Baptisms, Birthdays and Life Skills

Week 23 Valencia

Hey, here is the photo of Dexy’s baptism. I´ll send more in a minute and I will send a report of what I have done these past two weeks.

Hi, Curtis. Neat photo! Have you grown taller? She is really cute. She looks nice. Can't wait to hear more from you.

Here is a picture of Shirley.

Shirley is very pretty, but not very tall. She looks like she is a sweet girl.

Here is a photo of the baptism of Isabel she is in the white and the other two are her daughters and her grandson.

Awesome!!! Congratulations!!! How are her two daughters coming as far as baptism? Who is the other lady in the photo?

Here is a picture of my birthday this is what we ate for lunch we had lazania with a salad of broccoli and corn and rice (It isn´t food here in Ecuador if there isn´t rice.) And we had the cakes, too. If you look good, the candles are in the cake, too. The cake was really good. It is a three milk cake with peaches on top. It was delicious.

It looks very festive with all of the bright colors. You and rice are going to be lifelong friends!!! There are seven plates. Who attended the party?

OK, to answer your questions. In the photo of the baptism of Isabel, the other lady is the sister Paula Pinarera. She is the one that lives in front of Isabel and loves to cook for us. I think because of her I have stopped losing weight. In my party, there was me, of course, my companion, the mamita, her husband, and their two kids, Cesar and Aura and a friend of Cesar and Hector Ramirez. He is a friend of Cesar. He is my convert, if you don't remember. There are only seven plates, because Elder Castaneda wasn't feeling very good that day, so he didn't eat, but the mamita gave us two plates more and we put them in the fridge to eat later, so it was really cool.

Thanks for the pictures. It is awesome to see you looking all happy and well and great to hear from you. I do not like it when you miss a week, so don't do it again, please!

This picture is for Braxton. I heard that you recently earned your painting merit badge. Congratulations and congratulations on earning your Eagle, too. But you know what Braxton, you never know when the things that you are learning right now are going to come in handy. Look at the picture. I too, earned my painting merit badge with dad. We painted a lot of things in a lot of different ways and look, I got to use what I had learned to help a friend here in Ecuador. Really you never know when you are going to be able to use the things that you have learned to help others, so keep on learning and keep your chin up. Ya, I love you Buddy and I am looking forward to next year when we can go hunting together just the two of us, ok? I love you lots! Bye, Buddy.

Hey! It is Braxton. Thanks for the picture. It was very cool to get something from you and I really enjoy getting things from you.

Hey, Braxton! What is up with that? I sent you a whole paragraph and you sent me one line. I went to all of the effort to write and send you a cool picture and I get a line....................................................................... Now, I know how you feel! I will definitely have to try harder, Buddy. I´m sorry that I haven´t been writing very much. I will try harder, ok? I love you, Buddy!

This picture is for Clain. Clain here I am using my machete in one of the ways they use it here in Ecuador. When they say that they are exorting someone to do something they say that they are macheteing. It is one of many uses. In this photo, we were having a little bit of fun in the house, but I have learned many things about machetes here in Ecuador. I learned that all that you need to build a house here in Ecuador is a machete, a hammer and nails and you can build a house of wood and cane. I am pretty sure that you are going to learn how to build a house using many different tools and different techniques. Learn them well, because they will serve in the future a lot. You have always liked to work with tools and with materials, so I know that you will do great in your Construction class. Keep working hard Buddy and tell everyone Hi for me, ok? Thanks, Buddy. I love you lots! Elder Goode

What scripture are you reading? What are you exorting him to do?

Hi Curtis
How are you doing? I am doing good? Thanks for the email. I love you. Clain

Curtis,
Hi! How are you doing? We just got done putting a loft in a shed for Shara and Rob. The guys at work all say Hi. We have been back to school for a couple of weeks. What are you doing in the picture of you with the machete? I love the classes I have this year.
Love, Clain

Hey! Sorry that I didn´t write last week. The internet was down in all of Valencia, so we couldn´t write at all, but today there is internet, so here I am writing you. So, since I last wrote you we baptised Isabel and now we are working on preparing about six people for the next week. We have a family of four women that we are preparing and we have two friends of Dexy that we are teaching that want to get baptized, too. And we have a family that investigated the Iglesia about two years ago and then moved to Quito, so they didn´t get baptized. Now they are back here in Valencia and they want to get baptized, so we just have to see who will be ready for next week and baptise them. That is all. I hope that we can baptise them before changes, so let’s see what happens. If not, I will leave more for the next missionary to reap when he gets here. But let’s see what happens. We are working hard and having lots of success now. I don´t know what changed when Elder Castañeda left and Elder Hernandez came, but now we are having lots of success.

I bought my new suit. I had to go to Buena Fe today to try it on, so he could see how it fit and he is going to finish it and Elder Frye will bring it to Quevedo on Wednesday. My suit ended up costing a little more than I thought it would. It cost 160 dollars, but I had him make me a vest, too and put on all of the bells and whistles, too. But for the suit and the vest it took five and a half yards of material to make. He said that usually it only takes three. So this is the biggest suit that he has ever made. I will try to be better about my spending and let’s see what happens. Well, I love you lots and I hope everything is going good.

Love,

Elder Goode

Hey, do you remember the Elder Feldman that sent you a letter for the family that he wanted me to look up? I found them and gave them his email address and they said that they have written him, but he hasn´t written back. Can you send him an email and see what is up? The thing that is kinda cool is that I found them without really trying. There is a member of my ward that is engaged to the daughter of Julia Romero, so I found them by chance. If you could write, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

Bye,

Elder Goode

Okay. I will try to contact him again.

Dexy's Baptism

Week 21 Valencia Emails with Mom

Dear Curtis,

I am so excited to hear about Dexy’s baptism. Please tell us all about it. Who attended? Did her family and friends all come?

No she didn´t want her family to come to the baptism and we haven´t yet had a chance to meet her family but we are going to try and set up an appointment this week.

You said you were teaching some of her siblings, how are they progressing?

We aren´t teaching any of her family yet.

What about her parents?

We aren´t teaching yet this week we are going to try and set up an appointment.

Are they willing to listen? Are you teaching her friends and their families?

Right now we are teaching the family of one of her friends but the problem is they don´t want to come to church because it is a ways away.

You said you were going to baptize her, did you?

Yes

Who did the confirmation?

The bishop

Was she confirmed in church on Sunday?

Yes

How is Isabel doing?

Isabel is doing good she is excited for her baptism this Saturday so things are going really good.

Did she attend church?

Yep she did!

Is she ready to be baptized this week?

Yep! She will have her interview this Wednesday and then Saturday she will be baptized.

Do you have any other investigators who are ready to be baptized?

Right now we don´t, but we are working on it we have a family of five that we are getting ready for baptism, but they are a few weeks out right now.

How is Esther doing?

Esther is doing good she hasn´t been coming to church so we are working on that so that she will come and then when she has been coming to church for three or four weeks she can be baptized without problems so we are just waiting and exorting her to come to church.

Shirley is the one that is going to go to school in Guayaquil and she went last week and she is there right now.

When does she leave to go to Guayaquil for school?

Last week.

What is she going to study there?

She is going to be studying computers and design I think or something like that.

You said you would send us a photo of her.

I took a picture last Sunday, but the problem is I left the camera in the house so I can't send you a picture right now.

How is Mosche doing?

He is doing good he is back with his wife or his girlfriend so we have to help them get married but I don’t know if they want to get married so we will see what happens.

Is he still listening to you on Saturdays and Sundays?

Ya, he still is, but his wife won´t let him come to church. So it is hard for him to progress, so we will see what happens.

You said you have an inactive family that gave you a reference. Are you still teaching them? Tell us more about them, please.

Yep they are the Arias family, a family that consists of the mom and four daughters that are eight or older and three kids one girl and two boys that are younger than eight. They are progressing the mom wants to be baptized so we are working on it. We still need to teach them a lot more before they can be baptized so that is where we are right now.

Tell us more about your companion. What city in Guatemala is he from?

He is from Guatemala city or the capital.

How many are in his family?

There is his mom and dad and then he has his older brother and an older sister and then him and he is the baby in the family.

How long has he been a member?

He has been a member all of his life.

Where did he serve prior to coming to you?

He was in Babahyo for six months and then he came here like I did.

This is Elder Dan Mitton with Elder Mauricio R Hernandez.
Elder Mitton was his trainer in Babahoyo.

Who were his other companions? There was a Mauricio R Hernandez who was companions with Dan Mitton in Babahoyo. I wrote down that Dan was his trainer. Is he your new companion? I am attaching a photo. Is this him? Send us a photo of him if you can.

Yes, he is my companion now. He was with an Elder Mittton, Elder Donoso and an Elder Rodriguez and now with me.

Please take a look at the other photo and my guesses about who each missionary is. Correct it and send it back please.

Please send photos soon. It has been a very long time since you sent us any. We only have a couple of photos since you have been in Valencia. We want to see the people and the places you visit and your apartment and your companions. Please.

Have you received any more packages, letters or cards?

Tell us about the people you are teaching.

I love you so much.
Love always and forever,
Mom

It sounds like you have been very busy. Congratulations on the baptism. I am glad it worked out. Next week, pictures, for sure! Promise me!

What special experiences have you had this week?

I am actually planning on bringing my camera to the cyber and leaving it there and having them put all of the pictures that I have on my cards on a dvd so that I can send it to you, so I think I will drop my camera off a little later today and pick it up tomorrow with the dvd all ready to go. But next week I will have all of the photos in one disk to send you some, ok?

Okay. It has been a very long time since you sent us any. We want to see all the places and people. Thanks.

Are you getting along well with your new companion? What does he like to do? I sent a photo of a missionary I think is him. Is it?

Yes that is him. He likes the computer and stuff like that. I gotta ask him more. He doesn´t like to talk very much, so I don´t know much yet.

You are together all week long. I know you are supposed to focus on the work, but you could ask him a little bit about himself. :)

What spiritual experiences have you had this week? Anything funny?

Dr. Scholl's and Beto's

2009_08_17 Week 20 in Valencia - Email to Mom



Hey! How are things going? I am doing good. Today we are in La Mana having our pday. We came to La Mana because there is a place here that sells pizza that is really good. Today we split a meat lover’s pizza. It cost us four dollars each. That is really pretty good here when normally pizza is really expensive.

Well things are going pretty good. Dexy passed her interview Sunday and she will be getting baptised this Friday. She asked me to baptise her, so that is pretty cool. The really cool thing is that yesterday we were teaching our class in church and Dexy and Isabell were both there. We told everybody that was in our class that Dexy was going to be baptised and Dexy stood and bore her testimony that she was going to make a covenant with God and that it was something really sacred for her and do you know what happened? Isabell heard and she got excited and now she too wants to be baptised the week after Dexy, so now we have two baptisms. That is going to be so cool when it all works out.

So besides that we are working really hard trying to activate the less active members which is really working out good because we are finding lots of investigators through them and that gives us more reasons to visit the less active families and get them active again. So that is really cool. Today we have three Family Home Evenings. We are going on splits. Elder Hernandez will do one and I am going to see if I can combine the other two into one. If not, I will have to do two short ones, but let’s see what happens. It is really cool. The bishop here is really pushing to visit the people and it is paying off. We are seeing more and more people here in the church each week. This change is going to be a good one. I can feel it! I have a really good companion and we are working really hard. We are going to have lots of success. Well, if there is something else you want to know let me know. Ok?

I thought of a few other things that I want. Could you send me a pair of Doctor Scholl's insoles? Mine are about dead and here in Ecuador you just cut a piece of cardboard and put in your shoes when the insole dies, so if you could send me a pair my feet would really appreciate it.

Oh, ya, if you could send me Carne Asada Fries I would really appreciate it, too. Just put them on dry ice and send them and they will get here ok. I’m sure of it.

If not, send me a breakfast burrito. There is enough grease to preserve it, so don´t worry it will still be good when it gets here.

Things are really looking good now, so don´t worry. I haven´t gotten the pictures ready to send, so I´m sorry. Maybe next week.

One of Curtis's favorite places to eat is Beto's Mexican Restaurant. Their Breakfast Burritos are huge and the boys all love them. I was not so impressed because of all the grease, but all three of my boys love to eat there. They get so excited over a box of Carne Asada Fries! They are tasty, but I can only eat just a few. I wish I could send him some as a treat, but it is one sacrifice he will have to make. It will make him appreciate them more when he gets back home.

I wonder if he is getting tired of his diet of healthy rice and fruit?