eyring! But learn to speak Spanish!" President Christensen said it absolutely crushed him. So now the point of my story. He goes on to tell me "you have been called to serve in the Spanish language by the Lord. He will qualify you to work in this language. Just keep working hard, praying for the gift of tongues and it will come" He told me another story but i don't wanna write another one out so I told you guys the cooler story. I know I'm making it sound like I cant speak. I can. Just not as well as I would like to. I told my president some days I understand and can speak so well and the next I struggle so much! He goes my wife has the same problem. She says it all leaks out on her pillow when she goes to sleep at night. so he told me "don't throw away your pillow" haha anyways that interview was so awesome. 

Saturday was a super hard day for me and I believe that is why I had so many spiritual experiences that day. I miss everyone back home especially my family, the Dean family, and Ivy. My time will come to see you all again soon until then pray for me PLEASE! I'm so happy for you Tyler and Karli! I know marriages are forever! I know your guys future family is not only for the short time on this Earth but for eternity because you got married in the temple! I can not wait for my turn to be married and to go to the temple. Until then i will keep working hard and helping others know these freaking amazing truths! The church is true! I love you all thanks to those who wrote me! Cant wait to talk to you all next week!

Otavaleño ties! The Otavaleños are straight decedents of the Lamanites! THESE TIES ARE MADE BY THEM! Almost every one of this group you teach will be baptized! So much that when my mission president served here they would promise them that they would receive a dream that night if they prayed! These are for dad tyler and dustin! If anyone wants one ask me and I'll buy you one! 

This girl I call my sister! There is a place in Monobi Ecuador its name is chone and its where I tell people I'm from! Shes from there and thats what they look like! 

Week 1 in the New Sector

Man has this been a LONG week yet fast one too. Let me explain why its been long so I can get all the negativity out of the way. To start off, I changed my mind. Me and this companionship is not working out let me tell you what. Never in my life have I ever met anyone more prideful then he is. Its like dude what do you have to be prideful for? This is your native language and its not you doing all the teaching. Its not us. He acts like the only person who needs to learn something out of this companionship is me. Let me tell you the quote of the week "you need to respect me I'm your district leader" Its like first of all don't tell me to respect you, you earn it. That made me so mad! I would rather listen to Jack Robinson and Jake Fisher argue for 5 weeks straight then be in this companionship. So difficult. He does so many things that just drive me up a wall. I wont list them but never in my life have I prayed to learn to love someone until this change. I pray so hard every single time I pray to help me learn to love him. However with all the struggles, he is helping me a ton with the Spanish and I guess that's really the only reason I wanted a Latino. 

Okay enough negatives cause I could go on and on. This week went by pretty fast because there is sooooo much more to do here in this sector than in my last. We teach about 5 lessons a day which is how many we would get in my old sector in about 5 days. My sector is HUGE!!!! Its honestly about the size of Powell and Dublin put together. They just combined our sector with the other one this change. So since our sector is so big there is a lot to do, and thankfully he wants to do divisions about every week because we have a new rule that the elders in your district both come to the DL sector and work there bc its supposed to be an example. So since our sector is so big he wants to do more divisions so that way we can cover all of our sector more at once. So I'm excited for those. As far as the work goes I don't really remember anyones names only the family Maldonado. They are a couple that we are hopefully marrying this week and baptizing the next. Right now we are helping them raise money to pay for there wedding. Other than that, that's really the only "progressing" even tho technically they are progressing, investigators we have. We have another tho his name is Wilson. He was an old investigator of the missionaries who just got taken out. They dropped him because he is pretty crazy. He believes in energies not so much in God so yeah. But with some miracle he came to church yesterday for the first time ever. We will see how well he progresses. Funny story, contacted a family the other day. Unfortunately, but kinda relieved they didn't want anything right now because their last name is Toapanta and I don't want to deal with that again. Some other missionaries can haha. (complete joke dad and Tyler) 

anyways, that was my week. Pray for me. This companionship is so hard he is mad at me like every other minute. I love you guys thanks for writing me! Talk to you next week!

My farewell in Vista Hermosa 

 Always nice to have a good view of the virgin Mary while I study 

Changes

So yesterday was my last day in my beloved sector of Vista Hermosa. Although it was tough to leave I was sooooo ready. The sector is kinda dead and to be honest, I love the members a TON, but they help diddly. It was pretty slow, but since it was my first sector and the members were way awesome, I'm bummed to leave. However I'm not far away at all from my last sector. My sector was on this huge hill and no joke you just go over that hill and there's my sector. So I literally just went over a hill to my new area. Right now I'm in Turubamba in the ward Argelia. I got my first Latino companion, besides my mtc one, he doesn't speak any English so this is great. Its a little hard right now, but it's necessary and I was really ready for one. With me coming up on 6 months I don't want to be the missionary that can't speak haha so I'm glad this happened. However, as soon as I found out who my companion was everyone who knows him just started giving me all these bad stories about him how he's fake and just wants to "sub" or go up as in like a zone leader or something. So idk if those stories are true, but I'm trying not to judge by any means right now and just get to know him better. Anyways yeah that's the big news for this week. 

As far as work goes we worked a lot with the familia coloma this week. We made a lot of progress and Furner and I thought she was really ready for baptism so we went ahead and did her interview yesterday. She didn't pass one of the questions so she is going to have to wait and we need to teach her more and stuff and then get a couple more interviews and she will be good to go. Her husband on the other hand didn't have his interview because this past week we asked him to pray and he didn't know how. SO that's obviously a huge red flag. Every time we ask him to pray his wife just starts praying then says it in the quietest voice that I can't even hear it and so there is no way a man who is basically deaf can hear that. So Furner is going to work on that since he stayed in that sector. We also found out about him that everything we teach him he doesn't understand because he's pretty slow, not retarded, just not the smartest haha. So yeah so what we decided we would do is give him every folleto he needs and we will underline what he needs to get out of each lesson. We found if he reads it, he understands. So that's what we were starting to do and what Elder Furner will continue to do. 

Anyways pray for me to have success in this new area. Pray for me to get along with my new companion and be able to speak better with him. I love you guys very much and I appreciate all the letters! Talk to you all next week!

New Years

Well with this New Years marks the fact that I'll be seeing you guys next year exactly in 1 1/2 years! haha sounds kinda trunky of me, but this week has been pretty trunky. Actually these past 2 weeks have with all the holidays going on and not being able to leave my house on these holidays so all you have to do is basically think about back home while stuck in an apartment all day thinking about what you would be doing if you were back home. And not to mention my homie Elder Heyrend my ZL officially is home so its always hard to see someone complete their mission and not think about that time of yours. Anyways I'm sure you guys are probably wondering why we had to stay in the house. So on New Years Eve it gets real crazy and dangerous down here (however not in my sector unfortunately) so by crazy I mean everyone just gets blasted out drunk and all the guys dress up like women and dance all over cars and other guys in the street and the only way you get them to stop is if you pay them. If you dont they start making out with you. Probably the dumbest tradition ive ever heard of haha but thats what they do here. 

Well this week was even rougher than last weeks. My goodness was it a long, slow, boring week. We had about 3 lessons in total not just to investigators. Slow, slow week. Anyways we were able to squeeze in a lesson with the Coloma family this week before all the craziness took over. The lesson went well and i was feeling way good about their baptism for this Saturday. Then, disaster started to strike. Just when I thought the week couldn't get worse every lesson we had with them just kept falling. I slowly but surely started doubting about the baptism for this Saturday. Then disaster struck. NO SHOW yesterday. Gosh dang it I was so frustrated. Because she wants to get baptized with her husband and he only needed one more assistance. So we are thinking now we are going to tell her that she needs to be the example to her husband and get baptized on Saturday and her husband will follow her the following week. However, i need to kinda sort my mind right now. I am having kinda mixed feelings because i dont know if the reason i want her to get baptized this Saturday is only because its the last week of the change and im most likely leaving after this change. I haven't quite yet decided. Idk yet but you guys will know the end decision based off of next weeks email. Sorry this letter is kinda short, like I said it was a slow week. I hope you guys had a great new years. Definitely missed it a lot! I love you all! Thanks for writing me! Talk to you all next week!