Fourth Quarter Baby!!

So this week was pretty good. Im getting more pumped about our sector because we have been able to find more investigators the past several weeks. We have a couple families but now we are only lacking in making more contacting with them so that they start to progress more. Like I told you guys in the phone call its a little hard to squeeze everyone in between 6-9 everyday. But its still no excuse. 

Anyways I've been thinking a lot about the whole fourth quarter reference that my president told me last week. I use it to get me pumped up about everything. Especially since its been raining a lot here in Quito and not just raining but down pouring you got to get some motivation to keep contacting in the rain haha. I made a few goals this week and one of them is to be more sensitive/ follow the spirit more. I know it probably sounds a little ridiculous because i have like a year and a half in the mission so you think I would be an expert at it but as time goes on and you teach the restoration 100s of times and you talk to 1000s of people throughout the months, its hard not to fall into a routine. To not start saying the same thing for every point in the lessons or even in doing the same thing everyday. So the goal is during lessons to really pay attention to what the spirit wants me to say. Or where the spirit wants me to go while we are walking around in the streets looking for people to teach. 

So this past week on divisions we were just contacting some people and trying to just go places we havent been to hit some doors. So we were walking all over the place contacting and making our way towards an old investigators warehouse to see if we could teach him (he was only an old investigator because we have lost contact). So we were walking and we passed a door and I heard a family inside the house and I felt the prompting to hit the house. When the door was answered it was that investigator that we have been looking for. The first lesson we taught him about 2 months ago he confessed to us about his dad and one of his kids passed away in his arms both happened within a month. So we were able to find out where he lives and we were able to teach him the plan of salvation and how he is going to be able to see them again. Without a smile the whole lesson from him when we said that he got a big smile on his face. The work is so much more effective when we pay attention to the spirit and not just go off of experience that we may have as missionaries. My desire now is a lot bigger to keep paying more attention to the spirit. 

Anyways, thanks for everyone who wrote me. You guys are awesome :) I hope you all have a great week and Ill talk to you guys next week! 4th quarter baby! LESSSSSSSSSS GOOOOOOOO!

Still A Buckeye

Tell you what, wasnt fun to show up to the offices and have everyone saying role tide to me today. All I know is that Ohio state got stomped and nothing else because mission life. Anyways, on new years eve we werent allowed to leave, besides to go play soccer in the morning from permission of president bc it was my comps birthday, but after we just had to stay in the house all day. I took it like a champ drinking from my ohio state mug all day just trying to do all I could to support them but it didnt work so its been a long pday. I also didnt play to hot in soccer Saturday, darn it

So this week was pretty good. It was a lot better of a week than the last, which isnt to hard because we had like 10 lessons all last week, but we found some new investigators and they are legit. Not gonna say they are golden because they arent, but they are awesome. We just have to keep pushing to help Alejandro change his job and things will get rolling. He is the son of one of the baptisms we had about 4 months ago here. Its his son and his wife so it should go great cuz his dad and his brother are super strong converts:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

My mission president made a good reference to me today that i thought I would share. So he told me that football players give everything they have when they play, but winners tend to give more in the 4th quarter and then he goes your in the 4th quarter of your mission. So it was a big wake up call telling me its time to start working harder. With 2017 being here, never thought this year would come when I first started haha, time is just going to start flying by. This time doesnt come back so im excited to give all I have these next couple of months!

I love you guys! thanks for your letters and those writing my college essays;) you da real MVPs. Anyways talk to you all next week! 

Maria Rodriguez´s baptism 

I don't remember if I sent this one home, but its Darwin's baptism :)  

I screen shotted a firework show. It wasnt too poppin but it was better than last years show!

SEXY 6!!!!!

So tomorrow officially starts my last 6 months of the mission. Its crazy that its here. I've been planning for this day since the beginning. Its been a lot of crazy eating the past 5 days trying to get in all the food I wont be eating for the next 6 Months. So what the sexy 6 is, is when you diet and work out like crazy so you come home lookin like a G. My companion only thinks ill complete on the work out end but I'm determined haha! LESSSSS GOOOO!!!! No more pan de chocolate or the polaca! 

So its been a pretty rough past couple of weeks. This is the second week in a row without finding a new investigator or EVEN a lesson to an investigator. We have absolutely ZERO investigators right now. So my first change here, we had half of the ward. My second change, we had the whole ward. Now I'm on my 3rd change here and once again, we have half the ward. So the sector boundaries didn't go too much in our favor cuz we left everything in the other half. We are working hard and contacting but I believe where we are lacking is in following up with the contacts. Its easy to talk to people, write their number down, then forget you ever talked to them haha but we are working hard to improve on that.We are teaching a good number of less actives and a couple that i love! They are so awesome but so difficult sometimes. Its hard to respect their agency but its a good patience lesson when they explain why they wont come back to church. The mission no longer is focusing in the less actives. We are only focusing on finding and baptizing then repassing the lessons. What we are mainly focusing on is the finding then we will worry about the other 3 steps.

Anyways the work is going good! We had a couple baptisms while i was off the internet which is awesome so if i have more time Ill send you guys some more pictures. I also went to the basillica today which is a really old catholic church. I couldnt take pictures in the coolest room of gold with like 5 virgin marys. However, i did go on top of the building and about peed my pants it was so scary. thought I was gonna die bc you know me heights aint my thing but i got up to the top. Also I took a cool picture that if you zoom in its blurry bc a fellow elder never turned off flash but its of me in the priest chair with the virgin mary behind me. Then the guards came and told me I couldnt sit in the chair. So the picture will have to do for now!

Thanks for the letters! i love you guys and I hope you are all doing great! We found a place to do skype so Ill be talking to you guys in about 12 days!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I'M BACK!

Hey sorry its been awhile but things are going good here in Ecuador! It was a rough past change a lot of things to keep me busy which is good! Somethings that's changed is that the first presidency said that we have to have a zone conference and interviews every single change now. Normally it was one change conference next interviews. So I had an interview with president and it was awesome. I talked to him a lot about why its so hard to be exactly obedient. He talked about how well you get to know someone in 2 changes and i was like really well. He goes now how long was the pre earth life and I said an eternity. So he said Satan was able to get to know you VERY well. That's why temptations are so hard to resist because he knows your weaknesses because of that time. I havent thought about it that way and it really did help me out. It didnt really change how hard it is to be perfect but it did help me not beat myself up all the time with the imperfections that I make. 

Well In the zone conference we had a cool training by the assistants about how short our time in the mission is. They added up all the time we sleep, eat, study and all that other stuff including the time we are actually proselyting, which adds up to 6 months. We spend more time in the mission sleeping then we do actually working. Thats what really caught my attention. The next news I got in the interview was I asked president when he goes home cuz I knew it was near when I go home. He said he goes home on the 4th and I said oh so my last interview ill have a new president and he said no. your last change is only 3 weeks. Because changes are on the 2nd of July and he said it wouldnt be fair to make the new mission president do all the new changes in one day. So i now come home on the 13th of June. My mission is now 6 weeks and 3 days short of 2 years. That card that the assistantsmade of the mission of it only being 6 months of working is now a LOT smaller amount of time. The mission is passing by super fast and its crazy. Never thought 2017 would come but here it is! Im excited to work super hard in my last 4.5 changes i have left! The mission is the best. I love you guys talk to you all next week! 

Matt's Letters

Matt informed us that he won't have access to the internet for the next couple of weeks.  So he won't be able to send or receive emails for that period.  You can write him at this address:

Elder Matthew Welch

Mision Ecuador Quito

Calle Robles E4-151 y Avenida Amazonas

Casilla: 17-03-078

Quito, Pichincha

Ecuador

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!