An Eventful Week!

Hello again everyone!

First of all, I GOT TO TRY CUY!!! (guinea pig, for those who don´t know).  It´s delicious!  Very rich tasting.  And a member family has invited us over for some more this afternoon!  Quite good.  I also had some soup that had duck in it (pretty good).  I also ate an entire chicken foot (it´s not much different than the rest of the chicken, you just have to spit out a lot of little bones!).  That´s about all as far as food goes. 

Investigators...  We have tons!  Some pretty interesting ones as well.  We had a lady who talked incessantly about how she thinks the spirit of her father-in-law was in her bed.  We were kind of at a loss for words on that one.  Hopefully we can clear everything up on the next visit!  We also visited a man who was receptive, then kept spouting off endless streams of Bible references on the second visit.  Turns out he attends church with the Jehovah´s Witnesses, who put him up to the Bible references (which really made no sense, I think their religous beliefs are explained quite well by 2 Nephi 28:7).  We asked him to look up a scripture in the New Testament that doesn´t exist in the JW Bible.  He was rather flustered when he only found a verse number with nothing there.  He said it told him ¨to consult the anciano (their leader)¨ about what should be there.  That´s been the source of many jokes between Elder Corado and I all week.  We should probably stop doing that.  But he seems receptive enough to be teachable, so hopefully we can help him find the truth! 

We had a baptism on Saturday of Michelle Santa Cruz, because we finally got permission from her mom!  So all of that stress is gone, and we can focus on challenging more people!  We´re trying for about six or seven for July!  I don´t think we´ll have much of a problem there.  We have a great family that we´re teaching, with three kids who aren´t members.  We actually found them when we got lost looking for a reference.  Turns out that we ran into them because they were going back to their house by a different road than usual.  A pretty awesome experience, they were definitely prepared to meet us!  That´s not a coincidence! 

I don´t have my camera with me right now, but I´ll definitely send pictures as soon as possible!  Hope everyone is well and having a great summer! 

Love,

Spencer

From Pres. Sloan's Blog

I just found out that Spencer's mission president's wife keeps a blog of their mission.  I've posted the address on the sidebar.  I found this photo on it.

New missionaries with their training companions going to the Panecillo. (L to R Elder Wallace (USA), Elder Alcivar (Ecuador), Elder Fuentes (Chile), Elder Cumez (Guatemala), Elder Whitlock (USA), Elder Alarcon (Ecuador), Hermana Menchú (Guatemala), Hermana Perez (Guatemala).

A Very Wet Week!

Baptism photo, left to right: Monica, Bishop Lucero, Elder Corado, Kaiet (he´s a bit of a serious kid), his mom, and me!

Cotapaxi, a volcano just outside the city.  It´s active, but not as much as Guagua Pichincha, which has erupted a couple of times in the past few years.  Luckily, that one is about 5 miles away.

On top of Panecillo, the hill where President Kimball opened Ecuador to the mission work.  Then the Catholics went and built a virgin on top of it.  Go figure.

Hello Everybody!

It´s rained so much this week!  It´s absolutely crazy!  Reguardless, Elder Corado and I have been super busy, and have found a lot of new people to teach.  The tricky part is getting them to progress.  P-day has been good, President Sloan lets us watch one game of the Mundial (world cup) every Monday.  Today Spain beat Honduras 2-0.  If that really actually matters to anyone!

We had two baptisms this week, Kaiet Ayo (9) was baptized by me, and Monica Arana (19) was baptized by Bishop Lucero.  I´ll send some photos.  We had a bit of trouble, because Michelle, the sister of Monica´s husband, wanted to be baptized but her mom said no at the last minute.  It was tough because we´d been trying to talk with her mom throughout the week, but she was never at home.  Hopefully we can work all of that out! 

This week brought my first experience with robbers.  We were waiting at a bus stop to go to an appointment, when this guy comes up to us (probably 16 or 17).  He asked if we ¨had anything¨, but I just ignored him, and we went away.  Next thing I know we hear this noise behind the bus stop and realize the guy is robbing this little boy behind the bus stop.  My first impulse was to go and beat the crud out of him, but then I got the impression that missionaries aren´t supposed to ¨beat the crud out of people.¨  So I just went and yelled at him instead.  He ran away pretty quick.  I guess if I was in his shoes, a gringo brandishing a Book of Mormon and yelling at me in a weird accent would probably freak me out too.  He ran off with the kid´s cell phone, but we took the kid to some cops and they took things from there.  Turns out only Elder Corado had seen the knife that the guy had, so it´s probably a good thing I only yelled at him.  The punk.  We´ve been a lot more careful now at that bus stop.  The robbers around here usually hang out in groups of four or five, so we´ve been on the alert.

Most of the visits around here have been good.  We visited this lady and her two little kids, when one of her kids spilled cereal all over the floor.  The mom told her older daughter to go and get the ¨trapeador automatico¨ (automatic mopper).  I was a bit confused about what that was, until the daughter came back in through the door carrying the neighbor´s dog.  That was pretty funny. 

That´s all for this week!  I will send photos, and let everybody know how it goes with our new investigators!  Hope all is well with everybody!

Love,

Spencer

Still in Chillogallo, with Elder Corado

Hola Todos!

Elder Wallace at church in Ecuador.

Elder Wallace cooked pasta the other day and Elder Corado made chicken...mmm, looks good!

Bishop Lucero

Hola Todos!

This has been a great week!  Elder Corado is a hard worker, and easy to understand as well!  He is from Guatemala City.  We have been working hard with our three investigators that have baptismal dates, as well as finding new ones to prepare!  Our three baptisms this week are Kaiet (9), whose mom is a member, Monica (19)  who is married to a less active member, and her husband´s little sister Michelle (12).  We also found a great family where only the mom is a member.  They live so high up!  It´s worth it though.  It´s been a bit more difficult finding our way around the city, but things are a lot better than the first transfer.  I hope things just get better from here!  I feel like we are really united in our work.  That is the way it should be. 

It´s a bit tough when the people have challenges or don´t keep comittments.  Probably the toughest part.  It is also hard when the parents are hard-hearted when the children are receptive.  Elder Corado and I decided that live would be much easier if Ecuador was just full of orphans!

Anyway, I´m about out of time here, so I´ll update again next week!  I have been well heathwise, and enjoying the food.  (I found pancake mix at the store!)

Love,

Spencer

Buenas Tardes Everyone!

Spencer, Nicol, Elder Fuentes

                                     Rosa Sanmartin

                                      Spencer at Ibarra

I´ve officially finished my first transfer!  (which they say is the hardest, I hope that´s true!)  I´m staying in the same place, which I am very grateful for, since I´ve been sick since thursday and didn´t want to pack!  I guess I lucked out there!  I´m still a bit queasy, but the good news is that my head has stopped throbbing and I no longer feel like blacking out.  Good deal!  

Elder Fuentes has gone to a place called ¨Puyo¨, which is in the Orient region of the country, and my companion is now Elder Corado from Guatemala.  He seems like a really good missionary.  He´s been on his mission for six months, so we´re both fairly new.  It´s going to be a bit harder finding all of the places around here, since Elder Fuentes had been here for almost eight months, but on the plus side, Elder Corado is trying to learn English, which means language study time!!! 

We had another baptism on Saturday, Rosa Sanmartin (23), and have three more scheduled for the 19th!  Elder Corado and I discovered a giant stash of references in the apartment, so we should have no problem at all keeping busy!  We´ll have to see tonight! 

With the baptism and the transfers, that´s about all that´s happened of significance in the last week.  We´ve been prepping our other investigators, and striving to find more!  So that´s all for this week!  I´ve been kind of out of it, so next week will be better!  (hopefully!).

As a random ending thought, one of the kids here showed me his science project of the Solar System.  Turns out, in Ecuador, Pluto is still considered a planet!  I´m glad someone still believes in Pluto. 

Take care everyone!  Enjoy your summer!

Love,

Spencer