What More Can I Say?

So the Christmas season has ended...  I think it went well, considering all the drinking and idol worship going on... haha.  We had a great time though, and the Morales family went to church again.  They are getting their identification all worked out so we can help them get married!  The only difficutly is that the government has changed the price of getting married a little bit.  Just a little.  From six dollars all the way to 50.  Yikes!  We will see what we can do about that.

Apart from that, we're just working normally.  We're making arrangements to have a ward activity every Saturday, starting on the 7th.  We should get the ward more unified that way, and hopefully more referrals.  I enjoyed talking yeterday!!!  Tonight I have a meeting at the mission president´s house.  For the missionaries in my group.  I guess some kind of way to keep us pumped up all the way to the end!  

That`s all for now.  I`m out, and wishing all a Merry Christmas, Kwanza, Boxing Day, and whatever other holiday you all sent me!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Mi 2da Navidad!

Merry Christmas in advance to everyone!

This week has been an interesting one.  We´ve been working with a lot of people, although it´s been a bit tricky during this time of year.  Almost everybody attends what is called the ´´Novena´´ which is basically a countdown that starts nine days before Christmas, if I understand correctly.  It basically means going to mass every night and praying to the ´´Niño Divino´´.  Kind of hard to catch people at night because of that.  We´re working on it though.  

We´re doing a good job with the members though.  We´re getting more referrals from them, and they´re getting more excited.  Yesterday our mission leader called me an hour before church to tell me I had a talk.  I was good with an hour´s notice, considering that the branch president in Ibarra gave me ten minutes´ notice.  Of course it was about the mission work.  It must have been an awesome talk because right when I was getting started, a big parade marched right past the chapel.  Virgin statues, fireworks, and all!  Most certainly inspired of the adversary!  haha.  But we´re looking forward to a good Christmas this year.  Sister Castro invited us for Christmas dinner, and on Wednesday we have dinner at the mission president´s house.  We´ll just hope my comp doesn´t miss his mom too much, seeing how it is only his first Christmas, in his first six months!  haha.  It should go really well though.

Yesterday we went caroling as a zone to all the people who are getting ready to be baptized.  We were in the areas of Elder Diaz and also of the sisters, who are all expecting baptisms this next week.  We´re working on a few here in Conocoto.  Nothing terribly solid yet, so we might see some surprises!  Hopefully!  

So we decided that we will be calling at about noon, which would be 10 am your time.  Does that work?  Just let me know so that I can plan it well!  Talk to you on Sunday!

Love,

Elder Wallace  

Ward Activities

So this week we had our first ward activity in forever!  Actually it was just a simple movie night, we put on WALL-E and served popcorn with soda.  An inexpensive activity, but a good one to get things going here!  We had two of our investigator families there, which was good because we want to get them familiar with the chapel.  We talked to the bishop about starting to do a small family night every Saturday night at the church, and he agreed.  We´re starting it in January because the end of December tends to be pretty hectic.  We have a ward Christmas program coming up on the 23rd, so we're preparing for that and inviting people to come!  

With the investigators, things are going really well!  The M family came to church yesterday on their own! It was exciting for me because usually the people who say that they´ll come have some mysterious ´´difficulty´´ which prevents them from ever arriving!  But they came.  And stayed for sunday school.  I was happy.  We also are working with one of our members´ husbands who has been going to church for quite some time.  He seems to have a drinking problem, but being in Guaranda for six months has given me experience with alcoholics.  We just have to be sure not to underestimate his addiction, because it is usually something very strong.  We're going to help him though.

As far as the rest of the work, it hasn't been easy here, but we´re seeing lots of blessings.  It just depends on my diligence!  I´m happy that Elder Sotomayor came to the zone last week because now I´m not the oldest one anymore!  When people ask me how much time I have, I respond, ´´a little more than a year´´.  I also hid my calendars in my suitcase!  I´ve been working on getting referrals from the members because it´s a more effective way to work.  We got six yesterday, including a family of five.  Sure beats door-knocking.  I realize now that it´s kind of a last resort.  We have been having success just chasing down families in the street.  We do a lap or two around the center of town, and usually manage to chase down two or three families.  I´m grateful for the narrow sidewalks here.  Makes it easier to corner the people.  I don't think we scare them too badly!  Besides that, we have been having a lot of support from our mission leader and the other returned missionaries in the ward.  We´re lucky to have them!  

As for the trip... let me see.  Personally, I would really like to go to church in Guaranda, if that would be possible.  Kind of far from Otavalo though.  Do you want to go to the market?  It´s pretty hectic, and for me it´s just a bunch of overpriced tourist stuff.  But if you would like to go Saturday that would be fine.  I want to talk to my old ward mission leader there and see if he would have some free time on that day.  Can you think of some things to do in Esmeraldas?  I don´t really know of many activities there because we just played soccer every single Monday.  Maybe you could look into that.  Also, the first card you send came.  About a month and a half late, but it came.  So I´ll just hang on to the old one and we´ll figure out what to do when the new one comes!  That should work out well.  So that´s all for now!  I hope that everything is going well, that the leg is healing the members are working, and that everybody is healthy and happy!  Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Safe!

Well I got lucky this time!  No transfers for me!  Elder Housley is staying here too, so we´re excited that we´re going to be here for Christmas.

This week we´ve been busy looking for people.  Lately our tactic has been chasing down families in the street, and it´s worked pretty well so far.  The zone has been having some challenges, mostly with missionaries who don´t want to be obedient.  My comp and I were among the only 3 companionships that didn´t have to go get interviewed by the mission president.  Now the zone is receiving a whole bunch of new missionaries.  Among them is Elder Diaz, my companion in Esmeraldas!  It will be good to work with him again because he will be in my district.  We´re actually writing outside of the terminal right now because we have to wait for him to arrive.  It feels kind of strange that now there is only one more group older than mine.  On the 26th we have a meeting with President Ghent, I think to help us end well and not just bum around!  We´re working hard here in Conocoto, this Friday we have a movie night at the church, with popcorn, soda, the whole works.  The only rule is that to come, the members have to bring their nonmenber friends.  We´re hoping for a big turnout so that we can find a lot of new people to teach. 

Right now we´re getting some more investigators who are really good.  I´ll tell you about some of them.  The Morales family is a couple, Diego and Anita, who have two daughters.  They have a lot of interest in what we teach and have been starting to participate in the activities that we have.  They just need to get married.  Once they do that, they will be able to be baptized quite easily.  Janet Chamba is a lady who has a salon close to our house.  She was a referral from a member of another ward, and has been evangelical for a few years, although she doesn´t go anymore.  She likes what we teach because it is meant to help the family, and she is having trouble with one of her teenage sons.  Finally, we have Susana Vargas, who is an old friend of some of our members.  She´s been to church several times but hasn´t been baptized because she still has a few misunderstandings about what she can and cannot do after baptism (i.e. not being about to attend funerals, weddings at other churches).  We´ve been working to clear that up and are hoping to put a baptismal date with her very soon.  They´re all great people, and we´re glad we found them.  

Apart from that, we´ve been working and having a good time here.  We´re very excited for Christmas.  I did like the Christmas devotional, we were able to see it last night.  Apart from that, on the 25th I will be able to call.  Sometime in the afternoon, after church.  When would be best?  Let me know.

Love,

Elder Wallace

Mission Accomplished! Well, This One Anyway...

Well, it was a great week!  David got baptized!

Also learned some interesting things about the baptismal font here.  Like how the water heater doesn´t work too well. And how the water comes out yellow (good thing Elder Housley was the one getting in there!).  The baptism went pretty well though.  David was kind of nervous, but he´s doing great now!  He knew it was the right thing to do and now he is very happy for having done it.  Now we´re focusing on the Morales family, one that we found a couple of weeks ago.  The dad is very interested in what we share, and he really liked the Book of Mormon when we gave it to him.  We´re going to visit them tonight with Bishop Catucuago and his wife.  Apart from them, we´re working with Sister Castro and her husband.  Sister Castro is from Manabi (the coast) and happens to be our star mamita of the week.  She cooks so well!  Her husband is not a member, despite having known the church for some time and for being such a good guy.  We found out last night that he has seen some bad examples on part of the members, and is afraid of not being able to set a good example once he is baptized.  So we´re working with him.  Hopefully I will stay here for the rest of my mission to be able to see how he progresses.  

Thanksgiving was good. (Also send Alexis my slightly-belated birthday wishes before she leaves!)  It rained a lot, we knocked on lots of doors, and we also took an hour to have dinner!  With our limited resources and lack of eloquent cooking skills, we decided to have pancakes with kool-aid.  Also sliced bananas, wafer cookies, and oreos.  Not exactly traditional, but it filled me up for the moment!  I think we might see if we can arrange Christmas dinner with a member.  Who knows... this week we have transfers, so we´ll see what happens.  I just hope I don´t get changed again!  Kind of tiring.  I spend the first 17 months of the mission in 3 different cities, then the next 4 1/2 months in 3 more.  Interesting how that happens.  We shall see though!  I guess I had better talk to Elder Whitlock about van drivers.  Or I could just not send David´s baptismal record so that he´ll call me asking for it!  Maybe that´s not such a good idea.  Either way, thank you for writing me, and talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Thanksgiving Week!

Happy Thanksgiving in advance!  I hope it all goes well!

This week has been much better for us here in Conocoto.  We are working this week on baptizing David Calderón.  He´s 30 years old and lives with his grandma and his sister.  He already knows a lot about the church because his sister Paola served a mission in Kentucky.  All he lacks is making the decision!  He knows it´s all true, he´s just kind of nervous about trials and difficulties.  He´s really great though, and he´s getting more bold in his decision.  This week, he´s our main focus.  

The rest of my time this week has been largely dedicated to doing baptismal interviews and helping the other missionaries out with their investigators.  We´re also working to gain more confidence from the members.  Our ward mission leader is good, he gave a talk yesterday which was kind of boring until he started to go on about how the members need to do more and invite their friends to hear the missionaries.  He scored points with us, giving that talk!  We´re also planning a big movie night at the church for the 9th, which we hope gives the members an easy opportunity to invite their nonmember friends.  I liked when the bishop´s counselor announced, ´´the purpose of this activity is not for us to just party, but to bring all of our nonmember friends so that they can get to know the missionaries´´.  Glad he understood it so clearly.  The rest of our time is spent searching, searching, searching for new people.  Last Tuesday we decided to go out to the ward limits to a community we´d never been to in order to search for people.  A very filthy rich community.  And a very bad idea.  I guess they deserve their chance as well.  Not terribly time-efficient though.  

We´ve been working a lot with the pre-missionaries as well as the returned missionaries.  We get the most support from them.  The most supportive is Nefi, who got back from his mission about 3 years ago.  He´s really great and we learn a lot from him.  He´s also helped us out a lot with David.  The ward is a lot better than I thought when I barely got here!  I guess it´s just what you make it.  We´re working to make it great!  The district is baptizing, and I got to baptize one of the sisters´ investigators this last Saturday!  (I´ll work on getting a picture of it to send!)  I just barely unpacked my camera so there should be more pictures coming your way!  I´ll send some next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace      

Conocoto

Well here we are again!

Conocoto is kind of off to the side of Quito.  It takes us about 30 minutes to get to the main city.  We went there this last Friday to listen to one of the seventy, Elder Uceda.  He was a great speaker, and we learned a lot from him.  I was even one of the missionaries that he interviewed!  A very short and simple interview, but powerfull.  He counseled us all to work more effectively with the members.  Brother Rivera, the high council member in charge of the mission work, talked with us yesterday and told us of his plan to whip all the members of the ward into shape and get them working.  Needless to say, I was happy to speak with him, and I´m glad we have leader support here.  

This week we´ve been getting to know this area!  My companion, Elder Housley, has only been in the area for two weeks, and has only been in the mission for two months.  He´s from Draper, and we´ve been getting along great!  He likes to sing, so we´ve been singing to people at their doors to get them to accept us!  It´s worked pretty well so far.  It´s still a little early in the work for any stories, so it´s going to be short this week.  Sorry!  

In the meantime, I´m just working, hoping for a package (and that it didn´t get lost), and finishing strong.  More stories and pictures to follow next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

On The Road Again...

Well hi!

First thing´s first... I´ve become the victim of ´´emergency transfers´´.  I´m in Quito again, in a place called Los Chillos.  It should be interesting.  My companion is Elder Housely, a newer missionary, and he´s from the states!  That´s the first time in my entire mission!  I´ll miss Ibarra, but I won´t be too sad because all of our progressing investigators got baptized and we´re in the process of getting more to progress.  I´m actually in the terminal right now, waiting for the missionaries to come get me!  So We´ll see how this first week goes.  I´m in charge of a district of 8 missionaries, but it´s in a zone that usually enjoys a lot of success.  Hopefully I can keep that up!

So my last week in Ibarra... we got Andrés confirmed, which was good because he was feeling pretty nervous.  Then we had a miracle in the other branch, where they had an investigator who wanted to get baptized.  So I interviewed her that morning, we baptized her while the sacrament meeting was going on, then we took her across the hall to get confirmed in the meeting!  Typical apostasy of the Ibarra district.  It´s what we do!

What else... I was on splits with the elders in Tulcán this last Friday, and we were searching for people in a little border town called Tufiño.  We crossed a bridge to get to a nearby neighborhood, and started talking with the people.  We asked one family if the Columbian border was close.  They responded, ´´You´re already in Columbia!  The border is back there!´´.  So that was my interesting experience of the week.  Wandering into Columbia by mistake. 

So I think that´s pretty much all for now.  I wouldn´t mind coming back to Ecuador a couple weeks after my release date.  It would be fun. 

Love,

Elder Wallace

Happy Halloween...?

It´s kind of an up-in-the-air kind of thing here in Ecuador, Halloween.  Apparently President Correa banned it from all the schools because the Ecuadorians are supposed to celebrate ´El día del escudo´.  (Day of the coat of arms, or something like that.  I think it has something to do with that little do-hickey on their flag). Interesting stuff.

So this week Andrés got baptized!  He´s 22, and has some really good neighboors who are members.  They helped us out a lot with their testimonies (they brought cake to the baptism as well, which wasn´t too bad either!)  Just goes to show that testimony is a lot more powerful than any knowledge of doctrine that we have.  Knowledge is important, but it´s not everything.  He was a bit nervous at first, but we helped him out!  He´s really great and we´re going to help him receive the priesthood as soon as possible.

We also had a full weekend of conferences.  First, the zone conference among missionaries.  I had to direct the conference, give a training, and organize a musical number with a musically-challenged zone where half the missionaries just barely arrived.  That was interesting.  But it all went well.  I directed just fine, the training went well, and we sang ´´I´m trying to be like Jesus´´.  Simple song, even we couldn´t mess it up!  President Ghent spoke to us, and gave us a lot of good counsel.  On Saturday and Sunday we had district conference, so we had even more meetings this weekend.  Lots of chances to get our investigators to church.  We went with the Benavidez family, a newlywed couple that we´re working with right now.  They´re great!  Their boss is a member who lives in Quito, so we have a really good fellowshipper right away!  When we got to their house, they were barely getting up, and the husband said that they probably wouldn´t be able to go because they hadn´t showered, his wife was making breakfast, and the floor was all dirty and needed to be swept.  I told him to go shower while his wife made breakfast and while I swept. Persistence!  The four of us had a great time at church!  

This week will be interesting.  Lots of people to find, lots to teach, and lots to baptize.  We´ll see how it all goes!  The photos of today are of Andrés, and also of Vinicio and his aunt Mercedes.  See you all next week!  

Love,

Elder Wallace

Change It Up!

Transfers today!

Luckily, I didn´t go anywhere!  Our zone sure took a beating though.  We lost half the missionaries that we had, and they took both the missionaries out of one sector.  They will put in two new ones.  Kind of rotten luck, but we´ll do what we can!  Right now Elder Adams is with me and my comp.  His companion is coming all the way from Puyo, which is pretty much one of the other extremes of the mission (the orient).  The good news is that I got a call this morning from Elder Cruz (my greenie in Guaranda).  He´s got a greenie of his own now!  Cool stuff.

This week´s news... we had another baptism!  That always makes us happy.  Just an 11 year-old this time, but a really cool one.  His name is Vinicio.  His aunt Mercedes is a member and she is the one who is legally responsible for him.  She was afraid of her catholic mom getting mad at her if she let him get baptized.  But we encouraged her and now she´s doing great!  I´ll send photos next week (forgot my camera).  But Vinicio is a future missionary.  We asked him about his Book of Mormon reading and he proceeded to spout off an entire history starting with Moroni and ending with the publication in 1823 (even I didn´t remember that!).  He´s very ´pilas´, as they like to say here.

Other Ibarra happenings: We have district conference next week, and President Ghent will be coming!  Hopefully there´s a good tongue-lashing in store!  (President Sloan always taught us that if someone truly cares about us, they will give us correction!).  Then the beginning of November, Elder Uceda is going to visit our mission (from the area presidency).  That should be pretty cool.  Our branch president started an activity where we all pair off in companionships and visit the people who weren´t at church.  We do that every Sunday afternoon.  We´re happy about it, now just have to keep bugging him about having branch counsel!  We had a movie night this last Friday, which we used as an opportunity to give some of our newer investigators a tour of the chapel.  It went well (we put on Kung Fu Panda 2!!).  The district president supports us a lot when we want to do activities, so it´s pretty easy to do them.        

So... in response to some of the questions and things like that...  In a package... how about a a nice jar of peanut butter?  Haven´t had that in a while.  The crunchy kind.  If not, then perhaps some m&ms.  I also have a question.  It appears that the people´s names are being censored from the blog.  What´s going on there?  I´d prefer not to lose their names!  I´ll remember my camera next time because there´s always more to talk about when there are pictures involved!  Here´s one my comp sent me.  Maybe I need to change my preaching techniques...  

Well, until next week!  I´ll be enduring to the end!  (although the word ´´endure´´ makes it sound like something painful!  I assure you I´m enjoying the work I do!).

Love,

Elder Wallace

Happy 20 Months To Me!

Well, this email should be nice and long because I have a whole bunch of pictures!  

First of all, Luis got baptized two weeks ago.  It was something really exciting for us because he had been listening to the missionaries for four months without any visible progress.  It turns out he was just afraid of getting baptized, and now he is really happy and should be getting the priesthood soon!  I´m really glad we were patient with him because it seemed for a while that he didn´t want to do anything.

The next week, María and Dennis got baptized.  They live REALLY far away, so it was kind of tough to teach them.  She´s really humble though, and even taught us to make awesome little scone-type things (that´s my smiley face that I made!).  Her husband just got back from working far away, so he should be home more frequently now.  We only met him about twice before, once to get to know him and once so he could aprove of his wife getting baptized.  We´ll see how things go with him now.  

Things have been going well in the zone, and all three of our companionships here in Ibarra are having baptisms.  Tulcan is beginning to do a lot better as well.  There´s a picture of our district in Ibarra at a baptism the sisters had (left to right - Elder Adams, Sister Figueroa, Sister Garcia, myself, Elder Resendiz, and Elder Dipiton).  We´ve also been busy helping out all of our missionaries so that they have success.  I went on splits with Elder Adams, who is from American Fork.  I had no clothes with me, so he was kind enough to lend me some of his.  As you can tell from the photo of me with his clothes, he´s a pretty big guy!  We´re also working a lot on working with the members of the branch.  There´s a photo of us at Maria´s house with Gladys and Kevin, two of our members who help us out.  Kevin is a convert of about 3 months who can go on a mission in about two years, so we take him with us a lot.  Gladys is one of our branch missionaries who is sending in her mission papers very soon.  When I got here, it was kind of difficult working with the members because branches are so tiny!  But now we are having a lot more success, and the district president is being very helpful.  We´re getting a movie night ready for this Friday!  We hope to get a lot of referrals from it!

Today we went to Peguche!  Second time for me, because it´s close to Otavalo.  I was pretty much the only one in the zone that was against the idea, but I had a great time anyway!  We went and checked out the waterfall there, which was pretty awesome.  We got back and had pizza!  So all in all, a good day.  I´m happy and ready to work.  So thank you all for your emails, and for the support you give me!  I´ve got to go!  It´s time to start working.

Love,

Elder Wallace

I'm Tired!

Elder Thomas and Elder Wallace

Hey everyone!  Ready for another week?

So this week was a hectic one!  Here´s what we did...

Monday: We left in the morning for Quito with María, who needed to be interviewed by President Ghent.  Picked up some things from the mission offices, and went to the house in Quito where all the missionaries stay when we have meetings.

Tuesday:  A full day of meetings with President Ghent, lots of things to remember, and lots of goal-setting for all the zones.

Wednesday:  More meetings with more people.  We made it back to Ibarra at night, and enjoyed a night of sleep in my own bed.  

Thursday:  We ran around trying to get our area in order, checking up on the people who needed to be baptized and confirmed.  Didn´t look too great.  Luis said he wouldn´t be able to make it to church for his comfirmation, and María wasn´t at home.  

Friday:  We got put on splits by our district leader, so I spent the day and that night in his area with his companion.  Totally took us by surprise.  I didn´t have a single change of extra clothes with me, but the day went well and we found a lot of great people.  My companion and our district leader found María, and everything got arranged for her baptism!

Saturday:  María got baptized along with her son Dennis!  (I got to baptize him).  The sisters also had a baptism in their branch, so we also attended that.  Also, we found out that Luis had visited with the branch´s Relief Society preisdent, who is a good friend of his.  She CHEWED HIM OUT!!!  He called us to tell us that he WOULD make it to church the next day to be comfirmed!

Sunday:  María, Dennis, and Luis all got comfirmed.  Afterwards we had a brief meeting with the district president to talk about the mission work.  Then we got a call from the district leader in Tulcan telling us that he needed baptismal interviews.  So we travelled the 2 1/2 hours to Tulcan, did the interviews, then made it back to Ibarra just as it was time to be back at the house.  We planned quickly and went to bed early.  

Now we´re ready for another week!  We made burgers as a district today, and they were tasty!  Now it´s time to check up on the families that we found last week and see what we can do about getting them baptized.  I think I should be greatful that I´m not travelling 6 hours in Australia like Grandma and Grandpa Wallace!  I can handle the trip to Tulcan (even when the bus gets stopped and checked for cocaine every now and then!).  Good job on the 22 mile walk in the mud, the garden and all of its produce, BYD, the dance, and running cross-country minus one toenail.  (You´ll get used to stuff like that in the mission, my feet are in pretty rough shape right now!).  Thank you all for supporting me, and I´ll talk to you all tomorrow!

Love,

Elder Wallace

P.S.  Elder Thomas told me that he heard from his mom that she heard from my mom that my mom had said that my emails are too short.  What do you all think?  haha

Good Ol' Conference!

Well hi!

Well, conference weekend was great!  I got lucky too, because there´s a little cable hook-up next to the baptismal font that I hooked a TV up to so we could watch in English!  Everything worked out great, and we had a lot of success getting investigators to the conference.  We also got Luis baptized!  He said later that he was nervous, but that he feels really happy now.  Today we travelled to Quito with Maria Mora, one of our investigators, so she could get interviewed by President Ghent.  She passed and will be baptized along with her son this next weekend!  

As far as other activities... we did an ´invasion´ in Tulcan, looking for new people.  It went great!  We even found a long-lost church member who had been out of touch for a while because there is no church in his city.  He was great though.  He told us he knew that Joseph Smith was the first prophet in the latter days, and that he knew that Spencer W. Kimball is the present-day prophet (just a LITTLE out of touch, wouldn´t you think?).    

So now we´re in Quito, and we have a couple of meetings tomorrow and on Wednesday.  As for visits to places when it´s time for me to leave... I would like to visit some people in Quito and in Guaranda.  I´m not sure about Esmeraldas because it´s a little out of the way, not to mention dangerous.  We´ll see.  I´d like to check out Baños, maybe a bit of the Orient.  If we want to climb a mountain, there´s Chimborazo as well as Cotapaxi.  We can decide which one later.  We can check out Otavalo as well.  So there are some ideas.  Hope they´re of help!  See you all next week.

Love,

Elder Wallace

Here Comes Conference!

Well it´s been quite the week here, with a lot of challenges!  But we´re working things out!

We´re getting ready for tons of things right now!  We have a zone conference tomorrow, as well as General Conference.  I got really lucky this time because the chapel is two blocks from my house!  

This week we spent a lot of time helping the other missionaries out.  We spent a day up in Tulcan, which was COLD!  Really neat though.  Besides all the students who were rioting... some kind of protest I think.  We ran for it when we saw a cop coming with a gas mask hanging around his neck.  Nothing bad happened though.  To us anyway!  The elders in Tuclan are doing great, considering the place was kind of a mess when they got there.  Now they have a lot of families listening to them, and the district president is very happy with them.  Here in Ibarra is going well too, we just have to get the members more involved because the investigators tend to get scared a lot.  But we´re working on that.  Our hope for this week is that Luis gets baptized.  He´s an investigator who has attended church for the last four months, but hasn´t made the decision to get baptized yet.  But he´s close!  He asked for an appointment this week with the branch president, and he also asked us if the water in the font was cold.  We took him there and showed him, then said, ¨we´ll fill it up for you right now if you´d like!¨  Might have scared him just a bit!  We´re also working with a lady named Maria and her two kids.  Also very close, she just has some things she needs to take care of first.  So I should be able to send a few good baptism photos over the next few weeks!  

That´s the news for now!  I forgot the charger for my camera in Guaranda, so I´m still waiting for the missionaries there to send it to me.  Hopefully soon, eh?  I want to take some photos!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Here We Go!

It´s that time again!

We´ve started the transfer off well!  The zone had 3 baptisms this week, one of them ours.  A guy named Marlon, who pretty much taught himself about the church over the internet.  I wish everyone was like that!  But it went well for us.  Ibarra is a good place, and there is a lot of potential here.

Our goal is to help the branch become a ward and for the district to become a stake.  For that to happen, we have to get a lot of new priesthood holders baptized or activated.  We should do well, because our Elders´ Quorum president is really great, and helps us out a lot.  I´ll send more details as well as pictures later when there is more time. 

So to sum things up, I´m enjoying Ibarra.  It´s a nice climate here, and my house is the nicest one I have been to since I started the mission.  We even have a microwave.  Oh yeah!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Zone Leader In Ibarra

Transfered Again?

I´ve been transferred!

Kind of a shock to tell the truth.  I only had six weeks in Otavalo, but now I´m on the move again.  My new zone is Ibarra, which isn´t terribly far from Otavalo.  My companion is Elder Resendiz, from Mexico.  I´m excited to work with him because we were in the same zone before, and now we´re companions.  We´re also going to make tons of Mexican food!  Ibarra is a district, so it´s all branches here.  We have five companionships in the zone, which goes all the way to the Colombian frontier.  I´ll probably get to check that out when I go work with the missionaries there!

Well, that´s kind of all for this week.  I´ll send a bunch of photos though because we had an open house this last Wednesday!  Enjoy!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Zone Conference

Hey Everybody! 

Thanks for the pictures!  I enjoyed seeing how everybody is doing! 

This week we had our zone conference with President Ghent and his wife.  This went really well, and for the first time in my mission, the president came with us to our appointments afterwards.  It was really great, and he and his wife were a lot of help.  (They also gave us great food!)  That was about the highlight of the week.  We visited a lady named Olga and her son Smith.  Olga's daughter Lorena is a convert of about one month who got baptized while she was studying in Quito, and now she's been helping us with her family.  They had us worried for a while because they don't really make church attendance much of a priority, but they surprised us by coming this last Sunday!  We also had a lot of new faces at church yesterday, and were able to find some new people to start teaching.   

We had a good p-day today, we made lunch as a zone, some meat grilled on charcoal with tortillas and beans.  Interesting combo, but it worked out well (half our zone is either from Guatemala or Honduras, so we kind of go with the popular taste!).  Now it's back to another week, which will be even better than last week!  We're in the last week of the transfer, but I just got here so I don't think I'll be going anywhere.  So thanks for the letters, and I'll see if I can get some photos headed your way! 

Love, 

Elder Wallace  

Some Details...

Hey Everybody!  

Time for a longer, more detailed email!   

About Otavalo... Like I said, our ward is indigenous, but they still speak a lot of Spanish.  Only the testimony meetings are usually entirely in Quichua.  The majority do understand Spanish, so we only occasionally have to take a translator along with us.  It usually helps a lot to have members with us.  We had two baptisms this weekend!  Their names are Jose and Delia, and they´re a young couple.  Delia´s brother is a very active member, so he was a lot of help.  He´s also very happy now because his entire family is getting baptized bit by bit.  We are now working on finding a lot more people because we haven´t had many lately.  (By the way, I´ll send pictures when my comp´s camera gets debugged.  My battery died).  Apart from that, we are working with Jose and Rocio, a couple who attends church a lot.  Jose is a member, and Rocio is an investigator.  They need to get married, but Jose is having trouble finalizing his divorce with another woman.  We went to visit them with several missionaries (a new program we´re using in the zone) and talked about their situation.  They´ve been struggling for about five years with the divorce problem.  Turns out they can get married when the divorce gets validated, but first they have to pay a deposit to the lawyer.  So we talked about doing some kind of fundraiser to help.  They´re good with the idea, so now we just have to put it into action.  It´s time for the both of them to progress.  We also had the help of Tasca, a returned

sister missionary from Canada.  Had to do a bit of translation, but she was a great help.  Interesting how many people you run into here.  There are a lot of people involved in something called OSO, which is some orphanage program they do here.  A few weeks ago I ran into some people from Bountiful.  Did I mention that?  Pretty interesting seeing all the people who come here to visit.  Most of them are German tourists, so they´re the only people I can´t understand at all!   

The work is going well.  Once we start teaching and fellowshipping the investigators, they tend to be pretty firm.  The challenge is getting them up to that point!   

I think this email was much better, don´t you?  Now I expect a good email in return!  I know you´ll send a great one!  Just one rule... we´re going to ban soccer camps as an email subject.  Sound good?  Talk to you later! 

Love, 

Elder Wallace

Shakira's baptism.

Our zone.

Jose and Delia's baptism.

Rapido!

I know this is short, but we ran out of time today!  We made cuy as a zone!  We bought them live and watched a sister in our ward kill them!  Then we ate them!  Quite tasty.  Tough skin though.  We´re still in our normal routine of finding and helping to progress.  We also went to a little fair that is here.  Bumper cars and one of those swinging boat rides.  Nice to wind down!  

Talk more next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

We Baptized Shakira!

No seriously, that´s her name!  The first nine year-old I´ve baptized in several months, but still good!  We´re working with several others here, who need a lot of support!

First of all, we have José and Delia Aguilar.  They´re a young couple in their early twenties.  Delia´s brother is a member, and he´s been helping us.  Our only challenge is that José is pretty shy and needs a lot of support.  We´ll be working with him though.

Our other progressing investigator is Olga.  She´s about 30, and has two little girls.  She wants to get baptized, but she works for an old lady who is completly against it.  In reality, she´s more of a slave than an employee.  It´s tough because without work, she won´t be able to support her kids.  So we´re going to see if any of the members need someone to work for them.

Good to hear about the happenings in Roosevelt.  Sounds like lots of soccer and fairs.  Let me know how it goes when school starts!  As for the picking me up, I still think I have plenty of time left!  But still, I think it would be permitted.  One of the elders from Guaranda is getting picked up by his mom.  You could ask about it if you´d like.

Love,

Elder Wallace

Otavalo

How´s it going?

I´ve been transferred!  Like I said before, I´m in Otavalo.  It´s a pretty place, we went up to a waterfall called Peguche today.  The members are really great, and the church is a lot bigger here!  When I arrived I was told that I was only allowed to baptize the indigenous people here.  I thought to myself, ´wow, that´s pretty racist´.  But I discovered why yesterday morning.  The sacrament meetings are in Quichua!  I didn´t understand a thing!  So the ward mission leader said he would help teach me if I teach him English.  So we´ll have to see how that goes.  

We have a lot of potential here as far as baptisms.  If all goes as planned, we should finish the month with 6 or more.  Pretty much everyone has a ponytail, and everybody´s involved in some kind of artisanship.  They get pretty wealthy doing it too!

Well here are some pictures, if I can get them on here!  Enjoy!

I'm Alive!

Hey mom!

Just writing to tell you that I´m okay! We had tranfers today, and I´m in Otavalo now! My companion is Elder Marquez from La Paz, Bolivia. We have an indigenous ward, so it should be interesting! I met our bishop and our stake president yesterday. They both have some pretty long ponytails going on! I will talk more next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

P.S. Please don´t email the mission offices or all the senior missionaries will chew me out again.

Otavalo

Apurado!

Hey Everybody!

I apologize in advance, we travelled today to play soccer with another zone, so I´m short on time again!  I´m here with Elder Hakes, one of the zone leaders, because he´s going to interview more of our investigators!  Also going to help me with a big family that the other missionaries are teaching.

This week Maria Elena got baptized.  She´s Consuelo´s older sister (see previous emails!).  She is doing really well now, and we had to wait a little longer because of the interviews, stuff like that.  But it all turned out well.  She´s a manager at one of the grocery stores here in Guaranda, so we had quite a few of her fellow employees attending the baptism!  Some of them in uniform.  Ha!  It went well though, besides the fact that somebody disconnected the water heater and the font was cold!  Elder Cruz was telling me how cold the water was as we filled the font, when Maria Elena called me and said she wanted Elder Cruz to baptize her!  He was happy to do the baptism, not too thrilled about the cold water!  All went well though.

My pictures didn´t turn out too well, so I´ll be sending some next week!  We did get to know the new mission president.  He was working in the area offices before in Peru.  He´s a nice guy, so is his wife.  We got interviewed by them both, and they´re really great.  They´re from California, several children, he´s really tall, etc. 

More updates next week!  Off to get some interviews done!  See ya!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Another Good Week!

Buenas Tardes!

Well, I really don´t have much to say this week! We had a baptism, her name is Maira. A kid named ´Whimper´ got baptized as well (from the branch). I asked his mom if she knew what ´Whimper´ meant in English. She does!

We´ve just been spending a lot of time looking for new people. It´s working! Hopefully I´ll be able to send a few more pictures! In the pictures we have Maira and Whimper, with a few other members and investigators. Also one of me playing around with one of those big truck horns with the Ramos family. They´re pretty great. We get lots of referrals from them. I like Brother Ramos´ conversion story as well. He was actually studying to be a Catholic priest, but he read ´unauthorized´ parts of the Bible and got excommunicated! Pretty funny. Everyone has their story, don´t they?

Hope all is well! I´ll write more when I have some more interesting stories!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Explanations

Hey Everyone!

We had a great week this week!  Five baptisms in the district!  The other elders baptized the Saltos family, and Elder Cruz and I baptized Consuelo.  Both have great stories behind them, so I´ll tell you a bit.

A couple of months ago, I was on splits with one of our zone leaders.  We´d just finished a baptism, and we still had about 15 minutes before it was time to be in the house.  So we decided to get hot dogs!  At the hot dog stand we met a lady named Lucy, who was with her two kids buying hot dogs.  So we started talking to her and I took down her name and address so we could visit her.  She lives in the other elders´ area, so I gave them the referral.  Turns out her husband was trying to get closer to God, and was really receptive to the visits of the missionaries.  It all turned out well in the end!  I also got to baptize the son.  The four of them are Remigio (the dad), Lucy, Alicia, and Mustafá (that was a fun name to remember!)

Consuelo was a referral from one of our members.  She´d been through a lot on life and accepted a baptismal date right off the bat.  She was going to be baptized this coming Saturday, but she told me about five days ago, ´´Elder Wallace, why did you put my baptismal date so far away?  I want to get baptized now!´´  To tell you the truth that kind of took me by surprise, because that is really NOT something you usually hear from investigators!  So we rushed one of our zone leaders out to Guaranda and she was baptized this last weekend!  I got to baptize her as well.  

The rest of the pictures are from a presentation that we did in one of the parks in Riobamba (two hours away from my area, but it was still fun).  Also of some of the food we like to make on P-days.  So that´s it for now!  Hope everyone is well, and I´ll talk to you next week!

The church is true!

Elder Wallace