Week #...Well Actually I've Lost Track!

Buenas tardes from Esmeraldas!

It´s been a great week! We had two baptisms this Saturday! Their names are Ruth and Jerelyn, two sisters. It felt good to finally have some results of our work! Now we just need their parents and their older cousin to all get married so that they can be baptized too. Which makes like... 5 different couples that we´re teaching who need to get married. That´s life on the coast!

What to talk about this week... we´re teaching this young couple, Daniel and Karen. They´re pretty great. They´ve come a really long way since we started teaching them. In fact the only thing they lack is... you guessed it... getting married. You know that scripture in 2 Nephi 31 that mentions something about following Christ with full purpose of heart? I think that describes them very well. We also are teaching a lady named Julieth, from Columbia. She finally prayed on her own the other day!!! I was SUPER happy that day! I´m glad to have all of them to teach. It´s such a relief teaching them because we´ve been running into lots of excuses with everyone we talk to. You would be surprised how ´busy´ the people get when we come to the neighborhood. I´ll tell you about a conversation we had with an old Catholic lady the other day. Rather amusing:

Elder Wallace: So, Señora So-and-so, when can we come another time to talk more?

Lady: Well, the thing is, I´m Catholic and I can´t change religions.

Elder Diaz: That´s okay, we can share a short message with you anyway.

(At this point a look of desperation settles over the lady´s face as she realizes that her professed allegiance to the Catholic religion isn´t going to make us go away. She struggles for words as she tries to make another excuse).

Lady: Well, what happens is that sometimes I´m at home, but sometimes I´m not, because maybe my neighbors or one of my friends will ask me to come over and I´ll have to go over there and so I wouldn´t be in the house and you wouldn´t be able to come visit me because sometimes I´m not at home. And I would be lying if I said I would be at home and lying is bad.

And that´s the nature of many of our contacts. I wonder if they know how silly their excuses sound. Oh well. That´s the opposition I guess! We just move on and give others their opportunity, and eventually get accepted by a wonderful family that´s prepared to receive the gospel! That´s the great part. Elder Diaz is doing very well, and the two of us are getting a lot done. I learn from him as well because he´s had less time to forget the things that they teach in the MTC! Anyway, that´s about all. Great job to everyone in all of your sports/races/activities and whatever else you´ve been up to! I did hear about the ´death´ of Elder Law. I see we´ve already got Nate speaking in missionary slang! Ha! You wouldn´t believe what the people here pick up from the missionaries. Have to be really careful! Anyway, we´re headed out now. We´re going to meet up with Elder Hendrickson and his companion to go on a bit of a scenic hike because my area is right on the beach! I´ll try to get lots of pictures! Take care everybody!

Chao chao!

Elder Wallace

First Week With A Greenie

Buenas Tardes once again! 

 

This has been a crazy week!  I thought my last transfer as a senior companion was a bit stressful, but I had never imagined being a trainer.  I guess I´ll have a lot to learn!  Seeing as this was a very eventful week, I will give a day-by-day synopsis!

 

Monday:  I left Esmeraldas early in the morning with the other missionaries that were getting greenies and began the 7 hour bus ride to Quito.  A lot of sleeping.  We got off the bus in Quito and it was COLD!!!  Made me miss home a bit, but it was still nice to get out of the heat for a while.  We met up with some other missionaries and went to stay in their apartments for the night.

 

Tuesday:  We had our trainers´ orientation.  It was pretty large, since there are 27 new missionaries that have come!  A lot of familiar faces, missionaries that I worked with in the past months.  But not as nice as the pizza!  I really can´t remember the last time I had pizza.  It sure beats rice though!  That night I worked with the area of Oriente Quiteño, where my old zone leaders are. I just about died, my chest hurt so bad!  There´s pretty much no air up there!  The trip from sea level to 10,000 feet can be a bit tiring! 

 

Wednesday:  We went back to the chapel for the last orientation, this time with the new missionaires.  I met my new companion, Elder Diaz!  He´s from Peru.  We have been getting along great, and he is willing to work hard.  I sure got lucky!  The only part I didn´t look forward to was 7 hours back to Esmeraldas!  We finally made it home, although late at night.  Thus began my transfer as a trainer.  My trainer Elder Fuentes, as they say in the mission, has ´died´ (finished his mission and gone home).  Pretty crazy how quickly the time goes.

 

Thursday:  Weekly planning and district meetings!  Half of our zone is now made up of new missionaries.

 

Friday:  A good day working.  A lot of rejection, but we did get some baptismal dates set.  That always makes the day worth it.  The bad news is that our running water has cut out.  We´re now bathing with those big water jugs.

 

Saturday:  Regular work day, still no water.

 

Sunday:  A whole bunch of our investigators came to church today!  Even some of the inactive members decided to come today!  All I can say is that I was super happy to  see so many of them there! 

 

Monday:  Another P-day!  We´re enjoying the rest, and trying to get a hold of the landlady to find out what is wrong with the water!  We´re getting ready for a family night with some members and investigators.  I´m going to make German Pancakes!  I also learned something really important this morning that I´m going to share with all of you.  It´s in the story of Ammon and Aaron, the sons of Mosiah, and their experience with King Lamoni´s father. Ammon, after being attacked by this king, could have killed him but chooses not to.  The king pleads for his life, offering anything up to half of his kingdom.  The interesting part is when the king is speaking with Aaron, Ammon´s brother.  Aaron explains the Plan of Salvation to the king, who desires to have eternal life, or in other words, to live in the presence of God.  He says he will give up everything and abandon his kingdom to gain such a gift.  It really makes one think about how precious the gospel really is and how much we need it.  This king valued salvation more than he valued his own life.  Sometimes we take for granted what a great opportunity we have knowing what we know.  Hopefully we can all be a little more greatful for the light that we have in our lives.  

 

Anyway, that´s how my week went!  Hope all is well at home and with all the other missionaries!

 

Love,

 

Elder Wallace 

And Thus Ended The Fourth Transfer...

Hey everybody!  Another transfer in Ecuador has passed, another begins!  Here´s what´s happened...

We called last night to find out the transfers, but were told to call the next day in the morning!  That´s pretty stressful since we usually pack the night before.  I woke up the next morning feeling sick as could be and thought to myself ´wow, I sure hope I stay in this area so that I can spend my p-day resting rather than traveling!´  So I called our district leader to find out the news.  I felt relieved when he told me I would be staying in my area.  The relief was short lived, however, as he told me to pack and get ready to go to Quito to pick up my new companion.  Going to Quito to pick up your companion means only one thing - training a new missionary.  So right now I´m waiting in the bus terminal to go back to Quito and pick up my companion and prepare for my most challenging transfer thus far!  This will be an interesting experience, that´s for sure!  

Let´s back things up a bit to this past week.  All of the people who were trying to kill the president have been taken care of, and things are pretty peaceful once again.  We had seven people come to sacrament meeting this week, the most this entire month!  We found a couple, Daniel and Karen, who are very receptive and have accepted a baptismal date!  After two really tough weeks, we are seeing some results!  That´s always the good part.  The Lord doesn´t reward us immediately, but he does reward us!  We have found a lot of great people.  One man told us, ´I got baptized by a pastor several years ago, but I don´t feel like I´m baptized because I don´t think he had the authority that you´re talking about´.  Well.  We´ll just have to help him out with that, now won´t we!  That really put us at a loss for words, but made us very happy!  A lot of people are prepared and ready to hear our message.  Well, I´d better get ready to head out to Quito!  Thank you for all of your letters!  

Love,

Elder Wallace

A Week Of Civil Unrest!

Buenas tardes everybody!  Interesting week this time, so here goes!

Everybody who asked questions about problems here in Ecuador, who heard correctly!  Apparently President Correa proposed some sort of plan that would cut the salary of all the cops around here.  So the cops got mad and they all went on strike, which made everything super dangerous since there wasn´t anyone to keep the peace (that´s sometimes not even possible around here when there ARE cops, but it was safer before).  We also heard that the president was stuck in the hopsital for some surgery and couldn´t leave because everyone was trying to kill him.  Just chaos everywhere.  I love Latino governments... so much more intersting with all the disorder and the violence... But sarcasm aside, we got a bunch of new temporary rules to keep us safe, like going back to the house at 6 instead of 9.  I´ll tell you what, that just about drove me crazy!  It was usually fine until about 7:30, then I was just bored out of my mind.  Makes me wonder how I ever spent that kind of time in the house before I left!

Conference was pretty great.  We got to watch it in the chapel.  I got really lucky along with the other 4 American missionaries in the zone because they hooked up conference in English in the clerk´s office!  I was glad to be able to hear their actual voices instead of some nasally translator guy!  They spoke on a lot of great things, like the importance of following the prophet.  My favorite was President Benson´s quote that they used about prophets - ¨follow them and be blessed, reject them and suffer.¨ Nice and direct!  Also a lot of good things on being a good parent, also about ´acting and not being acted upon´.  I also enjoyed that family history talk by Elder Gong.  I am now toying with the idea of naming my kid ¨First Dragon Wallace¨.  What do you think?  Well... maybe not.  

Anyway, thank you everyone for writing, and for your support!  Love you all!  This is the last week of transfers, so that will always be exciting to see what happens!  We also challenged four people to baptism yesterday, and they accepted!  That was a great relief for us!  Shows that whatever happens, you just have to keep going and the Lord will reward you in His own time.  Hope all is going well with everybody!  

Love,

Elder Wallace