Curtis is now serving in a city called Portoviejo. It has a population of 250,000 people. That is a little larger than Salt Lake City without all of it's suburbs. It is about 30 kilometers from the Ocean. Raising coffee and cattle and fishing are important industries. It was founded on March 12, 1535 and is one of the oldest cities in Ecuador and the sixth largest city in the country.
Week 3 Portoviejo
Hey! So how are things going? I am doing good. So tell Clain congratulations on his first date. I am proud of him. That is a big accomplishment. But make sure that he understands that she went to all of the trouble to ask him so now he owes her the favor to ask her to the next dance.
Things are going good here. I have done two baptism interviews already for Elder Rojas and Elder Turley, the Zone Leaders. Elder Rojas came with me from Quevedo out here to Portoviejo. I didn´t get to go to the Leadership Conference. It was just the Zone Leaders. A while back the district leaders got to go, too, but that didn´t happen this time, just the Zone Leaders. But you know what everybody is saying, that the next change I am going to be a Zone Leader. All of the elders are saying this. I don´t know, but I have seen a trend recently with a lot of elders that end up Zone Leaders. They get sent to a sector for one change to be District Leader and then the next change they get changed to another sector to be Zone Leader. This happened with Elder Bartolomei and with Elder Rojas, so maybe it will happen with me, too. I don´t know. Everybody says that it is going to happen, but I don´t know. They also say that if I end up staying here in this sector, that I will train the next change. So let’s see what happens in the next month.
With Elder Carlos, we have been knocking a lot of doors and finding lots of new people to teach. When I got here, there wasn´t a whole lot of people that they were teaching. They had baptised a lot of people here. In his three changes here, Elder Carlos has had 15 baptisms. So right now we are working really hard to find more people and help the ones that we are teaching to commit to be baptised and then to follow through with it.
I had an interchange with Elder Rojas here in my sector and we had an awesome day finding new people and teaching the ones that we already had. I am very proud of myself in less than two weeks I am able to go anywhere in the sector that I want without getting lost. I am still having problems remembering where all of the houses are, but I know the majority of them. Elder Rojas is really cool. He is from Mexico City, Mexico. He has 18 months in the mission and he only had one change as a district leader before he subed to Zone Leader. So this is his second change as a Lider in the mission.
Hey Elder Carlos just asked me if you could send him a triple combination in Spanish with his name on the front, one of the nice ones with the index on the sides and everything. He wants you to put Élder Moises Carlos on the front of it with the little accent mark on the E of Elder if they can. I told him you are sending the bible but he really wants the triple. I don´t know if you can do that or not. If he isn´t here when it gets here, I can send it to him through the pouch and he will get it.
So you wanted to know what new foods we have been eating here. I have eaten now a lot of breaded and fried fish. I love it so much! They give it to you filet and without the bones and it is so good. I have eaten a ton of cerviche. It is a little like a soup, but it isn´t. It has fish or shrimp or just about whatever type of seafood that you want in it and then they boil it in water. And after that, they put in lime juice and a little oil and onions and then you put in ketchup and mustard to your liking and you eat it with platano frito, not patacones. It is like potato chips from platano and with rice. It is so good! You can also put in a little hot sauce if you like. I usually put a little in, but my Mexican and Peruvian compatriots put in a ton of hot sauce.
I am still waiting for the day when I will get to eat octopus and we are planning, me and Elder Rojas to go and hunt an iguana and eat it, too. So I should have a story about an iguana hunt one of these weeks for you. Other than that, the food is about the same. Like yesterday, I had rice and beans with the breaded and fried fish with patacones, so it is a lot like Quevedo. There just isn´t as much platano out here.
Well, I really hope that things are going well for you guys out there in the states. Things are going good here in Portoviejo and I am having lots of fun living four in the house. That is really cool. We all cook separate in the night and in the mornings, so ya, it all works out. Well, I gotta go. I love you lots! Bye.
Hey! So how are things going? I am doing good. So tell Clain congratulations on his first date. I am proud of him. That is a big accomplishment. But make sure that he understands that she went to all of the trouble to ask him so now he owes her the favor to ask her to the next dance.
Things are going good here. I have done two baptism interviews already for Elder Rojas and Elder Turley, the Zone Leaders. Elder Rojas came with me from Quevedo out here to Portoviejo. I didn´t get to go to the Leadership Conference. It was just the Zone Leaders. A while back the district leaders got to go, too, but that didn´t happen this time, just the Zone Leaders. But you know what everybody is saying, that the next change I am going to be a Zone Leader. All of the elders are saying this. I don´t know, but I have seen a trend recently with a lot of elders that end up Zone Leaders. They get sent to a sector for one change to be District Leader and then the next change they get changed to another sector to be Zone Leader. This happened with Elder Bartolomei and with Elder Rojas, so maybe it will happen with me, too. I don´t know. Everybody says that it is going to happen, but I don´t know. They also say that if I end up staying here in this sector, that I will train the next change. So let’s see what happens in the next month.
With Elder Carlos, we have been knocking a lot of doors and finding lots of new people to teach. When I got here, there wasn´t a whole lot of people that they were teaching. They had baptised a lot of people here. In his three changes here, Elder Carlos has had 15 baptisms. So right now we are working really hard to find more people and help the ones that we are teaching to commit to be baptised and then to follow through with it.
I had an interchange with Elder Rojas here in my sector and we had an awesome day finding new people and teaching the ones that we already had. I am very proud of myself in less than two weeks I am able to go anywhere in the sector that I want without getting lost. I am still having problems remembering where all of the houses are, but I know the majority of them. Elder Rojas is really cool. He is from Mexico City, Mexico. He has 18 months in the mission and he only had one change as a district leader before he subed to Zone Leader. So this is his second change as a Lider in the mission.
Hey Elder Carlos just asked me if you could send him a triple combination in Spanish with his name on the front, one of the nice ones with the index on the sides and everything. He wants you to put Élder Moises Carlos on the front of it with the little accent mark on the E of Elder if they can. I told him you are sending the bible but he really wants the triple. I don´t know if you can do that or not. If he isn´t here when it gets here, I can send it to him through the pouch and he will get it.
So you wanted to know what new foods we have been eating here. I have eaten now a lot of breaded and fried fish. I love it so much! They give it to you filet and without the bones and it is so good. I have eaten a ton of cerviche. It is a little like a soup, but it isn´t. It has fish or shrimp or just about whatever type of seafood that you want in it and then they boil it in water. And after that, they put in lime juice and a little oil and onions and then you put in ketchup and mustard to your liking and you eat it with platano frito, not patacones. It is like potato chips from platano and with rice. It is so good! You can also put in a little hot sauce if you like. I usually put a little in, but my Mexican and Peruvian compatriots put in a ton of hot sauce.
I am still waiting for the day when I will get to eat octopus and we are planning, me and Elder Rojas to go and hunt an iguana and eat it, too. So I should have a story about an iguana hunt one of these weeks for you. Other than that, the food is about the same. Like yesterday, I had rice and beans with the breaded and fried fish with patacones, so it is a lot like Quevedo. There just isn´t as much platano out here.
Well, I really hope that things are going well for you guys out there in the states. Things are going good here in Portoviejo and I am having lots of fun living four in the house. That is really cool. We all cook separate in the night and in the mornings, so ya, it all works out. Well, I gotta go. I love you lots! Bye.
