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!

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