Valencia Week 30
Hey! How are things going? Well, first of all, last week we got back here to Valencia late, like four and then we had to go open the church so that a few of our investigators and some members could play basketball and soccer. So, we didn´t have time to get back to the computers.
The party was good. We ate hamburgers and chips. We got to the party a little early so we helped set up. The Latins, my companion and the companion of Elder Esselman, his name is Elder Rojas, said that we couldn´t start the charcoal briquettes on fire to start the grill. Ha! Ha! They didn´t know that I am an Eagle Scout and I could start a fire with wet wood in a rain storm! Ha! Ha! I proved to them that we gringos know what we are doing! I started the charcoal briquettes on fire, but they weren´t burning very good. They weren´t burning all over like they should have been, so we went and got a fan and with the fan we soon had a whole grill full of briquettes ready to cook. So, we cooked the hamburgers and everything and it was cool. On the way out, is when they told us that it was going to cost us $4.50 a person, but oh well. It was definitely worth it!
Elder Bejar is going today to Peru. He might be there already. I don´t know for sure, but yesterday he went to Guayaquil and today to Peru. Elder Neyra is also in or on his way to Peru today. So now, my first three companions have finished the mission. Elder Castañeda will finish his mission in May and then I will finish and then Elder Hernandez finishes in January of 2011 and Elder Machuca in September of 2011. So ya, they are starting to go home little by little.
I still can´t believe that I have 14 months in the mission. I am over the hill and I am picking up speed really fast. I can´t believe it, but everybody keeps saying that if they change me this change that I am going back to Quevedo South. I hope not, but let’s see what happens! If that happens, I am going to change the name of my mission from Ecuador Guayaquil North Mission to Ecuador Quevedo Mission! Everybody thinks it is so funny that I now have 14 months and I am still in my second sector! I sure don´t think it is all that funny! President in my interview asked me about my sectors and when I told him that my sectors are Valencia and Balzar, he asked me how much time I had in the mission and when I told him I was going to complete 14 months, he said “Wow” and got really quiet like, “Wow, I really forgot about Elder Goode out there,” but who knows. I am pretty sure that the Lord has something in mind for me and I think it is that I have the six baptisms that I am planning for this weekend!!! I hope it works out and we can have the baptisms!
About all of your questions that you asked me in the other emails I can´t remember what they were, but I will pull up the other emails and try to answer some of them, if not all of them. Ok? Well, I hope you get this and you can respond.
I love you lots!!!
Elder Goode
Hey Buddy!
It is great to hear from you. I am sure glad you are an Eagle Scout! It really pays off at times and proves that moms do know what they are doing occasionally! Ha! Ha! Dad needs to remember some of his scout training. He wanted to burn a big pile of garden debris on Saturday. He piled it all up on the garden and then poured some gas on it because it was pretty much all wet stuff. He said he moved the gas can way back out of the way and stood way back. He threw the first three matches with no luck, but the fourth one caught and he had a huge explosion. No one was hurt, but it sounded like a sonic boom in the house and shook all the windows. Kathy and Chrissy were out working in the field across the street. They both looked up to see what had happened. Dumb!
I am sure you were meant to stay in Valencia and take care of these baptisms. Is there any chance Shirley is going to get baptized there before you leave?
I don´t think that Shirley will get baptised before I leave here. She doesn´t turn 18 until after the change and she hasn´t come to church lately and I don´t think that she really wants to anymore, so I will try, but I don´t know. I doubt it.
That is too bad. Maybe she was more interested in you than in the church. Darn!
Which six people do you have lined up for baptism this week? Did you baptize anyone this past week?
We have six lined up this week. Five are the San Martin family and one is a daughter of a member that is really inactive, but the daughter has been coming to church a few times lately. Yesterday, we went and put the date with her for this Saturday and taught her everything that she needs to know to pass the baptism interview. Last week, we were planning on baptising the San Martin family, but most of the kids were sick this week, so we taught them about blessings and then we gave them blessings and they all got better! So now they have faith that we have power to heal and to help people, so now they are a little more excited for their baptisms!
I do have a copy of the new Spanish Bible, but if you want, you could send me another copy. I have the paperback version, but I would really like the really fancy one with the side that has the little cuts in it so that you can find the books easier, so if you can, would you send me for Christmas the new bible, but the fancy one in black not in the red. I would also like the Money Maker goose call, but I think I can wait another year to get it. I think by the time I get back there will be another newer better one! So the bible yes, but the goose call no! I still have my stocking and my Christmas tree. I haven´t done the barbeque yet, but I will see what happens if we could do one, maybe this week. Oh well, let’s see. Write me back. Ok?
It is pretty amazing when I think about it that you have been gone that long. In some ways it seems really long and in other ways fairly quick. These past two months have really flown by for me. Did they for you, too?
The Lord knows what He is doing and I am sure the people you have met and taught will be touched by the seeds you have planted. It may not be right away, but someday, those seeds will take hold and grow. Everyone there will always remember a big, tall, handsome and kind gringo missionary who was always very Goode! They will remember you fondly and with great love!!! I bet you will end up somewhere entirely different in two weeks, maybe near the ocean or in the big city. Be prepared for a BIG change!
Chris Jenkins gave the Relief Society lesson on Sunday. She talked a little bit about Clayton. He has been in the same sector for seven months now. He has been living with an older couple in their home. He thought he would for sure get transferred six weeks ago, but he didn't. He was made a District Leader. He was kind of frustrated by it. Then last week, the man he lives with called Chris Jenkins. He said that he had called Clayton's Mission President and requested that Clayton stay there one more change. His mother was ill and they moved her to their home to take care of her. This man said he had met many missionaries in his lifetime and he knew if any missionary could convert his mother, Clayton was the one who could. So the Mission President had left Clayton there another change and he did convert the mother. She got baptized on Saturday. Clayton is getting transferred this week and he will be a Zone Leader. It was a very touching story. I am sure Chris told it much better than I just did, but you get the idea. The Lord is in charge and He knows where your special talents, abilities and personality are needed. Hang in there!!!
I love you so much!
Mom
Cool. I will check into the Bible. I have not been to the Distribution center since they released it. I will go this week and see what they have. Maybe I will get one for your companion as well. You will probably have a different companion by then, but I am sure whatever Elder I send it to will love it.
Are you able to study the Ensigns and Liahonas that I send you?
Which version is best for you for the Conference Issue?
Good luck on the baptisms. I am sure you will be successful this week. That is really neat about the blessings. What kind of sickness did they all have? Tell me more about the blessings please.
Are you still there? I love you. I wish you would say goodbye before you sign off.
Love always and forever,
Mom
Showing posts with label Elder Castañeda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elder Castañeda. Show all posts
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
2009_08_10 Week 19 Valencia Mom
Do they have programs like Girl's Camp, Helaman's Camp, and Youth Conference down there?
They don´t do anything like Girl’s Camp or Helaman’s Camp here but they did have a Young Single Adult Conference in Manta this weekend so that is pretty cool.
Is there anything you need or want?
Right now there isn´t anything else that I need, but I will definitely let you know.
Do the people down there do any canning or preserving?
Here there really isn´t any canning or preserving but that is something that the leaders in the church are stressing right now, that the people start keeping a supply of food and money in their house. Here it isn´t hard to buy a sack of rice or beans and keep it in the house, but the people just aren´t doing it. The people normally buy every day here or buy every other day, but they are always buying so they can cook. The people that have fridges usually buy every two or three days, but the thing is to buy you leave the house and go to the corner and there is a store.
Do they garden all year long?
No Answer
Do they just replant stuff when it quits producing?
Here they have planting seasons, too. When it is raining, they can plant different plants than when it is dry, so they plant and then they harvest.
Do any of the plants go through a winter dormant stage?
No, here the trees produce fruit and then they wait about three months and they produce again and they keep doing this all year long, but there are a few trees that are always producing fruit like oranges.
How has the weather been down there?
The weather has been pretty good here. It has been a little cooler and drier, but this is summer in Ecuador in winter it rains and is hotter.
The changes are different. This time they called Saturday and told us that I would be staying in Valencia and that Elder Castaneda would be leaving, but they didn´t tell us where. Sunday, we went to the Zone Leaders house and they called again, but they didn´t tell us the changes. They just said that the people that had changes would go to Guayaquil and when they got to Guayaquil they would give them an envelope and the envelope would tell them where they would be going and who their companion would be. So I still don´t know who my companion is, but I need to go right now and wait in the bus terminal until he gets here. Right now I am with another Elder that is waiting for his companion. His name is Elder Peralta. He started his mission in Valencia and his second sector was Balzar, so we have lots to talk about, but he is from Peru. I seem to get stuck with the Paraguanos. Let’s hope that I get a different country this time, maybe Mexico or Bolivia or Guatamala. Lets hope!!! Well, I gotta go, but when I get to Valencia with my companion we will get back on and let you know what is up with the changes. Well, I gotta go. Bye.
Hi Curtis,
I am glad you are getting to stay one more change in Valencia. I hope you can get those baptisms you are working on to work out in the next six weeks. Please write and tell us about you investigators this week and what is happening with them. Did they go to church? Is anyone ready for baptism this coming week? What great experiences did you have?
Who is your new companion? Give us as many details as you can.
Love you lots,
Mom and Braxton
Hey, I am back here in Valencia. My companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Guatemala. He is starting his fifth change here in Valencia with me. He was in Babahoyo before in the same house as Elder Frye and Elder Elwood. His trainer is Elder Mitton who is now Zone Leader with Elder Cachari in Quevedo South. Elder Cachari is the trainer of Elder Bartolomei.
Well this week, Dexy came to church on her own. That was really cool. Dexy, I found out is a day older than I am. She turned 20 on the 24th of July, but the really cool thing is that the teens and the young adults invited her to a party that they are having for one of the teens in the ward that just turned 18, so they are going swimming to the swimming pool. I thought that that was really cool, because she has been telling us that she wants to make more friends in the church and now they are getting her involved in their activities. She will be a great convert for us. She has a baptismal date for the 22nd of August. Elder Castaneda helped us out with that before he left. Sunday, when we were in the church, he told Dexy that he was leaving, but that he wanted her to keep listening to the elders and to be baptised and he put the date for the 22nd and she acepted it. That was really cool!
We have been working with a less active family and they gave us a reference and we have been visiting with this family and they came to church Sunday and to the activity that we had last Friday. That was really cool! We have a few more people that are working on progressing, so we are working with them. We have a couple that we are working with to help them get married. We also have Shirley that is still coming to church and my English classes and is progressing good. We just have to keep waiting for her birthday in November, so that she can be baptised. But you know what, she is a really cute girl. I gotta take some pictures to send you, but I am definitely going to have to keep in touch with her. Other than that, we don´t have much else, but we are working good and planning on a big change for baptisms so let’s see what happens.
That is neat. I am glad they are involving Dexy in their activities. It is always easier to come when you have made a few friends. Do you know where Elder Castaneda ended up? Can you tell us more about your new companion? You said he is on his fifth change, so he has been out for 24 weeks or about 6 months. Who are your district leader and zone leader now? What other missionaries are in your district and which ones are in your zone?
Elder Castañeda is in Jipijapa (you say it Hippy Hoppa) in Manta with Elder Ruiz. He is from Costa Rica.
I still don´t know a whole lot yet, give me a week and I will let you know more. I promise! Ya, he has been out four changes and this is the beginning of his fifth so he has six months. His name is Elder Hernandes, but I am pretty sure that it is spelled wrong, but I´ll figure it out this week.
My Zone Leader is the same and I think that my district leader will be, too, but we will see. Maybe they will change us. I don´t know. The zone stayed about the same. I received Elder Hernandes and Elder Peralta received another one and that is the only changes that there were in the zone.
When are you going to send us some pictures? A photo CD? Soon please!
I got the photo that the APs took at Zone Conference, but I don't think you ever told me who everyone is. I think I sent you an email asking, but it was one of the weeks that you didn't send us email. So who are your Zone leader and District leader?
There was a Mauricio R Hernandez who was companions with Dan Mitton in Babahoyo. I wrote down that Dan was his trainer. Is that the one? I am attaching a photo. Is this your new companion? I put down that he is from Guatemala and entered the MTC about 1/21/2009.
Can you correct my bad guesses on this photo from the Zone Conference in July?
Missionaries from Left to Right: (My Best Guesses)
1 Elder E Coj – New Greenie - guess
2 Elder Francisco Castañeda - fact
3 Elder R Peralta - guess (probably wrong)
4 Elder J Esselman - guess
5 Elder A Verastegui - fact
6 Elder Blake Bartolomei - fact
7 Elder Donaldo Batista - guess
8 Elder Curtis Goode - fact
9 Elder Amilcar Vargas - guess
10 Elder Junior Lopez - guess
11 Elder C Garcia – New Greenie - guess
12 Elder Mark Frye - fact
Companionships (My best guesses)
Verastegui and Coj – Zone Leader - guess
Goode and Castañeda - fact
Bartolomei and Esselman -fact
Frye and Lopez - fact
Peralta and Batista - fact
Vargas and Jiminez (You said his new companion was Jiminez, but he’s not in the photo – was there a transfer or is the name wrong? Is his companion Garcia?) – guess
Who are the District Leaders?
Which missionaries are in each district?
Who is your District Leader?
Curtis didn’t respond back. We will have to wait and see if he answers my questions about this photo next week.
They don´t do anything like Girl’s Camp or Helaman’s Camp here but they did have a Young Single Adult Conference in Manta this weekend so that is pretty cool.
Is there anything you need or want?
Right now there isn´t anything else that I need, but I will definitely let you know.
Do the people down there do any canning or preserving?
Here there really isn´t any canning or preserving but that is something that the leaders in the church are stressing right now, that the people start keeping a supply of food and money in their house. Here it isn´t hard to buy a sack of rice or beans and keep it in the house, but the people just aren´t doing it. The people normally buy every day here or buy every other day, but they are always buying so they can cook. The people that have fridges usually buy every two or three days, but the thing is to buy you leave the house and go to the corner and there is a store.
Do they garden all year long?
No Answer
Do they just replant stuff when it quits producing?
Here they have planting seasons, too. When it is raining, they can plant different plants than when it is dry, so they plant and then they harvest.
Do any of the plants go through a winter dormant stage?
No, here the trees produce fruit and then they wait about three months and they produce again and they keep doing this all year long, but there are a few trees that are always producing fruit like oranges.
How has the weather been down there?
The weather has been pretty good here. It has been a little cooler and drier, but this is summer in Ecuador in winter it rains and is hotter.
The changes are different. This time they called Saturday and told us that I would be staying in Valencia and that Elder Castaneda would be leaving, but they didn´t tell us where. Sunday, we went to the Zone Leaders house and they called again, but they didn´t tell us the changes. They just said that the people that had changes would go to Guayaquil and when they got to Guayaquil they would give them an envelope and the envelope would tell them where they would be going and who their companion would be. So I still don´t know who my companion is, but I need to go right now and wait in the bus terminal until he gets here. Right now I am with another Elder that is waiting for his companion. His name is Elder Peralta. He started his mission in Valencia and his second sector was Balzar, so we have lots to talk about, but he is from Peru. I seem to get stuck with the Paraguanos. Let’s hope that I get a different country this time, maybe Mexico or Bolivia or Guatamala. Lets hope!!! Well, I gotta go, but when I get to Valencia with my companion we will get back on and let you know what is up with the changes. Well, I gotta go. Bye.
Hi Curtis,
I am glad you are getting to stay one more change in Valencia. I hope you can get those baptisms you are working on to work out in the next six weeks. Please write and tell us about you investigators this week and what is happening with them. Did they go to church? Is anyone ready for baptism this coming week? What great experiences did you have?
Who is your new companion? Give us as many details as you can.
Love you lots,
Mom and Braxton
Hey, I am back here in Valencia. My companion is Elder Hernandez. He is from Guatemala. He is starting his fifth change here in Valencia with me. He was in Babahoyo before in the same house as Elder Frye and Elder Elwood. His trainer is Elder Mitton who is now Zone Leader with Elder Cachari in Quevedo South. Elder Cachari is the trainer of Elder Bartolomei.
Well this week, Dexy came to church on her own. That was really cool. Dexy, I found out is a day older than I am. She turned 20 on the 24th of July, but the really cool thing is that the teens and the young adults invited her to a party that they are having for one of the teens in the ward that just turned 18, so they are going swimming to the swimming pool. I thought that that was really cool, because she has been telling us that she wants to make more friends in the church and now they are getting her involved in their activities. She will be a great convert for us. She has a baptismal date for the 22nd of August. Elder Castaneda helped us out with that before he left. Sunday, when we were in the church, he told Dexy that he was leaving, but that he wanted her to keep listening to the elders and to be baptised and he put the date for the 22nd and she acepted it. That was really cool!
We have been working with a less active family and they gave us a reference and we have been visiting with this family and they came to church Sunday and to the activity that we had last Friday. That was really cool! We have a few more people that are working on progressing, so we are working with them. We have a couple that we are working with to help them get married. We also have Shirley that is still coming to church and my English classes and is progressing good. We just have to keep waiting for her birthday in November, so that she can be baptised. But you know what, she is a really cute girl. I gotta take some pictures to send you, but I am definitely going to have to keep in touch with her. Other than that, we don´t have much else, but we are working good and planning on a big change for baptisms so let’s see what happens.
That is neat. I am glad they are involving Dexy in their activities. It is always easier to come when you have made a few friends. Do you know where Elder Castaneda ended up? Can you tell us more about your new companion? You said he is on his fifth change, so he has been out for 24 weeks or about 6 months. Who are your district leader and zone leader now? What other missionaries are in your district and which ones are in your zone?
Elder Castañeda is in Jipijapa (you say it Hippy Hoppa) in Manta with Elder Ruiz. He is from Costa Rica.
I still don´t know a whole lot yet, give me a week and I will let you know more. I promise! Ya, he has been out four changes and this is the beginning of his fifth so he has six months. His name is Elder Hernandes, but I am pretty sure that it is spelled wrong, but I´ll figure it out this week.
My Zone Leader is the same and I think that my district leader will be, too, but we will see. Maybe they will change us. I don´t know. The zone stayed about the same. I received Elder Hernandes and Elder Peralta received another one and that is the only changes that there were in the zone.
When are you going to send us some pictures? A photo CD? Soon please!
I got the photo that the APs took at Zone Conference, but I don't think you ever told me who everyone is. I think I sent you an email asking, but it was one of the weeks that you didn't send us email. So who are your Zone leader and District leader?
There was a Mauricio R Hernandez who was companions with Dan Mitton in Babahoyo. I wrote down that Dan was his trainer. Is that the one? I am attaching a photo. Is this your new companion? I put down that he is from Guatemala and entered the MTC about 1/21/2009.
Can you correct my bad guesses on this photo from the Zone Conference in July?
Missionaries from Left to Right: (My Best Guesses)
1 Elder E Coj – New Greenie - guess
2 Elder Francisco Castañeda - fact
3 Elder R Peralta - guess (probably wrong)
4 Elder J Esselman - guess
5 Elder A Verastegui - fact
6 Elder Blake Bartolomei - fact
7 Elder Donaldo Batista - guess
8 Elder Curtis Goode - fact
9 Elder Amilcar Vargas - guess
10 Elder Junior Lopez - guess
11 Elder C Garcia – New Greenie - guess
12 Elder Mark Frye - fact
Companionships (My best guesses)
Verastegui and Coj – Zone Leader - guess
Goode and Castañeda - fact
Bartolomei and Esselman -fact
Frye and Lopez - fact
Peralta and Batista - fact
Vargas and Jiminez (You said his new companion was Jiminez, but he’s not in the photo – was there a transfer or is the name wrong? Is his companion Garcia?) – guess
Who are the District Leaders?
Which missionaries are in each district?
Who is your District Leader?
Curtis didn’t respond back. We will have to wait and see if he answers my questions about this photo next week.
Monday, August 3, 2009
2009_08_03 Week 18 Valencia Mom
Hey! How is it going? Things are going good here. We are working hard and doing good. I have been a little bit down lately. I think more than anything else is that Skyler got married and now I am getting that feeling fall is coming. I can feel it and fall brings hunting. I think that is one of the things that I am missing most right now. I am trying to stay focused in the work, but sometimes it gets hard.
We have two people that have baptism dates. We have Isabel Cuello and we have another investigator, Dexy. She is 21. She just turned 21 the day before I did and she wants to be baptized. So we are working with her and she has given us lots of references. In the past two weeks she introduced us to her friend and her family (a family with 12 kids). We are teaching them. There are five or six of the kids that have been listening to us, but they are all older 21, 19, 16, 15, so it is a little bit harder to teach because they all have different schedules and you know how young people are. Sometimes they just don´t want to listen. But it is cool. We had a Family Home Evening in the church Friday and she came and brought one of her friends. He is really cool. He has read all of the Book of Mormon, but from a scholar point of view, not as a religious point of view. So it is cool. We need to go visit him in his house. The thing is our Bishop wants us to work in Valencia, but we are getting a ton of references from Dexy for people that live in The Mana, so we are trying to work with the people that we have while trying to expand our teaching pool to include the people in The Mana.
Yesterday we went and taught Dexy in The Mana. There is a park in the middle of the town. We have been meeting her in the park and teaching her there. We had a really cool experience yesterday. We were teaching her about baptism. She wanted to know what she needed to do to be baptized, so we told her she needed to come to church and that before the baptism she needed to have an interview. And she asked us what they would ask her in the interview, so I pulled out my agenda and turned to the page that has the baptism questions on it and gave it to her to read. And she started reading it question for question and answering as she went. It was cool, but the cool part was when we got to the part about tithing. Elder Castañeda was explaining and I noticed that there was a man listening to what we were teaching. After about a minute of explaining, Elder Castañeda was explaining that we pay ten percent, but Dexy didn´t understand it very well. In this moment, the man that had been listening bursted into the lesson and started to teach about tithing. He taught her what ten percent was so that she could understand. After that he started to "machetear" (This is a word that we use in Spanish. Imagine that he had a machete in his hand and he was using it on her.) He started to say that women that dress inappropriately are sinning and that when men have inappropriate thoughts it is their sin and a bunch of things. So we quickly changed the subject, asked him where he was from, if he knew anyone Mormon and a bunch of other things. And then we gave him a pamphlet and luckily the bus pulled up and he left to take the bus. But the thing is that what he taught, we had been teaching her earlier about modesty. She wasn´t dressed immodestly or anything, but he was pretty harsh. But, we continued with the lesson as if nothing had happened, but the good thing was that Dexy understood what tithing is. But when we got there, Dexy introduced us to another friend, but she had to leave before we could teach. But we did invite her to the actividad that we are going to have this week. They are doing a talent show and each group has to present something. It should be cool.
We are working really hard and we are starting to have success. It seems like we always seem to find people that want to be baptised right before the change. Well, I will let you know next week what is happening with the changes, if I´m going or if I get to stay here to have some baptisms, but we will see.
Hi Curtis,
It is good to hear from you. Dexy sounds like a golden prospect. I hope it works out for you well and that you are able to continue to teach her friends and family. I hope for that reason that you are not transferred, but the Lord will decide. Maybe it will help that we fasted for you. I am glad there is nothing seriously the matter. Tell Satan to get lost and don't worry about Skyler. Things will work out for you when you get home. Right now, you need to be hunting for converts rather than ducks, elk and deer. That will be more important for your salvation in the long run.
I wish Skyler were off in Japan teaching the gospel like you, but we don't know why things happen as they do. I hope someday he is able to serve a mission. It seems strange that his Patriarchal Blessing would talk about a mission, and then he would be unable to go, but maybe that means it will be a blessing for a later time. I am glad he is not sitting home sulking or wasting his time. He is doing great things with this insurance business and if that makes him happy, I guess it is good.
What happened with the Jewish guy you were teaching?
With Moshe, he works a lot. We can’t leave the house until ten in the morning, right? Well he starts working in Quevedo at nine, his first job. Then he goes to his second job after that at three. Then he comes here to Valencia and starts his third job at six thirty and leaves the third job at ten. We have to be in the house at 9 or 9 thirty, the latest, so we can’t teach him during the week.
On the weekend, Saturday, that is his Domingo, so we can visit him Saturdays, but I don´t think he is very faithful to his holy day, because he goes out and about and that is not what he said that he should do. But I give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he is going for a walk or to visit someone. I don´t know, but Saturday, we were doing service in the church, Elder Castañeda and me. I had my machete and we were trimming the plants in the flowerbeds. It is a ground cover plant and it was sticking out into the side walk and didn´t look very good, so I was going along with my machete cutting the plant so that it was even and Elder Castañeda was behind pulling all of the plant that I had cut out and putting it in a trash bag.
While we were working on this, Moshe passed and the first thing he asked us if we could work. I told him that we could, that it is Saturday, but then I laughingly told him that since our day of rest is Sunday that we could work on Saturday. I kept working, but he stayed there with me and was asking me a bunch of questions. It was really cool. The Lord really does help you when you need it. I haven’t studied the scriptures in English in just about ten months, so I couldn´t remember the scriptures very well, but the thing was, he asked me several questions and I, while working without stopping to think, was able to quote scriptures that I am pretty sure that I have never memorized in English, but I quoted them in English. It was really cool.
He had a few doubts, but I was able to help him understand what we believe and how he can know that the church is the correct church. It really was cool to be able to talk with him like that. I spent about an hour and a half teaching while I was working. It was so cool. The Lord really will give us the words we need in the right moment. I don´t think that Moshe is ready to be baptized, but he wants to keep learning, so I am going to keep teaching until I leave and hopefully what I have taught will one day have effect and he will be baptised.
I got another package last week. that makes three for my birthday and four for my Hump Day. Thankyou so much, but so you know, I now have four bottles of Maple Syrup Extract and I have used about half of a bottle, so I don´t need any more for a while, ok. But thank you for sending me more jerkey. I will tell you that I haven´t been eating much jerkey, because there isn´t much in the house. Because I open the package right and put the jerkey in the fridge and then when I go to get a piece there isn´t any in the fridge and my companion doesn´t know what happened to it or so he says, but that is all right. He really loves jerkey, so he has been eating just about all that I have received.
Could you do me a favor though? Can you send me a few temple recommend holders that have the picture of different temples in the states??? Elder Castañeda wants some, so if you can send them that would be really cool. And if I am not here when I get them I can send them through the pouch so he can have them.
Thank you for everything and thank you for your prayers and your fasting. I have felt the help in the work and in my excitement for the work, but I gotta go. It is late and we have appointments, so I will talk to you next week and let you know what happens with the transfers. And tell the family and the friends hi and sorry that I haven´t written them. Next week, I will, Ok? Bye.
Thanks Curtis. Wonderful letters today and thanks for saying thank you. It means a lot. We will keep praying for you as always. Any specific temples he wants?
Love always,
Mom
I just asked him and he said that whatever ones that I think are cool. So see if you can find the Salt Lake Temple, Ogden, and Logan. There is one in Washington that is really cool, one in California, I think the San Diego, but I could be wrong and the Washington DC temple and if there are a few other cool ones that you feel that would be cool. Thank you so much! I love you! Bye.
We have two people that have baptism dates. We have Isabel Cuello and we have another investigator, Dexy. She is 21. She just turned 21 the day before I did and she wants to be baptized. So we are working with her and she has given us lots of references. In the past two weeks she introduced us to her friend and her family (a family with 12 kids). We are teaching them. There are five or six of the kids that have been listening to us, but they are all older 21, 19, 16, 15, so it is a little bit harder to teach because they all have different schedules and you know how young people are. Sometimes they just don´t want to listen. But it is cool. We had a Family Home Evening in the church Friday and she came and brought one of her friends. He is really cool. He has read all of the Book of Mormon, but from a scholar point of view, not as a religious point of view. So it is cool. We need to go visit him in his house. The thing is our Bishop wants us to work in Valencia, but we are getting a ton of references from Dexy for people that live in The Mana, so we are trying to work with the people that we have while trying to expand our teaching pool to include the people in The Mana.
Yesterday we went and taught Dexy in The Mana. There is a park in the middle of the town. We have been meeting her in the park and teaching her there. We had a really cool experience yesterday. We were teaching her about baptism. She wanted to know what she needed to do to be baptized, so we told her she needed to come to church and that before the baptism she needed to have an interview. And she asked us what they would ask her in the interview, so I pulled out my agenda and turned to the page that has the baptism questions on it and gave it to her to read. And she started reading it question for question and answering as she went. It was cool, but the cool part was when we got to the part about tithing. Elder Castañeda was explaining and I noticed that there was a man listening to what we were teaching. After about a minute of explaining, Elder Castañeda was explaining that we pay ten percent, but Dexy didn´t understand it very well. In this moment, the man that had been listening bursted into the lesson and started to teach about tithing. He taught her what ten percent was so that she could understand. After that he started to "machetear" (This is a word that we use in Spanish. Imagine that he had a machete in his hand and he was using it on her.) He started to say that women that dress inappropriately are sinning and that when men have inappropriate thoughts it is their sin and a bunch of things. So we quickly changed the subject, asked him where he was from, if he knew anyone Mormon and a bunch of other things. And then we gave him a pamphlet and luckily the bus pulled up and he left to take the bus. But the thing is that what he taught, we had been teaching her earlier about modesty. She wasn´t dressed immodestly or anything, but he was pretty harsh. But, we continued with the lesson as if nothing had happened, but the good thing was that Dexy understood what tithing is. But when we got there, Dexy introduced us to another friend, but she had to leave before we could teach. But we did invite her to the actividad that we are going to have this week. They are doing a talent show and each group has to present something. It should be cool.
We are working really hard and we are starting to have success. It seems like we always seem to find people that want to be baptised right before the change. Well, I will let you know next week what is happening with the changes, if I´m going or if I get to stay here to have some baptisms, but we will see.
Hi Curtis,
It is good to hear from you. Dexy sounds like a golden prospect. I hope it works out for you well and that you are able to continue to teach her friends and family. I hope for that reason that you are not transferred, but the Lord will decide. Maybe it will help that we fasted for you. I am glad there is nothing seriously the matter. Tell Satan to get lost and don't worry about Skyler. Things will work out for you when you get home. Right now, you need to be hunting for converts rather than ducks, elk and deer. That will be more important for your salvation in the long run.
I wish Skyler were off in Japan teaching the gospel like you, but we don't know why things happen as they do. I hope someday he is able to serve a mission. It seems strange that his Patriarchal Blessing would talk about a mission, and then he would be unable to go, but maybe that means it will be a blessing for a later time. I am glad he is not sitting home sulking or wasting his time. He is doing great things with this insurance business and if that makes him happy, I guess it is good.
What happened with the Jewish guy you were teaching?
With Moshe, he works a lot. We can’t leave the house until ten in the morning, right? Well he starts working in Quevedo at nine, his first job. Then he goes to his second job after that at three. Then he comes here to Valencia and starts his third job at six thirty and leaves the third job at ten. We have to be in the house at 9 or 9 thirty, the latest, so we can’t teach him during the week.
On the weekend, Saturday, that is his Domingo, so we can visit him Saturdays, but I don´t think he is very faithful to his holy day, because he goes out and about and that is not what he said that he should do. But I give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he is going for a walk or to visit someone. I don´t know, but Saturday, we were doing service in the church, Elder Castañeda and me. I had my machete and we were trimming the plants in the flowerbeds. It is a ground cover plant and it was sticking out into the side walk and didn´t look very good, so I was going along with my machete cutting the plant so that it was even and Elder Castañeda was behind pulling all of the plant that I had cut out and putting it in a trash bag.
While we were working on this, Moshe passed and the first thing he asked us if we could work. I told him that we could, that it is Saturday, but then I laughingly told him that since our day of rest is Sunday that we could work on Saturday. I kept working, but he stayed there with me and was asking me a bunch of questions. It was really cool. The Lord really does help you when you need it. I haven’t studied the scriptures in English in just about ten months, so I couldn´t remember the scriptures very well, but the thing was, he asked me several questions and I, while working without stopping to think, was able to quote scriptures that I am pretty sure that I have never memorized in English, but I quoted them in English. It was really cool.
He had a few doubts, but I was able to help him understand what we believe and how he can know that the church is the correct church. It really was cool to be able to talk with him like that. I spent about an hour and a half teaching while I was working. It was so cool. The Lord really will give us the words we need in the right moment. I don´t think that Moshe is ready to be baptized, but he wants to keep learning, so I am going to keep teaching until I leave and hopefully what I have taught will one day have effect and he will be baptised.
I got another package last week. that makes three for my birthday and four for my Hump Day. Thankyou so much, but so you know, I now have four bottles of Maple Syrup Extract and I have used about half of a bottle, so I don´t need any more for a while, ok. But thank you for sending me more jerkey. I will tell you that I haven´t been eating much jerkey, because there isn´t much in the house. Because I open the package right and put the jerkey in the fridge and then when I go to get a piece there isn´t any in the fridge and my companion doesn´t know what happened to it or so he says, but that is all right. He really loves jerkey, so he has been eating just about all that I have received.
Could you do me a favor though? Can you send me a few temple recommend holders that have the picture of different temples in the states??? Elder Castañeda wants some, so if you can send them that would be really cool. And if I am not here when I get them I can send them through the pouch so he can have them.
Thank you for everything and thank you for your prayers and your fasting. I have felt the help in the work and in my excitement for the work, but I gotta go. It is late and we have appointments, so I will talk to you next week and let you know what happens with the transfers. And tell the family and the friends hi and sorry that I haven´t written them. Next week, I will, Ok? Bye.
Thanks Curtis. Wonderful letters today and thanks for saying thank you. It means a lot. We will keep praying for you as always. Any specific temples he wants?
Love always,
Mom
I just asked him and he said that whatever ones that I think are cool. So see if you can find the Salt Lake Temple, Ogden, and Logan. There is one in Washington that is really cool, one in California, I think the San Diego, but I could be wrong and the Washington DC temple and if there are a few other cool ones that you feel that would be cool. Thank you so much! I love you! Bye.
Monday, July 27, 2009
2009_07_27 Week 17 Valencia Mom
Hey how are things going? I am doing good. Sorry for last week. they are trying to make the internet here in Valencia faster, upgrading I guess. But last week we were in the cyber just starting to read our emails when they did something wrong with the upgrade and all of the internet was lost. I don´t know how, but that is what they told me this week when I asked about it.
Are you healthy and happy?
Ya! I am just fine.
Did you have a good birthday on Saturday?
Ya! It was great! I ate lunch with the family that we normally eat lunch with and then went to our house and ate lunch again with the family that lives next door. We ate lasagna and we had a cake. They call it a three milk cake. It is really good. Then we went to the church and I taught English and then we went to the Esperansa and we ate with a sister there, the one that I told you about a few weeks ago that loves to cook for us. Then we came back here to Valencia and went to the house because it was late.
Have you had any baptisms the past two weeks?
No, but we are working on it. We have a few people that are getting ready. We are working on it.
Do you have any investigators with baptismal dates set?
We have the baptism date with Esther, but she didn´t come to church, so we will have to wait longer to baptise her.
How are all of the people you have told us about recently doing? Give us some updates on their progress, please.
Everybody is doing good. We are working on visiting everybody, but our Bishop has just set up a new family home evening plan where every night there is a family home evening in the house of a family here in Valencia and everybody wants the missionaries to come to their family home evenings. So we are visiting with a lot of members and we are getting a lot of good references, but it is taking away from the people that we were already teaching. So it makes it a little bit harder to visit everybody, but we are trying.
How are things with your companion going?
Things are going good. We are getting along good and he seems to be progressing a lot. So for me that is a good sign.
Are you both working hard?
Yeah. We are working very hard right now.
Are you getting along well?
Yeah.
How was your Zone Conference? Tell us about it in detail.
It was really good. We learned a lot about how to help people that are inactive to come back to church and we have been putting it into practice and it is really working well.
Have you passed off your Maestro?
No. I am still working on it.
Are there many mosquitos out during the day? Are you wearing Deet?
No and No
How is the weather? Are you still getting burnt all the time? Are you wearing sunscreen?
It is a little cooler right now. Yes, but not badly and no.
How are your allergies? Are you taking any medication?
Doing good. I haven’t had problems for a while now. No and I don´t need any more either.
Which packages have you received? Describe what was in each one you have received, if you can. We still have not received yours. I guess we will consider it lost.
I have received the three birthday packages and the three hump day packages.
I got the package that I sent to you guys back last week. I guess they can´t send this package, so I will try and send it another way next week.
Have you sent me a package with photos?
No, next week.
Can you add some photos to your email today?
No, because I don´t have any here with me.
Is there anything you want or need me to send you with the glasses?
Send me a few new oil vials. Mine broke, so I don´t have one right now. See if you can find me a shadow grass camoflauge tie, too, please.
Tell us more about the ward you work with. What meetings do you attend. Do you work well with the Bishop? Are you still trying to find people in La Mana to form a branch with?
No. We have changed our focus. We are trying to strengthen the ward here in Valencia, so we are looking for priesthood here to baptize.
Has there been any effect on the missionary work, good or bad, because of the violence that happened back in May?
No. There haven´t been any affects good or bad. The people have pretty much forgotten about it now.
What is the best meal you have eaten lately?
Lasagna
Have you eaten anything you really didn’t like or that was different?
Guinea pig. It was really good and we ate I think it was mountain goat, too. They were both really good.
Hi Curtis,
It is good to hear from you. I am glad all is well. I am at the store right now getting a couple of things then headed home to finish dinner for the missionaries. Answer more of my questions if you have time. I got your glasses so I will send them this week. Do you need the oil vial that attaches to your keys or a plastic bottle of oil to refill with?
If you could send me a bottle to put oil in too that would be great I gave mine away in Balzar, but what I really need is one that attaches to my key ring, so if you could find a couple simple ones and send them to me that would be great.
Okay. Can you get olive oil down there to put in the bottle?
Yeah, don´t worry. There is olive oil here.
Was everything in the package that was returned okay? I guess just keep those glasses there and I will send you the new ones. We had blueberry cobbler and dutch oven potatoes and chicken for your birthday celebration here. I forgot to take pictures. Sorry! I am glad you had a good birthday. Did you take photos? I want to see them. Sorry your packages were all early, but early is better than late.
Tell us what you have been doing these past two weeks. What did you do
that was fun or exciting or spiritual?
Are you healthy and happy?
Ya! I am just fine.
Did you have a good birthday on Saturday?
Ya! It was great! I ate lunch with the family that we normally eat lunch with and then went to our house and ate lunch again with the family that lives next door. We ate lasagna and we had a cake. They call it a three milk cake. It is really good. Then we went to the church and I taught English and then we went to the Esperansa and we ate with a sister there, the one that I told you about a few weeks ago that loves to cook for us. Then we came back here to Valencia and went to the house because it was late.
Have you had any baptisms the past two weeks?
No, but we are working on it. We have a few people that are getting ready. We are working on it.
Do you have any investigators with baptismal dates set?
We have the baptism date with Esther, but she didn´t come to church, so we will have to wait longer to baptise her.
How are all of the people you have told us about recently doing? Give us some updates on their progress, please.
Everybody is doing good. We are working on visiting everybody, but our Bishop has just set up a new family home evening plan where every night there is a family home evening in the house of a family here in Valencia and everybody wants the missionaries to come to their family home evenings. So we are visiting with a lot of members and we are getting a lot of good references, but it is taking away from the people that we were already teaching. So it makes it a little bit harder to visit everybody, but we are trying.
How are things with your companion going?
Things are going good. We are getting along good and he seems to be progressing a lot. So for me that is a good sign.
Are you both working hard?
Yeah. We are working very hard right now.
Are you getting along well?
Yeah.
How was your Zone Conference? Tell us about it in detail.
It was really good. We learned a lot about how to help people that are inactive to come back to church and we have been putting it into practice and it is really working well.
Have you passed off your Maestro?
No. I am still working on it.
Are there many mosquitos out during the day? Are you wearing Deet?
No and No
How is the weather? Are you still getting burnt all the time? Are you wearing sunscreen?
It is a little cooler right now. Yes, but not badly and no.
How are your allergies? Are you taking any medication?
Doing good. I haven’t had problems for a while now. No and I don´t need any more either.
Which packages have you received? Describe what was in each one you have received, if you can. We still have not received yours. I guess we will consider it lost.
I have received the three birthday packages and the three hump day packages.
I got the package that I sent to you guys back last week. I guess they can´t send this package, so I will try and send it another way next week.
Have you sent me a package with photos?
No, next week.
Can you add some photos to your email today?
No, because I don´t have any here with me.
Is there anything you want or need me to send you with the glasses?
Send me a few new oil vials. Mine broke, so I don´t have one right now. See if you can find me a shadow grass camoflauge tie, too, please.
Tell us more about the ward you work with. What meetings do you attend. Do you work well with the Bishop? Are you still trying to find people in La Mana to form a branch with?
No. We have changed our focus. We are trying to strengthen the ward here in Valencia, so we are looking for priesthood here to baptize.
Has there been any effect on the missionary work, good or bad, because of the violence that happened back in May?
No. There haven´t been any affects good or bad. The people have pretty much forgotten about it now.
What is the best meal you have eaten lately?
Lasagna
Have you eaten anything you really didn’t like or that was different?
Guinea pig. It was really good and we ate I think it was mountain goat, too. They were both really good.
Hi Curtis,
It is good to hear from you. I am glad all is well. I am at the store right now getting a couple of things then headed home to finish dinner for the missionaries. Answer more of my questions if you have time. I got your glasses so I will send them this week. Do you need the oil vial that attaches to your keys or a plastic bottle of oil to refill with?
If you could send me a bottle to put oil in too that would be great I gave mine away in Balzar, but what I really need is one that attaches to my key ring, so if you could find a couple simple ones and send them to me that would be great.
Okay. Can you get olive oil down there to put in the bottle?
Yeah, don´t worry. There is olive oil here.
Was everything in the package that was returned okay? I guess just keep those glasses there and I will send you the new ones. We had blueberry cobbler and dutch oven potatoes and chicken for your birthday celebration here. I forgot to take pictures. Sorry! I am glad you had a good birthday. Did you take photos? I want to see them. Sorry your packages were all early, but early is better than late.
Tell us what you have been doing these past two weeks. What did you do
that was fun or exciting or spiritual?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
2009_07_06 Week 14 Valencia Mom
I got a new debit card for you in the mail. When does the one you have expire?
I will probably mail the card to you in the regular mail in an envelope. I will try to send it next week. Then I will email you the phone number to call to activate it. You can either activate it from our home phone or there is a different number to call from International locations. It is probably best not to activate it till after you receive it.
Love,
Mom
The debit card that I have expires in August of 2010, so don´t send me the other one, ok? Things are going good here. Sorry for last week. I could enter my email, but I couldn’t send anything to anyone. I didn´t send a letter to the President, either. There were a few that had this problem with their myldsmail accounts last week, so I´m sorry. How is the drive to Island Park? Tell grandma and grandpa hi for me. Email me back and let’s talk, ok?
Hi buddy. We have only made it as far as Lewiston. We got all ready then Grandma said Kavin was only ten minutes away so we waited for him and that took another 25 before he arrived and by the time they went to the restroom and we left Smithfield it was 10:20. Oh well.
Hey, how is it going? Things are good here in Ecuador. We are planning a baptism for this Saturday. It should go through ok. We aren´t planning on having any setbacks with this one. It sounds like you are going to have a fun week in Island Park this week. Make sure you visit all of the fun places and tell everybody hi for me and thank you for the birthday letters. They were great. Send me an email, so we can talk.
You are welcome. How many packages did you get? I just sent you four more for your Hump day with one set of garments in each package.
Hey, you are going to get there a little later than two if you were just leaving at ten thirty, but ya. So how is everything?
It will be good now. Dad was stressed this morning because we were a few minutes later than he wanted to be, but no biggie. When we got to Logan the CNG pumps were not working so we are already running on regular gas. We are going to check in Pocatello. We found a CNG station online. We are just not sure if it is a public station or not. Clain drove the Civic up for Michelle. We planned on leaving it in Smithfield, but had to leave it in Logan at Michelle's apartment in Logan or she would not have had enough CNG to get back to LW's.
Okay on the debit card. I was hoping that was the case. The only problem would be if you end up staying longer for some reason. I will call the bank and talk to them about what to do about this debit card.
Congratulations on the baptism. Tell me about the people getting baptized.
Her name is Isabel Coello. She is 40 years old. She really wants to get baptized. Yesterday we went on splits and Elder Castañeda took her coffee away and she is really excited to get baptised this Saturday. We are also teaching her kids, a daughter that is 14 and another daughter that is 19 with her boyfriend, so we are working on helping them to get married and the other daughter just needs to come to church one more time and she can be baptised.
That is cool. Is this one of the families you told us about earlier? How are those families and the two ladies you were teaching doing?
Who did you go on splits with?
I went with one member and Elder Castañeda with another, so that we could cover more ground.
Great. It is awesome when you can double your time and contacts by doing splits with members. Are the members helping you find a lot of people?
That’s good. I have been busy here in Valencia. I am not District Leader and I am still with Elder Castañeda so everything is good. We are working hard.
That is awesome. You will be district leader soon enough. Is Elder Castaneda wanting to work harder now?
Yeah, we are working very hard and it is paying off.
Some are doing good and others no. The Zambrano family, they don´t want to receive us anymore so they aren’t progressing and Esther is still progressing, but slowly. It is hard. Her boyfriend of 8 years left her with two little girls, one five years old and the other two years old. Last Tuesday, we went and visited her and helped her plant a garden of onions, tomatoes and peppers (they use these three in just about all of the food here), so I took along my new machete to test it out and see how it works. It works great! Just so you know, I´m gonna have to bring a few home to use.
And the other one is Shirley. She is 17 and she is in love with me. I talked to her yesterday and tried to convince her to be baptized, but she said that her mom won’t let her, but that she could be baptised when she turns 18 in November. But I told her I won’t be here in Valencia in November and she said that she won´t be here either, that she is going to Guayaquil to study in the University and that if I was in Guayaquil that she would visit me there and be baptised there. So I asked her what happens if I go to Manta and she said that she would go to Manta, so What do I do???? She is in love with Me!! What do you think?????
Sorry. I lost signal for a while. I got signal back on Clain's phone and now on mine. I don't know what you do about Shirley being in love with you. Do you love her or could you ever love her romantically? If not, don't lead her on. She needs to join the church because she has a testimony. Not because she loves you.
This family sounds wonderful. I will pray that the marriage will work out for you and the other baptisms. Do they all live together in one home?
Yes, they all live in the same house, so it is really easy to visit them and the thing that is really nice is that there is a sister from the church that lives in front of them, so before we visit them, we visit her and she sends us with her daughter to teach them. And then when we get done, we go back to her house and she always has something cooked for us to eat, usually rice and chicken or patacones or something, but there is always something. She loves to cook for us. She calls us to ask us when we are going to come, so she can cook for us. Here in Valencia, the members help us out a lot, some in different maneras, but everything helps.
That is awesome. Good members can make such a difference to the work. Clayton is having lots of success right now because the members are really doing their part to find investigators.
Keep working with Esther. Try to get the Relief Society involved with her. If she makes some friends among the members she will want to progress and feel the love and support of having that sisterhood to draw upon. Does she work?
I knew you would end up with some machetes. I just hope they let you bring them home in your suitcases. Your package has still not arrived. What day did you send it? What were the contents?
I sent a couple of ecuabags that I bought, one for Clain and two for Skyler and Stephanie and a few more sucres and my glasses. One day I was on a split with Elder Janampa and it was raining really hard and I couldn´t see anything in the rain, so I took off my glasses and put them in my shirt pocket. And we were walking and we had to pass for a place that I had to duck really low to pass and my glasses fell out of my pocket and I accidently stepped on them and scratched the lenses all up, so I sent them to you so that you could replace the lenses and send them back to me. I also sent you some candy. It is my favorite from here so far. The flavor is milk and honey. It is really good. I really hope that nothing has happened to the package. I bought the ecuabags in the Mana one day. There was a few from Otavalo that were selling their things and I bought them there. Now the family of Elder Castañeda sent me two more ecuabags from Otavalo, so now I have three, the one in the photo that you have seen and two more.
Okay. I do hope they arrive sometime. Are you wearing your contacts all the time now? How is that working? If the package hasn't arrived when we get home from this trip, I will go and order another pair of glasses for you and get them sent to you. What day did you send the package?
I think it was the 27th of May that I sent them. Right now I am wearing my contacts all of the time and it is going good. The air here in Valencia is a lot cleaner than the air in Balzar was. I just need to find some more solution, but don´t worry. I have some friends that own a pharmacy and they are going to find me some. I need to go ask them today if they have found some because I asked them last week to find some and they said it would take two or three days to find, but I keep forgetting to ask them. I am pretty sure that they have some now, so don´t worry.
That is good. I will still work on the glasses in case you end up in another place with dirty air. I am glad you are able to get solution. You might want to get several bottles if you can while you have friends with access to it.
Right now Esther is not working, but she can´t work because then she would have to pay someone to watch her girls and there goes all of the money that she would earn for the day or most of it anyways. She worked really hard when she was younger and she has a good amount of money saved in the bank and she has been living on that and her family is helping her out, too. We aren’t giving up on her yet. We are still trying. As for Shirley, I don´t know what to do. I don´t know if I could be in love with her or not, but I don´t have time to find out. I have other things that I have to do that are more important.
Good. I am glad you have your priorities in order. Make sure she has your contact info when you leave the area and she can keep in touch when you finish your mission. Have you tried to convince her mom to let her get baptized now?
Yeah, we have and we are going to try again Friday to see what happens.
Okay we will pray that the Lord will soften her heart. Maybe you could fast and pray for that to happen, too. Can you get Shirley and her mom to attend your baptism on Saturday so they can feel the spirit?
Ok. Thanks we are going to fast today, because we forgot to yesterday, but that is what we are going to fast for.
Awesome. The Lord will help you if you exercise enough faith.
Yeah I will see what I can get and let you know next week.
Okay. I can send some if you can't get it. Any luck on finding those people that returned missionary asked about?
What I did is sent them a letter through the pouch. I put that they are in the other stake and sent it. The missionaries in the other stake will know a little bit more and when they deliver the letter the letter has the email address of the return missionary, so I hope they get it. If not, I´ll start asking in the Zone Conference.
Sounds good. I will let the guy know. Thanks.
Still there? I love you. It has been good to chat with you today. I miss that a lot, just the chance to talk to you.
I will probably mail the card to you in the regular mail in an envelope. I will try to send it next week. Then I will email you the phone number to call to activate it. You can either activate it from our home phone or there is a different number to call from International locations. It is probably best not to activate it till after you receive it.
Love,
Mom
The debit card that I have expires in August of 2010, so don´t send me the other one, ok? Things are going good here. Sorry for last week. I could enter my email, but I couldn’t send anything to anyone. I didn´t send a letter to the President, either. There were a few that had this problem with their myldsmail accounts last week, so I´m sorry. How is the drive to Island Park? Tell grandma and grandpa hi for me. Email me back and let’s talk, ok?
Hi buddy. We have only made it as far as Lewiston. We got all ready then Grandma said Kavin was only ten minutes away so we waited for him and that took another 25 before he arrived and by the time they went to the restroom and we left Smithfield it was 10:20. Oh well.
Hey, how is it going? Things are good here in Ecuador. We are planning a baptism for this Saturday. It should go through ok. We aren´t planning on having any setbacks with this one. It sounds like you are going to have a fun week in Island Park this week. Make sure you visit all of the fun places and tell everybody hi for me and thank you for the birthday letters. They were great. Send me an email, so we can talk.
You are welcome. How many packages did you get? I just sent you four more for your Hump day with one set of garments in each package.
Hey, you are going to get there a little later than two if you were just leaving at ten thirty, but ya. So how is everything?
It will be good now. Dad was stressed this morning because we were a few minutes later than he wanted to be, but no biggie. When we got to Logan the CNG pumps were not working so we are already running on regular gas. We are going to check in Pocatello. We found a CNG station online. We are just not sure if it is a public station or not. Clain drove the Civic up for Michelle. We planned on leaving it in Smithfield, but had to leave it in Logan at Michelle's apartment in Logan or she would not have had enough CNG to get back to LW's.
Okay on the debit card. I was hoping that was the case. The only problem would be if you end up staying longer for some reason. I will call the bank and talk to them about what to do about this debit card.
Congratulations on the baptism. Tell me about the people getting baptized.
Her name is Isabel Coello. She is 40 years old. She really wants to get baptized. Yesterday we went on splits and Elder Castañeda took her coffee away and she is really excited to get baptised this Saturday. We are also teaching her kids, a daughter that is 14 and another daughter that is 19 with her boyfriend, so we are working on helping them to get married and the other daughter just needs to come to church one more time and she can be baptised.
That is cool. Is this one of the families you told us about earlier? How are those families and the two ladies you were teaching doing?
Who did you go on splits with?
I went with one member and Elder Castañeda with another, so that we could cover more ground.
Great. It is awesome when you can double your time and contacts by doing splits with members. Are the members helping you find a lot of people?
That’s good. I have been busy here in Valencia. I am not District Leader and I am still with Elder Castañeda so everything is good. We are working hard.
That is awesome. You will be district leader soon enough. Is Elder Castaneda wanting to work harder now?
Yeah, we are working very hard and it is paying off.
Some are doing good and others no. The Zambrano family, they don´t want to receive us anymore so they aren’t progressing and Esther is still progressing, but slowly. It is hard. Her boyfriend of 8 years left her with two little girls, one five years old and the other two years old. Last Tuesday, we went and visited her and helped her plant a garden of onions, tomatoes and peppers (they use these three in just about all of the food here), so I took along my new machete to test it out and see how it works. It works great! Just so you know, I´m gonna have to bring a few home to use.
And the other one is Shirley. She is 17 and she is in love with me. I talked to her yesterday and tried to convince her to be baptized, but she said that her mom won’t let her, but that she could be baptised when she turns 18 in November. But I told her I won’t be here in Valencia in November and she said that she won´t be here either, that she is going to Guayaquil to study in the University and that if I was in Guayaquil that she would visit me there and be baptised there. So I asked her what happens if I go to Manta and she said that she would go to Manta, so What do I do???? She is in love with Me!! What do you think?????
Sorry. I lost signal for a while. I got signal back on Clain's phone and now on mine. I don't know what you do about Shirley being in love with you. Do you love her or could you ever love her romantically? If not, don't lead her on. She needs to join the church because she has a testimony. Not because she loves you.
This family sounds wonderful. I will pray that the marriage will work out for you and the other baptisms. Do they all live together in one home?
Yes, they all live in the same house, so it is really easy to visit them and the thing that is really nice is that there is a sister from the church that lives in front of them, so before we visit them, we visit her and she sends us with her daughter to teach them. And then when we get done, we go back to her house and she always has something cooked for us to eat, usually rice and chicken or patacones or something, but there is always something. She loves to cook for us. She calls us to ask us when we are going to come, so she can cook for us. Here in Valencia, the members help us out a lot, some in different maneras, but everything helps.
That is awesome. Good members can make such a difference to the work. Clayton is having lots of success right now because the members are really doing their part to find investigators.
Keep working with Esther. Try to get the Relief Society involved with her. If she makes some friends among the members she will want to progress and feel the love and support of having that sisterhood to draw upon. Does she work?
I knew you would end up with some machetes. I just hope they let you bring them home in your suitcases. Your package has still not arrived. What day did you send it? What were the contents?
I sent a couple of ecuabags that I bought, one for Clain and two for Skyler and Stephanie and a few more sucres and my glasses. One day I was on a split with Elder Janampa and it was raining really hard and I couldn´t see anything in the rain, so I took off my glasses and put them in my shirt pocket. And we were walking and we had to pass for a place that I had to duck really low to pass and my glasses fell out of my pocket and I accidently stepped on them and scratched the lenses all up, so I sent them to you so that you could replace the lenses and send them back to me. I also sent you some candy. It is my favorite from here so far. The flavor is milk and honey. It is really good. I really hope that nothing has happened to the package. I bought the ecuabags in the Mana one day. There was a few from Otavalo that were selling their things and I bought them there. Now the family of Elder Castañeda sent me two more ecuabags from Otavalo, so now I have three, the one in the photo that you have seen and two more.
Okay. I do hope they arrive sometime. Are you wearing your contacts all the time now? How is that working? If the package hasn't arrived when we get home from this trip, I will go and order another pair of glasses for you and get them sent to you. What day did you send the package?
I think it was the 27th of May that I sent them. Right now I am wearing my contacts all of the time and it is going good. The air here in Valencia is a lot cleaner than the air in Balzar was. I just need to find some more solution, but don´t worry. I have some friends that own a pharmacy and they are going to find me some. I need to go ask them today if they have found some because I asked them last week to find some and they said it would take two or three days to find, but I keep forgetting to ask them. I am pretty sure that they have some now, so don´t worry.
That is good. I will still work on the glasses in case you end up in another place with dirty air. I am glad you are able to get solution. You might want to get several bottles if you can while you have friends with access to it.
Right now Esther is not working, but she can´t work because then she would have to pay someone to watch her girls and there goes all of the money that she would earn for the day or most of it anyways. She worked really hard when she was younger and she has a good amount of money saved in the bank and she has been living on that and her family is helping her out, too. We aren’t giving up on her yet. We are still trying. As for Shirley, I don´t know what to do. I don´t know if I could be in love with her or not, but I don´t have time to find out. I have other things that I have to do that are more important.
Good. I am glad you have your priorities in order. Make sure she has your contact info when you leave the area and she can keep in touch when you finish your mission. Have you tried to convince her mom to let her get baptized now?
Yeah, we have and we are going to try again Friday to see what happens.
Okay we will pray that the Lord will soften her heart. Maybe you could fast and pray for that to happen, too. Can you get Shirley and her mom to attend your baptism on Saturday so they can feel the spirit?
Ok. Thanks we are going to fast today, because we forgot to yesterday, but that is what we are going to fast for.
Awesome. The Lord will help you if you exercise enough faith.
Yeah I will see what I can get and let you know next week.
Okay. I can send some if you can't get it. Any luck on finding those people that returned missionary asked about?
What I did is sent them a letter through the pouch. I put that they are in the other stake and sent it. The missionaries in the other stake will know a little bit more and when they deliver the letter the letter has the email address of the return missionary, so I hope they get it. If not, I´ll start asking in the Zone Conference.
Sounds good. I will let the guy know. Thanks.
Still there? I love you. It has been good to chat with you today. I miss that a lot, just the chance to talk to you.
Monday, June 22, 2009
2009_06_22 Week 12 Valencia Mom
Dear Curtis,
I hope you have had a really great week. Were you able to baptize Shirley and Esther? Please tell us about the baptisms.
We didn’t have the baptisms because we couldn’t get Shirley’s mom to sign the form so that she could be baptized. But we are going to try really hard to get the permission this week so that we can baptise her this week.
Did the family Cuella attend church this week? Are they progressing towards baptism?
The familia Cuello, they really aren’t progressing. It is kinda sad, but I think we are going to have to stop visiting them because they aren’t progressing, but we are going to see what happens this week.
Are you teaching anyone else that is progressing well?
We received the reference for the familia Zambrano. The mom is a member, but the father and the six girls aren’t members. There are three girls that are old enough to be baptized, so we have four baptism dates with this family now for July 11th. They really want to learn and to bebaptized, so I think that this family is going to get baptized. I really hope so.
How is Oscar doing? In the photo there is a woman next to Elder Castañeda. Is that Oscar’s mom?
Yes
I think you said she is a member.
Yes
Is she active now?
Yes, but sometimes she doesn’t come to church, because she sells vegetables for a living in the marcet and she sells Sundays, too. But she has hired another lady to sell for her on Sundays,but sometimes the lady doesn’t show up so she has to stay to sell instead.
How is Elder Castañeda doing? Are you helping him to want to work harder?
Yeah, we are working a lot harder now than when we first started. Part of it is that we had Zone Conference and that really motivated us to work harder.
Did you teach any really great lessons this week? Tell us about your teaching.
I taught the first lesson that Clain received to the Zambrano family and they could really understand that they need to pray to find out if the church is true or not.
Did Hermana Gamboa come and inspect your apartment? Some of the other missionaries mentioned it in their emails.
Yeah she came and she inspected. Our apartment is really pretty clean. I wasn’t a custodian for a year for nothing!
Were you able to pass the written test for the Maestro?
I didn’t take the test. I still need to do more activities in “Preach My Gospel” before I can take the test.
How did your interview with President Gamboa go?
It was good.
How long are the interviews?
They are ten minutes or shorter. They aren’t long at all.
Does he teach you anything while you are meeting together?
No. We just talk about what has been happening in the sector, if I have any questions, how our investigators are doing.
What did the Assistants to the President teach you at the Zone Conference?
That we need to invite everyone to be baptized. It was really cool.
Did they take photos of the Zone? Can you send me a photo of your zone?
No, because the Assistants haven’t sent me the one that they took, but when I have it I will send it.
We still have not received your package. I hope it comes this week. I thought for sure it would come last week while Clain was at EFY, and it would be addressed to him so we would have to wait a whole week till he got home, but it didn’t come at all. I mailed three more packages to you on June 8th. They are for your birthday. I imagine they will arrive early, but I would rather you had them early than late. Is there anything you need or want in the next package?
Can you send me three more pair of garments? They are the Drilux and they are large talls in the shirt and the boxer oh and send the ones that have the high neck, not the low neck like dads.
Transfers will be next week again, but I imagine you will probably stay where you are for a while. Did the mission president say anything to make you think otherwise?
I don’t think that I will go anywhere this change, but the Zone Leader, Elder Verastagui keeps saying that he thinks that I am going to be District Leader, so I don’t know what will happen.
Hi Curtis,
Are the garment bottoms Drilux, too? What size are the bottoms? Don't they usually come in a number waist size? I thought you could order them through the mission. It is no problem to send them, though.
I am glad you had a good week, but sad about your baptisms not working out. What happened with Esther?
The bottoms are Drilux, too. They are size 36-38 or large and they need to be tall too. I am pretty sure that the Drilux only comes in boxer bottoms, but double check, because I don’t like the briefs. We can order them through the mission or we could until the President of Ecuador closed the country to imports from Colombia, so the garments aren’t coming into Ecuador. So we can’t order what isn’t here.
Esther went to Guayaquil because her daughter was sick with dengue and was in really bad shape. So we couldn’t baptise her, but we will keep trying to arrange for her baptism.
It is exciting that you might become a District Leader. You will be a great one, I am sure. We are very proud of you. You have had a lot of leadership opportunities, so I know you will be ready for the challenge.
We will keep praying for your investigators by name and hope that it will make a difference. Have you tried fasting for help with your investigators? Sometimes that helps. Lots of prayer and a little fasting will go a long way to helping them progress. We will try to help you from this end. You are always in our prayers. Hard work also goes a long ways, so work till you are dead dog tired at the end of each day. And be completely obedient. When you are following every rule exactly, the Lord will bless you for your faithfulness.
I love you so much. I have to go now and drive to Cache Valley to tend Taylor. I should have left an hour ago. Oh well. I just finally got the chart sent to the printer. It will be awesome. I know Grandma and Grandpa are going to love it. It is not perfect, but it is a labor of love and they will appreciate that.
Have a really great week. I love you so very much and I am so very proud of you and the work you are doing. Take care.
Love always and forever,
Mom
I hope you have had a really great week. Were you able to baptize Shirley and Esther? Please tell us about the baptisms.
We didn’t have the baptisms because we couldn’t get Shirley’s mom to sign the form so that she could be baptized. But we are going to try really hard to get the permission this week so that we can baptise her this week.
Did the family Cuella attend church this week? Are they progressing towards baptism?
The familia Cuello, they really aren’t progressing. It is kinda sad, but I think we are going to have to stop visiting them because they aren’t progressing, but we are going to see what happens this week.
Are you teaching anyone else that is progressing well?
We received the reference for the familia Zambrano. The mom is a member, but the father and the six girls aren’t members. There are three girls that are old enough to be baptized, so we have four baptism dates with this family now for July 11th. They really want to learn and to bebaptized, so I think that this family is going to get baptized. I really hope so.
How is Oscar doing? In the photo there is a woman next to Elder Castañeda. Is that Oscar’s mom?
Yes
I think you said she is a member.
Yes
Is she active now?
Yes, but sometimes she doesn’t come to church, because she sells vegetables for a living in the marcet and she sells Sundays, too. But she has hired another lady to sell for her on Sundays,but sometimes the lady doesn’t show up so she has to stay to sell instead.
How is Elder Castañeda doing? Are you helping him to want to work harder?
Yeah, we are working a lot harder now than when we first started. Part of it is that we had Zone Conference and that really motivated us to work harder.
Did you teach any really great lessons this week? Tell us about your teaching.
I taught the first lesson that Clain received to the Zambrano family and they could really understand that they need to pray to find out if the church is true or not.
Did Hermana Gamboa come and inspect your apartment? Some of the other missionaries mentioned it in their emails.
Yeah she came and she inspected. Our apartment is really pretty clean. I wasn’t a custodian for a year for nothing!
Were you able to pass the written test for the Maestro?
I didn’t take the test. I still need to do more activities in “Preach My Gospel” before I can take the test.
How did your interview with President Gamboa go?
It was good.
How long are the interviews?
They are ten minutes or shorter. They aren’t long at all.
Does he teach you anything while you are meeting together?
No. We just talk about what has been happening in the sector, if I have any questions, how our investigators are doing.
What did the Assistants to the President teach you at the Zone Conference?
That we need to invite everyone to be baptized. It was really cool.
Did they take photos of the Zone? Can you send me a photo of your zone?
No, because the Assistants haven’t sent me the one that they took, but when I have it I will send it.
We still have not received your package. I hope it comes this week. I thought for sure it would come last week while Clain was at EFY, and it would be addressed to him so we would have to wait a whole week till he got home, but it didn’t come at all. I mailed three more packages to you on June 8th. They are for your birthday. I imagine they will arrive early, but I would rather you had them early than late. Is there anything you need or want in the next package?
Can you send me three more pair of garments? They are the Drilux and they are large talls in the shirt and the boxer oh and send the ones that have the high neck, not the low neck like dads.
Transfers will be next week again, but I imagine you will probably stay where you are for a while. Did the mission president say anything to make you think otherwise?
I don’t think that I will go anywhere this change, but the Zone Leader, Elder Verastagui keeps saying that he thinks that I am going to be District Leader, so I don’t know what will happen.
Hi Curtis,
Are the garment bottoms Drilux, too? What size are the bottoms? Don't they usually come in a number waist size? I thought you could order them through the mission. It is no problem to send them, though.
I am glad you had a good week, but sad about your baptisms not working out. What happened with Esther?
The bottoms are Drilux, too. They are size 36-38 or large and they need to be tall too. I am pretty sure that the Drilux only comes in boxer bottoms, but double check, because I don’t like the briefs. We can order them through the mission or we could until the President of Ecuador closed the country to imports from Colombia, so the garments aren’t coming into Ecuador. So we can’t order what isn’t here.
Esther went to Guayaquil because her daughter was sick with dengue and was in really bad shape. So we couldn’t baptise her, but we will keep trying to arrange for her baptism.
It is exciting that you might become a District Leader. You will be a great one, I am sure. We are very proud of you. You have had a lot of leadership opportunities, so I know you will be ready for the challenge.
We will keep praying for your investigators by name and hope that it will make a difference. Have you tried fasting for help with your investigators? Sometimes that helps. Lots of prayer and a little fasting will go a long way to helping them progress. We will try to help you from this end. You are always in our prayers. Hard work also goes a long ways, so work till you are dead dog tired at the end of each day. And be completely obedient. When you are following every rule exactly, the Lord will bless you for your faithfulness.
I love you so much. I have to go now and drive to Cache Valley to tend Taylor. I should have left an hour ago. Oh well. I just finally got the chart sent to the printer. It will be awesome. I know Grandma and Grandpa are going to love it. It is not perfect, but it is a labor of love and they will appreciate that.
Have a really great week. I love you so very much and I am so very proud of you and the work you are doing. Take care.
Love always and forever,
Mom
Monday, June 15, 2009
2009_06_15 Week 11 Valencia Mom
Baptism of Oscar Ante Rodrigo Guanotuña on May 23, 2009Elder Goode, Oscar, Elder Castañeda, and Oscar's Mom
Elder Frye in the back, Elder Castañeda in the front
Well, tell us all about your week. Are your investigators coming along good? Are they going to be ready to be baptized on Saturday? Please tell us more about each one of them. What are their names so we can pray for them?
I have a few that we are teaching. There is Shirley. She is 17 and she is ready to be baptised this Saturday. We are teaching a single mom. She has two kids. Her name is Esther. We are planning on baptising her this Saturday, but we lost contact with her a little bit so we are trying to contact her so that we can plan for her baptism. So we will see what happens. We are teaching another family, the family Cuello or neck in English. There is the mom, her daughter and husband, another daughter and the neighbor girl that we are teaching. They had a baptism date for this Saturday, but they didn’t come to church this Sunday so we can’t baptise them, so we are going to visit them tomorrow and put another baptism date for a later date like the first or second Saturday in July.
How are things coming along with your companion?
Things are coming good. We had Zone Conference this week and now we are being more obedient and trying to follow the rules, so it is going really good.
Did you have any investigators to church today? Do you teach them in a Gospel Essentials class?
We had investigators in the church, but we didn’t teach them because this Sunday was the Sunday to vote, so we only had the Sacrament Meeting.
How did Zone Conference go?
Zone conference was really good. We learned that we need to commit all people to be baptised as soon as possible when we meet them. So now we need to put it into practice so we can see how well it works. I think that it will work really good because the more people that we are inviting to be baptized, the more people that will accept and the more people that will be baptised.
You said you were going to send some videos.
I haven’t sent them yet, but I’ll work on it. Ok?
Are your packages all arriving okay?
Yeah my packages are getting here fine. They haven’t been opened at all lately, so that is a good thing and everything gets here just fine.
Monday, June 8, 2009
2009_06_08 Week 10 Mom
Dear Curtis,
I am asking lots of questions this week. I want lots of answers please. You have been in your new area for nine weeks now and I still don’t know much about it.
Where is your apartment in Valencia? You said it was about ten blocks from the police station. Is it in the middle of town, nice section, poor section, or what?
My house is four blocks from the main road that goes from Quevedo to the Mana. We live in the same street as the park that is in the middle of Valencia. The house is two floors. We live up stairs in half and another family, other members (the mom is one of our mamitas), lives next to us in the other half. Below in the first floor is the owners of the house. They aren´t members, but part of their family is members. The mom and sister of the wife are members. The mom is also one of our mamitas.
Describe your apartment. Main floor, upper floor?
We live in the upper floor.
How many rooms are there? What rooms?
We have three rooms or four. It depends how you count it. You will understand when I send the video of the apartment home. We have our bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, but the kitchen has a counter that separates it and the main room where we study, so three rooms, I guess.
Do you have a microwave? Toaster?
Yeah, we have a microwave, a toaster and a waffle iron, too.
Is it clean? Are you keeping it sanitary? Are you cleaning regularly?
Yeah, the house is very clean. We clean every pday. In the morning we get up the same time on pdays, but we have time in the morning, before ten, when we can leave to clean, so we clean everything every week.
What is Valencia like? How big? Compare to local cities near us.
Valencia is a little bit like West Yellowstone. If you remember, it has like one main road and then the rest is just houses. It is really quiet and peaceful here.
You said there are lots of fruit farms. Are they in town or all out of town?
All of the fruit farms are out of town. The people still have their banana tree in their house, but they all have their property in other places where they harvest all of their crops.
That news article said that there were 18 police officers hurt. Do all of those officers work in Valencia or were some from other areas?
I think that there are 8 police officers that work here in Valencia and then there were others from Quevedo and others from the Mana that came here to help out.
Has there been any more trouble in your sector because of the lynching?
No, there hasn´t been any more trouble. It has been really quiet and there haven’t been any more thieves or robberies either. I think the thieves are scared. I guess that is a good thing.
Do you still eat lots of chicken and rice or has your diet changed?
I am still eating a lot of chicken, but I am eating more beef now. The other day we ate lazania (lasagna) here. It was so cool. We are planning on Thursday to eat guine pig, so I will let you know next week how that goes. Elder Bartolomei was talking about eating iguana in his sector so I will ask him how that tastes, too.
Valencia seems to be much wetter than Balzar was. Are the streets always muddy? Do the storms come mostly at night?
Yeah, it rains mostly at night and we can only tell because the road is a little bit wet in the morning, but when the sun comes out it dries up quickly and you can’t tell that it rained.
Are your shoes and clothes holding up okay? Do you wear your boots now?
I haven’t had to wear my boots for quite a while now. Here in Valencia, the streets are just about all paved or they put little cement blocks together to make the roads a little bit like modern cobble stone roads, but they are just about level. My shoes and clothes are doing fine. I need to sew a few shirts and pants where the seams are coming undone, but nothing major.
Are there mosquitos and bugs?
Yeah, there are a few mosquitos and bugs, but they don’t bug me much, my companion they bug, but me, no.
Tell us more about your companion. You said he comes from a large family. Is he youngest, oldest, middle?
He is from Otavalo. He has a pony tail.
How many of his family still live in Otovalo? What do they do for a living?
They sell clothes that they make. That is why they travel, because they sell the clothes better in other parts than in Otavalo.
Why do they wear their hair in a pony tail? What is the significance?
It is their tradition. It is how they show respect to their parents. It is a disgrace to their parents if they cut their hair. It is like if I wanted to be rebellious and I grew my hair out and dyed it pink. I am showing that I am being rebellious. If they want to be rebellious, they cut their hair.
Why do they dress differently at Zone Conferences, all in white with slippers for shoes?
That is the customary fancy dress of the Otavalanios, so they are allowed to wear it here in the mission.
Who did he live with when he was in the United States?
I don´t know for sure.
How old is he?
He is 21.
What is his full name?
Francisco (I don´t know the other name and he won´t tell me either) Castañeda Arias
Are you getting along well? Are you working hard together?
For the most part, yes, we are getting along great, but he isn´t very excited to work, so I have been fighting the dilemma. Do I push him to work or do we work a little bit slower. I am worried that if I push him too much he will want to go back to his house again and not come back.
Tell us about the people you are teaching. How many? How are they progressing? Are any of them ready for baptism? Did you have any baptisms this week?
We are planning all of our baptisms this month for the twentieth of June. We have six people, but I think that the family of four that we are teaching won´t be ready. So we may have to postpone them for later, but we will see how it turns out this week and the next.
How are you coming on your goal to have five families who hold the priesthood and pay their tithing in La Mana?
Yeah, things aren´t going so good, but it takes time to find people that want to learn and want to go to church so we are working on it.
Have you contacted all of the people from your Day as a Missionary Activity?
Yeah, we are planning on doing it again July 11th to get more references.
Are you enjoying being a Senior Companion? Are you up to the challenge?
Yeah I think I am ready and the Lord knows that I am ready because if I wasn´t ready I would still be junior companion.
How are you coming on the Maestro?
I am working on it. I am going to take the written part this week during the interviews, so we will see how that goes.
Tell us about the members that help you the most with missionary work.
(No answer.)
What is the best thing that happened to you this week?
(No answer.)
What is the worst thing that happened to you this week?
(No answer.)
What is the funniest thing that happened to you this week?
(No answer.)
Have you had a Zone Conference lately? What did you learn?
Zone Conference is this Friday and interviews are on Thursday, so yeah I will tell you next week.
Did you get all three of the packages we sent? Was everything in good condition?
I received four packages last Wednesday and everything was in good shape. Thank you so much.
Is your testimony growing?
I am pretty sure that it is!
Are you happy and healthy?
Yeah. I now weigh 220 pounds. I am doing great!
Have you been to the bat cave yet? Tell us about it.
No. We haven’t been. Today we went to the seven waterfalls again.
Have you see anything else that is interesting?
(No answer.)
Well it is late again. Have a really great day. I hope to get a chance to talk to you, but that will probably only work later in the day. I love you forever.
Mom
Hey Curtis,
Thanks for the answers. It is nice to hear more from you. Did your companion leave once and go back to Otavalo? What other problems has he had? What are you doing to try to motivate him to work? Are you writing compliments about him to your mission president? That might help. If you tell the mission president that he is doing well, then hopefully the mission president will mention something to him in his emails that will make a difference. I am sure you were chosen for this challenge because the mission president thought you were up to it. He has given you a great compliment to believe that you have the power to turn this missionary around and help him to be successful. Keep trying and pray for inspiration to know what you should do to help him.
Are the mamitas that live near you the ones that feed you or the ones that do your laundry? It would be nice not to have to carry your laundry a mile across town.
Let us know how the guinea pig are. I would not be brave enough to eat them that way, but you have never been afraid of anything, so go for it and enjoy!!!
When Elder Castañeda started his mission, he started in Quevedo, but after three weeks he wanted to go home, so he told President Ridd that he wanted to go and President Ridd tried to talk him out of it, but he still wanted to go home. So he went. He was in his house for a month or more. I´m not for sure exactly how much time, but Elder Castañeda said it was more than a month. He wasn’t doing much in his house, sitting there watching TV and eating. After a while, I don´t know how much time, he wanted to come back to the mission. So he called President Ridd and asked him if he could come back and President Ridd told him to come. So President Ridd sent him back to the same sector with the same elder and he finished the second change in his mission and then he went to another sector for four changes with two different elders. And then to another sector for five changes with two different elders and then came here with me. So yeah, he isn´t very excited to serve. So I am trying to help him, but not push him.
The mamitas are for food. We changed our laundry mamita and now it is three blocks to the mamita, so not a lot to take our laundry.
Keep praying. When you pray together, pray for the incentive to work hard. If he hears you pray for him out loud, he will know you care about him and that he is not doing this alone. Be a good example for him. Push a little harder each day and a little harder each week. When you are back in the apartment, make sure you are still focusing on missionary minded things and not just idle chit chat or messing around. Let him know that you have a strong testimony of the gospel. We love you lots. We will pray for you both each time we pray. Maybe you could fast together for him to have a desire to work harder.
I am asking lots of questions this week. I want lots of answers please. You have been in your new area for nine weeks now and I still don’t know much about it.
Where is your apartment in Valencia? You said it was about ten blocks from the police station. Is it in the middle of town, nice section, poor section, or what?
My house is four blocks from the main road that goes from Quevedo to the Mana. We live in the same street as the park that is in the middle of Valencia. The house is two floors. We live up stairs in half and another family, other members (the mom is one of our mamitas), lives next to us in the other half. Below in the first floor is the owners of the house. They aren´t members, but part of their family is members. The mom and sister of the wife are members. The mom is also one of our mamitas.
Describe your apartment. Main floor, upper floor?
We live in the upper floor.
How many rooms are there? What rooms?
We have three rooms or four. It depends how you count it. You will understand when I send the video of the apartment home. We have our bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, but the kitchen has a counter that separates it and the main room where we study, so three rooms, I guess.
Do you have a microwave? Toaster?
Yeah, we have a microwave, a toaster and a waffle iron, too.
Is it clean? Are you keeping it sanitary? Are you cleaning regularly?
Yeah, the house is very clean. We clean every pday. In the morning we get up the same time on pdays, but we have time in the morning, before ten, when we can leave to clean, so we clean everything every week.
What is Valencia like? How big? Compare to local cities near us.
Valencia is a little bit like West Yellowstone. If you remember, it has like one main road and then the rest is just houses. It is really quiet and peaceful here.
You said there are lots of fruit farms. Are they in town or all out of town?
All of the fruit farms are out of town. The people still have their banana tree in their house, but they all have their property in other places where they harvest all of their crops.
That news article said that there were 18 police officers hurt. Do all of those officers work in Valencia or were some from other areas?
I think that there are 8 police officers that work here in Valencia and then there were others from Quevedo and others from the Mana that came here to help out.
Has there been any more trouble in your sector because of the lynching?
No, there hasn´t been any more trouble. It has been really quiet and there haven’t been any more thieves or robberies either. I think the thieves are scared. I guess that is a good thing.
Do you still eat lots of chicken and rice or has your diet changed?
I am still eating a lot of chicken, but I am eating more beef now. The other day we ate lazania (lasagna) here. It was so cool. We are planning on Thursday to eat guine pig, so I will let you know next week how that goes. Elder Bartolomei was talking about eating iguana in his sector so I will ask him how that tastes, too.
Valencia seems to be much wetter than Balzar was. Are the streets always muddy? Do the storms come mostly at night?
Yeah, it rains mostly at night and we can only tell because the road is a little bit wet in the morning, but when the sun comes out it dries up quickly and you can’t tell that it rained.
Are your shoes and clothes holding up okay? Do you wear your boots now?
I haven’t had to wear my boots for quite a while now. Here in Valencia, the streets are just about all paved or they put little cement blocks together to make the roads a little bit like modern cobble stone roads, but they are just about level. My shoes and clothes are doing fine. I need to sew a few shirts and pants where the seams are coming undone, but nothing major.
Are there mosquitos and bugs?
Yeah, there are a few mosquitos and bugs, but they don’t bug me much, my companion they bug, but me, no.
Tell us more about your companion. You said he comes from a large family. Is he youngest, oldest, middle?
He is from Otavalo. He has a pony tail.
How many of his family still live in Otovalo? What do they do for a living?
They sell clothes that they make. That is why they travel, because they sell the clothes better in other parts than in Otavalo.
Why do they wear their hair in a pony tail? What is the significance?
It is their tradition. It is how they show respect to their parents. It is a disgrace to their parents if they cut their hair. It is like if I wanted to be rebellious and I grew my hair out and dyed it pink. I am showing that I am being rebellious. If they want to be rebellious, they cut their hair.
Why do they dress differently at Zone Conferences, all in white with slippers for shoes?
That is the customary fancy dress of the Otavalanios, so they are allowed to wear it here in the mission.
Who did he live with when he was in the United States?
I don´t know for sure.
How old is he?
He is 21.
What is his full name?
Francisco (I don´t know the other name and he won´t tell me either) Castañeda Arias
Are you getting along well? Are you working hard together?
For the most part, yes, we are getting along great, but he isn´t very excited to work, so I have been fighting the dilemma. Do I push him to work or do we work a little bit slower. I am worried that if I push him too much he will want to go back to his house again and not come back.
Tell us about the people you are teaching. How many? How are they progressing? Are any of them ready for baptism? Did you have any baptisms this week?
We are planning all of our baptisms this month for the twentieth of June. We have six people, but I think that the family of four that we are teaching won´t be ready. So we may have to postpone them for later, but we will see how it turns out this week and the next.
How are you coming on your goal to have five families who hold the priesthood and pay their tithing in La Mana?
Yeah, things aren´t going so good, but it takes time to find people that want to learn and want to go to church so we are working on it.
Have you contacted all of the people from your Day as a Missionary Activity?
Yeah, we are planning on doing it again July 11th to get more references.
Are you enjoying being a Senior Companion? Are you up to the challenge?
Yeah I think I am ready and the Lord knows that I am ready because if I wasn´t ready I would still be junior companion.
How are you coming on the Maestro?
I am working on it. I am going to take the written part this week during the interviews, so we will see how that goes.
Tell us about the members that help you the most with missionary work.
(No answer.)
What is the best thing that happened to you this week?
(No answer.)
What is the worst thing that happened to you this week?
(No answer.)
What is the funniest thing that happened to you this week?
(No answer.)
Have you had a Zone Conference lately? What did you learn?
Zone Conference is this Friday and interviews are on Thursday, so yeah I will tell you next week.
Did you get all three of the packages we sent? Was everything in good condition?
I received four packages last Wednesday and everything was in good shape. Thank you so much.
Is your testimony growing?
I am pretty sure that it is!
Are you happy and healthy?
Yeah. I now weigh 220 pounds. I am doing great!
Have you been to the bat cave yet? Tell us about it.
No. We haven’t been. Today we went to the seven waterfalls again.
Have you see anything else that is interesting?
(No answer.)
Well it is late again. Have a really great day. I hope to get a chance to talk to you, but that will probably only work later in the day. I love you forever.
Mom
Hey Curtis,
Thanks for the answers. It is nice to hear more from you. Did your companion leave once and go back to Otavalo? What other problems has he had? What are you doing to try to motivate him to work? Are you writing compliments about him to your mission president? That might help. If you tell the mission president that he is doing well, then hopefully the mission president will mention something to him in his emails that will make a difference. I am sure you were chosen for this challenge because the mission president thought you were up to it. He has given you a great compliment to believe that you have the power to turn this missionary around and help him to be successful. Keep trying and pray for inspiration to know what you should do to help him.
Are the mamitas that live near you the ones that feed you or the ones that do your laundry? It would be nice not to have to carry your laundry a mile across town.
Let us know how the guinea pig are. I would not be brave enough to eat them that way, but you have never been afraid of anything, so go for it and enjoy!!!
When Elder Castañeda started his mission, he started in Quevedo, but after three weeks he wanted to go home, so he told President Ridd that he wanted to go and President Ridd tried to talk him out of it, but he still wanted to go home. So he went. He was in his house for a month or more. I´m not for sure exactly how much time, but Elder Castañeda said it was more than a month. He wasn’t doing much in his house, sitting there watching TV and eating. After a while, I don´t know how much time, he wanted to come back to the mission. So he called President Ridd and asked him if he could come back and President Ridd told him to come. So President Ridd sent him back to the same sector with the same elder and he finished the second change in his mission and then he went to another sector for four changes with two different elders. And then to another sector for five changes with two different elders and then came here with me. So yeah, he isn´t very excited to serve. So I am trying to help him, but not push him.
The mamitas are for food. We changed our laundry mamita and now it is three blocks to the mamita, so not a lot to take our laundry.
Keep praying. When you pray together, pray for the incentive to work hard. If he hears you pray for him out loud, he will know you care about him and that he is not doing this alone. Be a good example for him. Push a little harder each day and a little harder each week. When you are back in the apartment, make sure you are still focusing on missionary minded things and not just idle chit chat or messing around. Let him know that you have a strong testimony of the gospel. We love you lots. We will pray for you both each time we pray. Maybe you could fast together for him to have a desire to work harder.
Monday, May 25, 2009
2009_05_25 Week 8 Valencia Mom
Hey how are things going? Saturday we had a baptism, Oscar Ante Rodrigo Guanotuña. I baptised him and then the same day we confirmed him a member. Elder Bartolomei interviewed him to see if he was ready to be baptised. It was his first interview. Oscar was definitely ready to be baptised. After his baptism I felt so excited to be there for that special moment in his life, that I could help him come to know his Heavenly Father and his Savior Jesus Christ. It was amazing. The spirit was there so strong and so powerful. These moments are what the mission is all about; helping the people that you know and care about; the people that you meet and love; to know that God has prepared a plan for us; that he loves us and wants us to be happy. I am so glad that I could help Oscar and I look forward to helping more people come to know the plan that God has prepared for us. This is what it is all about. We are starting out right now with just about a whole new program teaching people, so it will be a little bit of time before we will be able to see the fruits of our labors.
Hey Curtis,
That is cool. I am glad your baptism finally worked out. I have prayed all week that it would go well for you. Is Elder Bartolomei now your District Leader? That is cool, but a lot of responsibility for him if he is a new District Leader and training a new missionary. How are things going with your new companion? Tell us about him please. Send some photos if you can.
Elder Bartolomei is not my district leader. Elder Martinez is my district leader, but Elder Martinez couldn´t arrange to be here for the interview, so they asked Elder Bartolomei if he would do it.
So my companion is from Otavalo. He is from a big family. There are 15 in his family including his mom and dad. Most of his family is living in other parts of the world. He has family in New York and in Miami and many other places. I think in Colombia and a few other countries. He lived for a year in Miami selling clothes, but then his Visa ended so he came back to Ecuador.
Yeah that is about it, but yeah I gotta go. I love you very much.
Bye,
Elder Goode
I love you, too. Work really hard this week. I hope to get much more information from you next week.
Love always,
Mom
Hey Curtis,
That is cool. I am glad your baptism finally worked out. I have prayed all week that it would go well for you. Is Elder Bartolomei now your District Leader? That is cool, but a lot of responsibility for him if he is a new District Leader and training a new missionary. How are things going with your new companion? Tell us about him please. Send some photos if you can.
Elder Bartolomei is not my district leader. Elder Martinez is my district leader, but Elder Martinez couldn´t arrange to be here for the interview, so they asked Elder Bartolomei if he would do it.
So my companion is from Otavalo. He is from a big family. There are 15 in his family including his mom and dad. Most of his family is living in other parts of the world. He has family in New York and in Miami and many other places. I think in Colombia and a few other countries. He lived for a year in Miami selling clothes, but then his Visa ended so he came back to Ecuador.
Yeah that is about it, but yeah I gotta go. I love you very much.
Bye,
Elder Goode
I love you, too. Work really hard this week. I hope to get much more information from you next week.
Love always,
Mom
2009_05_25 Week 8 Valencia Braxton
Dear Elder Goode,
Hi Curtis. It’s Braxton. How are you doing? Did you have any more baptisms?
I’m doing great. Last week, I decided to buy a couple of games that I wanted. They are Pokemon Ranger, because it is possible to get a Manaphy egg which can be sent over to Pokemon Pearl, Diamond, or Platinum. I got the game Friday night and I’ve already beaten the main story line and the ranger net missions and entered the code for a special mission to rescue the precious egg and then after I completed it, it gave me the option of sending it to the Sinnoh region. I need to have two DS’ to send it though, so I need to have McKay come over and play so I can send it to Pearl.
P.S. I beat the game on Sunday during the afternoon.
The other game was Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness and it came on Thursday and I’ve already captured three Shadow Pokemon on it and purified them and they are: Teddiursa, Poocheyna, and Leydba. The starter of the game is an Eevee and it gives you an option a little way into the game to pick which evolution of Eevee you want it to evolve into and the choices were: Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon, and Espeon. I chose Espeon because on Pokemon Colosseum, Espeon was my favorite out of all of them. It will be nice to have when you start the game. Your Eevee is only a level ten and I trained it to level twelve when I had the sun shard and it evolved and it knows bite as an Espeon which is awesome. I am really enjoying the game and there is a Lugia that can be gotten on this game, but it is a Shadow Pokemon and to purify it you have to purify all of the other Shadow Pokemon before it will be able to be purified. There are also Shadow Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno. They will be a lot of fun to catch. I can’t wait to play it more. It has been great so far, but I need to get a guide book to help me. Without it I’m lost.
The games didn’t cost me very much. Dad bought them on ebay for $23.56. It was really nice of him to do that for me. The games have been a lot of fun, so far. I can’t wait to play more.
So how have you been doing? I heard that you are the Senior Companion now. I hope you are making good choices with what you are doing and that you are doing what you need to. I can’t believe that it’s only been nine months. It seems like it’s been fifteen. I miss having you around to beat me up occasionally. Clain has gotten pretty boring. He never even fights back. I’m waiting for the day that he will. I’m thinking that it will be a long time, though.
I hope you are doing your very best work that is possible. Make your tithing for your first twenty years of your life the best ones that you have. I miss you a lot and hope that you aren’t home sick and that you will be back as soon as you fulfill the work that you were sent there to do. I can’t wait until I see you again.
Love,
Your little buddy (Braxton)
Hey buddy how are you doing? Sounds like you are having a lot of fun with the Pokemon games. Did you know that they have Pokemon here in Ecuador too? The Pokemon are all named the same, but they are just about all said differently here. It is kinda cool to see something so familiar here. Keep up the good work and I´ll be home before you know it. Bye buddy.
I write a whole page and all I get back is one paragraph! What's up with that?
Hi Curtis. It’s Braxton. How are you doing? Did you have any more baptisms?
I’m doing great. Last week, I decided to buy a couple of games that I wanted. They are Pokemon Ranger, because it is possible to get a Manaphy egg which can be sent over to Pokemon Pearl, Diamond, or Platinum. I got the game Friday night and I’ve already beaten the main story line and the ranger net missions and entered the code for a special mission to rescue the precious egg and then after I completed it, it gave me the option of sending it to the Sinnoh region. I need to have two DS’ to send it though, so I need to have McKay come over and play so I can send it to Pearl.
P.S. I beat the game on Sunday during the afternoon.
The other game was Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness and it came on Thursday and I’ve already captured three Shadow Pokemon on it and purified them and they are: Teddiursa, Poocheyna, and Leydba. The starter of the game is an Eevee and it gives you an option a little way into the game to pick which evolution of Eevee you want it to evolve into and the choices were: Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon, and Espeon. I chose Espeon because on Pokemon Colosseum, Espeon was my favorite out of all of them. It will be nice to have when you start the game. Your Eevee is only a level ten and I trained it to level twelve when I had the sun shard and it evolved and it knows bite as an Espeon which is awesome. I am really enjoying the game and there is a Lugia that can be gotten on this game, but it is a Shadow Pokemon and to purify it you have to purify all of the other Shadow Pokemon before it will be able to be purified. There are also Shadow Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno. They will be a lot of fun to catch. I can’t wait to play it more. It has been great so far, but I need to get a guide book to help me. Without it I’m lost.
The games didn’t cost me very much. Dad bought them on ebay for $23.56. It was really nice of him to do that for me. The games have been a lot of fun, so far. I can’t wait to play more.
So how have you been doing? I heard that you are the Senior Companion now. I hope you are making good choices with what you are doing and that you are doing what you need to. I can’t believe that it’s only been nine months. It seems like it’s been fifteen. I miss having you around to beat me up occasionally. Clain has gotten pretty boring. He never even fights back. I’m waiting for the day that he will. I’m thinking that it will be a long time, though.
I hope you are doing your very best work that is possible. Make your tithing for your first twenty years of your life the best ones that you have. I miss you a lot and hope that you aren’t home sick and that you will be back as soon as you fulfill the work that you were sent there to do. I can’t wait until I see you again.
Love,
Your little buddy (Braxton)
Hey buddy how are you doing? Sounds like you are having a lot of fun with the Pokemon games. Did you know that they have Pokemon here in Ecuador too? The Pokemon are all named the same, but they are just about all said differently here. It is kinda cool to see something so familiar here. Keep up the good work and I´ll be home before you know it. Bye buddy.
I write a whole page and all I get back is one paragraph! What's up with that?
2009_05_25 Week 8 Valencia Clain
Dear Curtis,
How is having a new companion?
My new companion is really good. He has had some problems in the mission, but he is doing really good. We are being obedient now and I am doing my best to be a leader.
What does he like to do for fun?
My companion likes to watch TV. Before his mission, he wasn´t working or studying, so he was just at home all day, but we are working hard now here in Valencia.
Have you eaten all your jerky?
Yeah all of the jerky is gone.
Do you need more jerky?
I could use some more if you would send it to me. My companion really likes jerky too.
You are invited to my Eagle Scout Court of Honor on Friday May 29th 2009. I am working a lot. Everyone at work says hi. I have been paint balling with Skyler a lot. We go to the foothills of Farmington canyon every time. I am trying to get Braxton and Tyson to go with us but they won’t. I am doing well in school I have good grades. I am going to try to get my scooter fixed we have to take it to a mechanic in Roy who deals with scooters. The guy we talked to in Roy thinks that they can fix my scooter for me. I put it back together yesterday. It took me a while to figure out where the parts go. I took the dogs to Ogden Bay a few times so far. They liked it both times. They like to swim. They won’t come to the truck when I am ready to go home.
What do you want me to do with your motorcycle? It is in the same condition as you left it in. Do you want me to fix it and try to sell it or sell it as a parts bike or leave it so you can fix it when you get home?
I still go to Mission Prep every week. We talk about the same topic for a month then we move on to another topic the next. The elders come every week and they tell us things that relate to the topic we are studying that month that would help us on a mission.
Love always,
Clain
About my motorcycle put it on KSL to sell, but don´t take less than $500 for it. Just say that it is having problems with the engine and that we haven’t had time to look through it to find out what the problem is. So yea, sell it as is. Put it on KSL for $650, but accept the highest over $500.
Thanks buddy
How is having a new companion?
My new companion is really good. He has had some problems in the mission, but he is doing really good. We are being obedient now and I am doing my best to be a leader.
What does he like to do for fun?
My companion likes to watch TV. Before his mission, he wasn´t working or studying, so he was just at home all day, but we are working hard now here in Valencia.
Have you eaten all your jerky?
Yeah all of the jerky is gone.
Do you need more jerky?
I could use some more if you would send it to me. My companion really likes jerky too.
You are invited to my Eagle Scout Court of Honor on Friday May 29th 2009. I am working a lot. Everyone at work says hi. I have been paint balling with Skyler a lot. We go to the foothills of Farmington canyon every time. I am trying to get Braxton and Tyson to go with us but they won’t. I am doing well in school I have good grades. I am going to try to get my scooter fixed we have to take it to a mechanic in Roy who deals with scooters. The guy we talked to in Roy thinks that they can fix my scooter for me. I put it back together yesterday. It took me a while to figure out where the parts go. I took the dogs to Ogden Bay a few times so far. They liked it both times. They like to swim. They won’t come to the truck when I am ready to go home.
What do you want me to do with your motorcycle? It is in the same condition as you left it in. Do you want me to fix it and try to sell it or sell it as a parts bike or leave it so you can fix it when you get home?
I still go to Mission Prep every week. We talk about the same topic for a month then we move on to another topic the next. The elders come every week and they tell us things that relate to the topic we are studying that month that would help us on a mission.
Love always,
Clain
About my motorcycle put it on KSL to sell, but don´t take less than $500 for it. Just say that it is having problems with the engine and that we haven’t had time to look through it to find out what the problem is. So yea, sell it as is. Put it on KSL for $650, but accept the highest over $500.
Thanks buddy
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
2009_05_18 Valencia Week 7 Changes
During our Mother’s Day phone call, Curtis told us about an experience that was happening in Valencia, the city he is living in now. I haven’t had time to type out the transcript for all of the phone call yet. I will try to get it done this week. This webpage has the story that was posted in the news. I could only find this same story posted over and over on different web pages. I have been unable to find any other stories or details. Read this story first, then today’s letter.
http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=10331843
Some of the details are not right. Valencia is not a southern, coastal city. It is in the center of the country at the base of the Andes Mountains, but anyway, now you have the basic story.
Hey how is it going? I don’t have a lot of time right now because we had some problems, but I will be writing later today with all of the details.
Thanks, Curtis. I will wait to hear from you more this afternoon. I pray that the problems are little things, easily solved. I love you.
Ok, to tell you what has happened this weekend. First you remember that I told you that they burnt two robbers here. Well they are from Quevedo. The family of the two kids that were burnt were saying that they were going to come to Valencia Sunday in the morning and cause problems, going to kill people and more problems. When we heard this, we called President Gamboa and told him what was going on. Well he told us to pack our bags with the nececary and go to Quevedo. So Saturday in the afternoon, we went to Quevedo and spent the night there.
Sunday we went on splits. I went with Elder Martinez and Elder Neyra with Elder Bartolomei and we went to church. After, we spent the day visiting in their sectors. We got to the house about seven and then we received a call from the Assistants with the transfers. They told Elder Janampa that he was leaving. Then they asked to talk to Elder Bartolomei and told him that he was going to train this change. Then they asked to talk to me and they told me that I am now Companero Mayor or Senior Companion, but I am not going to train this change. Then the Assistants said that they would call later and tell us the transfers.
So we had to wait for about an hour to get the changes and I found out that my companion is now Elder Castañeda he is from Otavalo. I have my first companion that isn’t from Peru. He is Otavalanio. He has what they call a cola here or a pony tail. So Elder Neyra is going to Manta to the sector called Monte Cristi, but his things were still in Valencia and we were in Quevedo. So we called the Assistants and asked them what to do and they said that he would leave later not with the changes today.
Well in the morning, we came to Valencia and got all of Elder Neyras stuff and then went back to Quevedo and my companion was in Quevedo, so I came with my companion back to Valencia and here we are now in Valencia. Elder Neyra is going with Elder Martinez and Elder Verastagui (he is now our Zone Leader) to Guayaquil tomorrow. So ya, that is the problems that we have had this weekend, a little bit sad, but ya, it is ok. It all worked out.
I am glad to know you are safe and well. Congratulations on becoming a Senior Companion. I am sure you will be a great one. Did your baptism work out? Tell us more about your companion.
Have you heard if there was trouble in Valencia on Sunday? Were the two kids that were burnt brothers? How old were they? That is very sad. I will have to search the internet for more details. I haven't been able to find much on the story.
There was a few people that marched in protest, but nothing violent, so we were able to come back. The two were not brothers. One was nineteen and the other twenty-one, I think, but I am not for sure.
As far as my baptism, it didn’t work out because we had to leave Saturday, so we are planning on the baptism this week. We are going to visit Oscar today to make sure that everything is going good and that there won’t be any problems. Give me a week or two to find out more about my companion and then I will tell you about him.
Sorry about the baptism. How long has your new companion been out? Is he from Ecuador? I will search on the internet for more on the place you said he was from. Send photos of him next week please. I love you so much.
Ya, he is from the Sierras of Ecuador or the mountains that border Colombia. He has been out a little bit more than a year. Well, I love you very much. Thank you for the package and the photos.
Hey, I got some good news! Elder Bejar is now the Zone Leader in Manta. All of his mission he wanted to go there to eat sea food and now he is there. Bye.
Elder Bejar is from Lima, Peru, a coastal city, so he has probably been missing all the great seafood that is there to eat.
http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=10331843
Some of the details are not right. Valencia is not a southern, coastal city. It is in the center of the country at the base of the Andes Mountains, but anyway, now you have the basic story.
Hey how is it going? I don’t have a lot of time right now because we had some problems, but I will be writing later today with all of the details.
Thanks, Curtis. I will wait to hear from you more this afternoon. I pray that the problems are little things, easily solved. I love you.
Ok, to tell you what has happened this weekend. First you remember that I told you that they burnt two robbers here. Well they are from Quevedo. The family of the two kids that were burnt were saying that they were going to come to Valencia Sunday in the morning and cause problems, going to kill people and more problems. When we heard this, we called President Gamboa and told him what was going on. Well he told us to pack our bags with the nececary and go to Quevedo. So Saturday in the afternoon, we went to Quevedo and spent the night there.
Sunday we went on splits. I went with Elder Martinez and Elder Neyra with Elder Bartolomei and we went to church. After, we spent the day visiting in their sectors. We got to the house about seven and then we received a call from the Assistants with the transfers. They told Elder Janampa that he was leaving. Then they asked to talk to Elder Bartolomei and told him that he was going to train this change. Then they asked to talk to me and they told me that I am now Companero Mayor or Senior Companion, but I am not going to train this change. Then the Assistants said that they would call later and tell us the transfers.
So we had to wait for about an hour to get the changes and I found out that my companion is now Elder Castañeda he is from Otavalo. I have my first companion that isn’t from Peru. He is Otavalanio. He has what they call a cola here or a pony tail. So Elder Neyra is going to Manta to the sector called Monte Cristi, but his things were still in Valencia and we were in Quevedo. So we called the Assistants and asked them what to do and they said that he would leave later not with the changes today.
Well in the morning, we came to Valencia and got all of Elder Neyras stuff and then went back to Quevedo and my companion was in Quevedo, so I came with my companion back to Valencia and here we are now in Valencia. Elder Neyra is going with Elder Martinez and Elder Verastagui (he is now our Zone Leader) to Guayaquil tomorrow. So ya, that is the problems that we have had this weekend, a little bit sad, but ya, it is ok. It all worked out.
I am glad to know you are safe and well. Congratulations on becoming a Senior Companion. I am sure you will be a great one. Did your baptism work out? Tell us more about your companion.
Have you heard if there was trouble in Valencia on Sunday? Were the two kids that were burnt brothers? How old were they? That is very sad. I will have to search the internet for more details. I haven't been able to find much on the story.
There was a few people that marched in protest, but nothing violent, so we were able to come back. The two were not brothers. One was nineteen and the other twenty-one, I think, but I am not for sure.
As far as my baptism, it didn’t work out because we had to leave Saturday, so we are planning on the baptism this week. We are going to visit Oscar today to make sure that everything is going good and that there won’t be any problems. Give me a week or two to find out more about my companion and then I will tell you about him.
Sorry about the baptism. How long has your new companion been out? Is he from Ecuador? I will search on the internet for more on the place you said he was from. Send photos of him next week please. I love you so much.
Ya, he is from the Sierras of Ecuador or the mountains that border Colombia. He has been out a little bit more than a year. Well, I love you very much. Thank you for the package and the photos.
Hey, I got some good news! Elder Bejar is now the Zone Leader in Manta. All of his mission he wanted to go there to eat sea food and now he is there. Bye.
Elder Bejar is from Lima, Peru, a coastal city, so he has probably been missing all the great seafood that is there to eat.
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