Pitch perfect: élder welch brings j-biebs back

So this past friday was a pretty good day! I was really happy about what we could get done in our short work day. So Alex accepted fecha for the 13 and so did Kevin. Although that doesn't sound like that big of a deal, that's the first time someone in our sector has accepted fecha for about 4 weeks so i was pumped even though they both fell on sunday. Other than that, our ward did a show de talentos. With how typical of Ecuador it was, they ran out of talents after about an hour so they just started calling people out. They called some people out and they left to go practice in another room. Then they called on an hermana who sang primary hymns in english and spanish. Then my name creeps up "welch, welch, welch, welch!" So i played it cool. I went up talked to the DJ and got things rollin. The intentions were to out-do myself when i did "ill be there" on the cruise. I was planning to bring high-pitch matt back. I didnt quiet out-do myself on the cruise, but i did bring the house down and got chanted for an encore. I brought JBiebs to the Latacunga building. I brought the pitch, i brought the moves, I even brought Ludacris with me when I dominated "baby" by JBiebs. My moves were killer. I am officially known as Elder Bieber in the ward now. 

   

So as far as work goes its going ight. We are working super hard and not seeing very many fruits but I know they will eventually grow on this tree that I'm planting here in Latacunga! So last week dad and dustin wrote me about alma 21-24 i think it was of Ammons converts. How they built there testimony in Christ and they never fell away. So I decided I would capacitate on that on thursday in the district meetings. We are all taught at the beginning of the mission to baptize converts, and how do we do that? we teach and preach and testify of Christ and invite others to follow Him. So an activity we did is we went through lessons 1-4 and counted the number of times it mentioned Christ or one of His nicknames. It was a TON! I forgot to write down the exact number of times in my agenda but it was a lot. We then did practices having to teach a principle in a lesson and use His name the same number of times predicad does. I think it was a really good practice to help us remember our purpose and to help us have converts in Christ not in any other reason! 

   
A couple other things happened this week that I loved. So I was reading alma 60 and was reminded of a capacitation that the APs gave in a zone conference one time about cleaning our vessels first from the inside and the outside will be pure too. I really loved it. Ill keep what i learned to myself this week and invite you guys to read it and share something with me about what you learned from it! Another thing that happened was my comp got pretty sick one morning out of no where. So after studying for awhile and getting pretty bored after a couple hours, i went through all my pictures from where im at now, to the very beginning. It was so weird first of all to see how much I've changed outwardly, but also to see how much happier I look now in my mission then i was at the beginning. Its might be hard for you guys to see the difference if you went through my pictures but the mission has honestly changed my life. I always had a testimony, but not on a lot of gospel principles I do now. I understand so much more and i still have a lot more to learn! Tengo más deseos ahora a perseverar hasta el fin para que yo pueda llenar mi silla en el reino celestial con todos de mis queridos! The mission is awesome and I'm super excited to see you guys in 11 months! Im excited to see you all and how much you've grown and to show you all how much i have! Thanks for all you guys do! Thanks for all the letters. I love you all and will talk to you next week! maybe in a new sector also because we have changes this sunday!!!!

I also cut my comps hair and I messed up big time and just had to cut it all to a 0 hahaha. I thought I was qualified to cut a black people type hair but the fade is too hard haha 

The long awaited moment has come to an end! I finally ate guinea pig and I'm okay if I don't get it again! 

This is what the leg looks like

Salí con Dios. Si no regreso, me fui con Él

Ive decided when i cant think of a good subject ill put a wicked awesome bumper sticker I have read here. So far, this is the most commonly used.

This past week we were waiting for Galo to show up and we found a bike outside. I found a lot of cinderblocks and I made a ramp. It did not turn out to well for my companion the 2 attempts he tried. I told him he had to pick up the front wheel or he would flip but he did his own thing and he flipped. The second fall I got on video. Unfortunately i cant send videos home cuz they are too big, so i took a screenshot of a part of the fall. It was great and i laughed really hard haha

well with this past saturday behind us and that day being exactly the half way point of my mission, I am officially on the back 9. I played pretty well on the front 9 with a few bapts and rescues and of course i got myself a couple blisties, but i can play better.

So this week i was reading in Alma a lot about Moroni and the wars and stuff. Yeah i have read those chapters before, but ive never read them as a missionary. It was awesome. I got so pumped up while reading those to just get jacked out of my mind. So ive been going super hard in the mornings and started my new diet. Its basically impossible to count your macros here on the mission so that one wont work so i decided the new diet im on is the Word of Wisdom haha. I heard Christ followed it like to the max and he never got sick. So i figured i would give it a try and see how it goes. If i wanna play better on the back 9 i cant afford getting sick. Ill let you know every now and then how its going.

This past week I went so freaking hard in the paint! We knocked about over 300 doors this week and played with a lot of dogs. But we unfortunately fell short of the goal of a new every single day. However, we do have at least 1 very sure investigator and another that will progress if we can find him a friend in the church. So we have some work to do but there is a lot more to do. Ive studied the map thats in my house for a few hours and ive made a couple new plans this week of where we need to go! Im super excited to try these out and to hit some more doors and save some souls! 

The investigator that is progressing his name is Alex Vargas. Hes super cool and hes best friends with our old pensionistas twin boys. Hes 16 and shows a lot of promise! He loves to pray and he said hes looking for the true church. We got the permission from his parents to teach him more now they know that we arent testigos. Im super happy with his desire to pray and listen to us! Hopefully you will see a picture of him in white within a few weeks!

So one of the plans we came up with is the ward plays soccer friday nights on the church canchas. Alex was there and he had a lot of fun. The members want us bringing more members so that is 100% fine by me because it will help the progress of our investigators and I get to play soccer. Hopefully it works great! I think it will

Thanks so much for your letters. You guys are awesome and i hope you all have a fun week playing the new pokeman game. Everyone knows about it here but it only works in the states. I heard theres one on everest so good luck with that one! But I love you guys and hope you all are doing great! 

the Avila families cake for me haha 

belt ZIPLINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE did not work I have more pictures but my time is up. I started 15 minutes before i had to go and they didnt download in time. Ill go to a fast cyber next time. I love you guys! I still got plently more pictures! 

Really Late Birthday Celebration for Matt!

To explain yeah I'm some members got some festivities for me after pday! So it should be fun! 

So with last weeks email I explained the bad luck ive been having these past couple days. Well the bad luck continued. I was playing with a soccer ball on our patio and kicked it onto our neighbors roof. Still havent got that back. Then onTuesday we were visiting a less active thats about 14 and he was playing soccer in his store with his cousin and i kicked a freaking HUGE hole in this glass case haha. I like held my foot once i heard glass shatter and it was inside the freaking case haha. I had to go buy a new vidrio to put in and i bought the wrong size. Lucky it fit another area in the store that was broken and didnt have to buy a new one but it still wasted like 4 hours and some money. My comp told me to get rid of my bad luck i needed to shower with salt and sugar. So i did it. Let me tell you what. IT WORKED!!! If you guys are ever in a slump just do that and itll work. I even got the cell phone back that i lost last sunday! WOOOOOO

Okay to start about the work, Its been pretty rough im not gonna lie. There have been some spiritual things happening and some experiences where its like youre lucky i dont know my bible well enough to just make you cry right now. Other then that im lovin it. Every sunday night though i get pretty frustrated with the numbers for the week. SO i made a goal with my comp to find 7 new investigators this week. The goal is one a day. Ive decided im not just settling for the recent convert lessons, which are good but thats all we have, and im hittin doors all day if its necessary to find that one new investigator for the day. Now, you might be thinking, door knocking= not effective, but in this mission it is! We are baptizing 47% from contacting. Thats more than any other method. I truly believe in contacting and as a lot of people say talking to everyone. I know the Lord will put people in our way to teach and help progress when we show Him more diligence in trying to find.

To end, I was reading the book of mormon the other day and came across a scripture that i really liked. I dont remember where its at but Alma is talking to one of his sons. He starts explaining about the laminitas and how the Lord is going to preserve them because eventually they will be converted. Now that got me pumped up! I read that verse and right after we did weekly planning and thats where I made the goal to find. I truly believe SOOOO many of theseEcuadorians are descendants of the Laminitas and the Lord is preparing them for us. We just gotta do our part.

The work is rough and we are basically starting all over again investigator wise. But thats okay because i know something great is going to come out of this week and im excited to see the Lords help as we try to bring more souls to Him.

I love you guys and im grateful for your letters! I have pictures, but i just got back from a zone activity and dont have my cord to upload the pictures cuz i havent been home yet. You'll get double next week! I love you all! Have a great week! 

525,600 minutes!!

haha i started singing that song and then realized i have a latino companion that doesnt know english so i had to make a remix and sing it in spanish. English version is better. 

So this week was pretty rough and i aint lying. So to start let me tell you why. First i lost my agenda in a taxi. My companion hasnt been writing anything down so all of our planned lessons i didnt remember and all the contacts we have done gone. I am now getting on him about writing down EVERYTHING! Second, I lost the freaking cell phone. Man was i tickled about that. Just too much this week for me to handle haha. I have also been having a lot of headaches due to a LOT of stress!

So its going ight here in latacunga. We have no progressing investigators and havent since Galo got baptized. I feel like ive been working so hard like harder than i have my whole mission and nothing. Its very frustrating. I dont know what is needed to be learned out of this experience, but like i said in an email a couple weeks ago, you gotta choose to be happy. Despite all the very very frustrating things that have happened to me this week, ive been trying to stay positive and just laugh it all off even tho its not funny at all. I dont like losing my temper anymore for that i had to stop playing chess with my last comp haha. The mission is really teaching me so much. Ive never been more paciente in my life. Its a goal i made at the beginning of the year with president which was to be more positive. Theres no reason to be negative on the mission.

Work wise, we have the fam andrade. Once again didnt show. This reasoning was pretty garbage it was they were at a party and the husband got drunk and they didnt get home till 4 am. Honestly I love this family and know there is potential. We just need to keep working with them and following their needs and eventually they will come around. The spirit is present in these lessons, they just arent doing their part. I know eventually though they will get baptized. When, i dont know.

As a zone we have a zone cita. Its the Joseph Smith quote of "after everything thats been said, the most important duty is to preach the gospel" (almost positive i butchered that. I only memorized it in spanish). Its really actually such a powerful quote. Whenever your day is just garbage and you wanna just sit down and die cuz you are so tired of walking up and down hills all day you think, this is the most important thing in the world. I need to do my part. Besides i only got 525600 minutes to do this full time!

I love my calling and the opportunity i have to help these ecuadorians. Thanks so much for the birthday wishes and all that jazz. Happy late birthday to tyler and early birthday to boston! Hope all is going well! I love you all! Talk to you next week 

So there was a cool mountain biking contest here. I decided to take a Dan Jones foto of me preaching the gospel to some of the crowd 

Season 9 Episode 1

So this past week was pretty good. I finally got a companion after 2 changes without one that likes to contact like me so I'm happy about that. We did a lot of it and although we didn't find a single new from contacts, we did get some news from references. I don't know if that's a sign we should stop, but based off the fact that our mission is baptizing a lot more from contacts then references I don't think it is haha. But It was a pretty decent week. 

Monday we taught a reference from a bishop in Spain. They are his cousins and a family of 4! Awesome huh? especially since our mission president said "every companionship should baptize a family of 4 every change." Really is awesome! Anyways they are the familia molina andrade. They are super cool and way welcoming. They told us on our first visit that we need to feel like a part of their family and I really do. They rock. So the husband is a bit stubborn but that's okay because hes allowed to be cause he has his agency. Its just he doesn't want to stop believing in the virgin. Its actually crazy how true the Book of Mormon is. Right now I'm reading in Alma and its talking about how Satan has such a grip on these people. So during that lesson i was just thinking of that. Its like why do you believe in the Virgin? Where does it say anything about that in the Bible? He said its how he was raised and doesn't want to change yet. So he denied our invitation to church. His wife is super awesome though! She accepted our invitation and said she would come but sadly didn't. I really have a lot of high hopes for this family. I think they will get baptized! They just need to come to church. 

Well since my companion left and took his MP3 player with all the talks and devotionals on them, I haven't had too many spiritual insights this week. Ive been reading a lot of the book of Mormon and I capacitated (translation: trained) on a successful missionary since it was the beginning of the change. Over all i think it went pretty well.

Week one down, yet the struggle to understand my companion continues! Haha hes such a goofy kid like he mumbles so much and its so funny because he just says stuff and starts laughing super hard and I'm laughing cuz his laugh is super different and funny, yes weirder then mine, and i have no idea what he just said. A lot of the members don't even understand him. Its okay though I'm getting better and i know its the Lords blessing of the gift of tongues. Ive never prayed so hard and much for that gift haha. 

I'm happy about this change. Although there has been a lot of awkward silences due to my speaker cord breaking and it being dead so having no music to cure the silence, its been good. We are working hard and got some people to work with but of course there is always room for more! 

Tomorrow I complete 11 months in the mission and next monday i only have exactly one year left in the mission. Its crazy how fast the first year has gone by and with the second year coming up and not having to face the hardest struggles again, language, mtc and homesickness, I know its going to go by even faster. I only got 372 days left to bring as many souls to the truth in Ecuador as i can! LESSSSSSSSSSS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! 

My comps birthday was Tuesday. This is the sweet cake they got him cuz they couldn't find one haha 

Choose Happiness

So this past week was a little crazy and not too much work was done due to a lot of travels and stuff like that. Also my companion was a little burnt out after 4 changes in this sector haha. But anyways we still worked!  

So the other day, saturday to be exact, my companion stated to not feel that well. So after lunch we tried to go visit Galo. WE ALMOST HAD A LESSON!!! literally so close to his house, then my comp just starts throwing up like crazy everywhere. So we ended up going back to the house for the day. After about 3 hours of just sitting in the house my comp finally wakes up. I was deathly bored and was just sitting at my desk. SO I'm of course wanting to leave so i was like how about i give you some oils to help you out. Well little did i know that the doterra book would entertain a bored missionary for about 2 hours. I couldn't quite figure out what he needed based of the symptoms he gave me, but i read about 100 pages of that book, including how to do the aroma touch therapy. No i did not do that to him cuz I'm not gay, but i do know how to now. hahah I know way too much now about diseases. Probably wont come in handy either. But one thing i did love about that day is i listened to maybe about 6 byu devotionals. My favorite that stood out to me was called "choosing happiness". It really is such a good talk! It made me think a lot about my own happiness. He said besides the obvious answer of living the gospel brings happiness, its when you thank others for everything when you realize how happy you are. He said i recommend counting the number of times you say thank you in one day, then beat it. Thank the lord for everything in your prayers. Not only for everything that's awesome and going great, but even for the trials. I thought that part was so cool. Never have i thought about thanking the lord for a trial that i have, but based on the fact that the past 10 months have been a huge trial and I'm happy proves that we should be thankful for them. Learning to be happy especially when you get homesick and just hate life at times bc its too hard and i literally cant sometimes is so critical. Learning to just say thank you to the people that make your life a little better! I suggest to you guys to start being a little more appreciative to what you have and saying thank you more. This also means being more positive!  I'm learning so much right now on my mission and I'm just happy about this gospel!  

So changes happened yesterday and i stayed in my sector in Latacunga. I received Elder Espinosa. He's from medillian colombia and has about 5 months in the mission. He's really cool. Its just he really mumbles a lot and I'm having a hard time understanding haha. I haven't had this problem since my training understanding people. At least this lady at this cyber I'm at right now doesn't understand him either. Makes me feel a little better about myself haha. Anyways, positive mode, my Spanish is gonna be of the charts after this change once i learn to understand him! please pray for me haha  

Anyways I'm really happy about how changes went and about the things I've been learning! I'm excited to get working this week and find more of Gods children. This church is true and I'm super happy to be here. I'm almost on the back 9 of my mission and so times running out to enjoy serving others! I love you all! Have an awesome week! Thanks for the letters! Ill talk to you all next week! 

Baptism = Success

So as you can see with the subject, the baptism went through! FINALLY!!! Let me tell you what, it was not an easy process.  After last weeks disaster of there being no power, there was this weeks disaster. We got the font going and it was cooking, warm water and coming fast with an easy fill after about 2 hours. Sadly, the water shut off again after 15 minutes, so we went to the hose again. That lasted about another 30 minutes. At this point we are on stair number two of the font. Nothing was working. We finally said a prayer and we got buckets and went to several restaurants looking. One giving us about a third of a bucket each, so yeah we ditched that one and tried some others till we found a good one. We each had a bucket and did about an hour of 50 yd farmer carries from the restaurant back to the church to the font. Tell you what, if I'm not ready for the crossfit games now, I don't know what I lack. After an hour we still only filled up half a stair. Then the bishop FINALLY shows up at like 7:15 and unlocks the lock to the huge water tank underground and we used that up until 7:30 when we were supposed to start the baptism. So we started late due to the difficulties. Then the baptism happens with FREEZING COLD WATER! But I expected that. There was also very little water, about 3 stairs to be exact, and our bishop was a witness for the ordinance. Right when Galo was about to go under the bishop told him to drop to a knee. Galo goes to one knee. Have you ever baptized someone like that? If so, why? If not, don't. It will be the hardest push to get them under in your life and he will go into a corner and it just looks weird. Why the bishop said to go to a knee to him, Idk. It was a very LONG and tiring process this baptism, but it is done. Now Galo Favion Mullo Wanalouisa is officially a member of the true church! WOOOOOO!!!!! Although the process was long and very tiring, I know our Heavenly Father answers our prayers! I was really happy, but very tired at the end of the night. 
After we went to say thank you to the restaurant lady, Nancy, and she is going through a lot of difficult times and was very receptive to have us come teach her! I feel like the Lord wasn't preventing us from having the baptism, but wanting us to go to this restaurant to help Nancy. If it wasn't for this font I don't think we ever would have found her. Its really crazy how the Lord works, but He does talk to His children and guides us! I'm excited to teach her tonight.
 

Other than that headache of a night, the week was ight. Im super ready to go out and just go all out this last week of the change cuz my comp has 4 changes here and is probably leaving and I don't wanna be left without a program and also because its my calling to do so! Please pray for our success, cuz these people need what I's got! I love my calling!

Thanks for the emails! I love you guys a lot! Have a great week, go cavs, and I'll talk to you all next week!