Exploring

Well, this week we did a lot of... exploring!  As the subject line suggests.  We figured that the places we were contacting weren`t bringing too many results, so we decided to spread out a bit. 

Needless to say, my legs are a bit sore, but we found a good family.  We divided ourselves with another companionship and started searching.  It was surprising this time because we got received by the fifth door that we knocked on.  Shocking!  We shared a bit about the family, and then we explained that there are living prophets in the world today.  The wife asked us, ´´and how can I know that that`s all true?´´  We were happy to hear that!  We have high hopes for them.  I also got a kick out of their last name, ´´Lala´´ (seriously!)

Apart from that, it`s been the normal stuff.  We had the stake president come to our ward this last Sunday, which was good because he got everybody more excited.  We`re also doing visits as a ward every fourth Sunday.  Exciting.  I´ll get to do it one more time!  But we did get a good referral from a sister that we visited.  She offered us dinner on Wednesday as well!  I knew there was a reason that we support the ward activities!  

Today we played a bit of frisbee with the other missionaries, ate some pizza, and tried a little juice shop down the street from my house.  It was tasty.  They used three grapefruits to make mine.  It was pretty powerful stuff.  I`m just hoping that I don`t end up with any undesirable after-effects.  

So........... we`re going to do an activity for the last few emails.  Send me some questions to answer.  That should help me have more to talk about.  But interesting questions!  I will find out about the van drivers.  There are also some taxi drivers that they have on the list.  I think I`m also going to look up some of the members after I get home, and we could work everything out from there.  

Love,

Elder Wallace

PS - I beat my companion at Yu-gi-oh the other day.  I feel rather nerdy.  

Stop Asking Me How Much Time I Have Left.

The first week has passed with my new companion.  Quite well, actually.  He sure likes Yu-gi-oh.  He wants to teach me to play.  I guess it would be a valuable skill for the real world.  

So everything is going pretty well, I´m just slightly tired of getting asked how much time I have left.  But apart from that, it´s been good.  The members have been giving us referrals, so we will be busy tracking all of them down this week.  We are also working on getting some more baptisms planned.  Daniela´s mom is now studying antimormon literature under the direction of her pastor, so she´s working to find out where her dad lives so he can give signed permission.  Supposedly he is living somewhere in Quito.  We´ll see how that works out.  We also have a new investigator named Lucy, who lives just down the street from us.  The only thing is that she seems to have problems with some chulqueros (people who lend money to you and then hunt you down when you don´t pay), so we may have to drop her if she doesn´t progress.  

Today we just went to the offices to get mail, did a bit of shopping, and now we´re headed back to Conocoto.  Any questions?  Not really much to report on this week, but we´ll have more very soon!  I´ll try to get some more pictures going your way.

Love,

Elder Wallace

Last Change...

Well, it´s official.  Today I received my companion who is going to ´´kill´´ me!  

That´s right.  Elder Housley has been changed.  He went to the main part of Quito, and I received Elder Montalvo from Guayaquil as my companion (it´s already been raining on us!).  It´s going to be a great transfer!  We have a lot to do, and a lot of people to get baptized!  

On Saturday E got baptized (the one in white!).  We were happy about it, but his mom and his sister were even happier (the ones off to the right).  They´ve been waiting a long time for that, and I´m glad we got the job done.  Some of our other investigators seem to be missing in action, so this week we´re going to go seek them out.  We had a couple at the baptism though.  Off to my left are F and D.  F is an inactive member who reactivated himself about a month ago.  He just showed up to church, asked us to visit him once in a while, and asked the bishop for some kind of assignment.  He´s been a great help to us lately.  D is one of our investigators whose friends invited her to church.  She´s all ready to be baptized, except her mom is very evangelical and is very much against it.  She won´t give her permission to get baptized, but that´s not too much of a problem because she turns 18 soon, so she won´t need permission.  D and S are kind of missing right now, but we´re going to find them.  

Apart from that... we had our zone conference this last week.  Good to see a lot of old friends.  I got to see both of my old greenies, who are both doing great.  A lot of missionaries are going home today, which makes my group the oldest in the mission.  It´s kind of weird, but I just try to ignore it and go about the day just like normal.  It´s been a lot of fun, and thank you everyone who sent packages this last week!  Specifically Grandma and Grandpa Dana and Sister Willis (and all the people who wrote on the pillowcase, tell Suzie Whiting that I´ll do my best to get her address circulating throughout the mission :) ).  Thanks for everything, and talk to you all next week!

Blessings!

Hey everybody!  This week went great for us!

First of all, we had ten people go to church this week!  And we have a baptism this Saturday!  His name is Erik García, and he´s 18.  He´s researched the church a lot and knows just about everything.  He had the missionaries over a couple of years ago but didn´t get baptized because he had some bad influences.  But now he´s ready and excited!  He passed his interview yesterday, so he´s good to go!  We´ve been having a lot more success this week because we´ve started a weekly ward activity night, every Saturday.  It helps because we get the chance to remind our investigators to go to church the next day, and it also gives the members a chance to invite their friends.  We shared a thought about faith, and then we played twister!  That was pretty fun!  There were no permanent injuries sustained by anyone, so we were grateful for that.  I think I´ll tell you about some of our investigators.

First we have David Freire.  He´s in the military, and we found him through his wife, who is a less active member that we talked to on the bus.  He´s really good, and he came to church on his own, with his wife and two little boys.  Just like most of Ecuador, he´s an inactive Catholic, so he´s pretty receptive.  The goal this week is to teach him and help him accept a baptismal date.  

We also have Silvana.  We found her contacting in the street.  She´s interesting because she´s studied with the JW´s for over ten years, but never got baptized.  To sum things up, she´s looking for everything that the gospel offers.  She came to church yesterday and brought her husband along!  We had our testimony meeting this Sunday, and she was very touched by the testimonies of the members.  

They are our main focus right now, along with Erik.  If you could pray for them, that would be awesome.  We´ve also got a couple of referrals coming up that we are going to teach.  But more on them next week!  Talk to you then!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Feliz Año Nuevo!

So this week... it was kind of tough!  But this next one will be much better, now that everybody is a little more calm and a little less drunk!

We spent a lot of time this week talking to people.  Just talking to lots of people.  We`re kind of in a jam as far as investigators, so it`s time to go look for a bunch of new ones!  This week we found Roberto.  It was pretty interesting.  We went to visit a less active member who lived in a big closed-gate community.  Roberto was the guard, and turned out to be a really nice guy.  We made friends with him some time ago, but yesterday we taught him for the first time.  It was hard I tell you!  Not because he`s difficult or anything like that, but because we had trouble understanding him.  He`s from Haiti, so Spanish isn`t his first language either!  The offices do have the Book of Mormon in Creole, so we gave him one.  We mostly just point out parts of the Book of Mormon and let it do most of the talking for us.  He has a lot of potential, if we can just understand what he`s saying to us!

We are also planning the big activity night that we are going to do every Saturday.  We`re going to do a spiritual thought, then a mega-game of twister!  That should be pretty interesting.  We also have some zone conferences coming up, and then transfers.  That`s about all for now.  So more to come next week, when more interesting happenings have... happened!  Take care!

Love,

Elder Wallace

P.S.  Good luck Aaron with the Evangelical lady!  I also liked Grandma Dana´s story about the first date!