From Elder Thurber's Blog

District meeting this last thursday went really well.
There was a strong spirit as we talked about what we needed to do better. What
we were failing at with a district. Elder Wallace has really impressed me. On
divisions with him on tuesday we talked a lot about contacting more. I pressed
upon him a promise that Presidente Hinckley gave. That if we talk to 20 people
a day the number of our baptisms will double. Elder Wallace took this very
seriously and came up with 118 contacts this last week! He has an amazing
willingness to work and I am truly blessed to have him in my district.

     Tuesday was my first division and first interview.
Elder Wallace is a great missionary and we spent a good day together visiting
all of his investigators. I also was able to interview two little girls who got
baptized this last week. It was amazing to see how they open up. They had been
taught well and were more than ready. What an amazing experience it is to
interview. I am looking forward to be able to do it more. Our mission president
always relates stories to interviews he has had. Now I see why. 

Feliz Navidad...Well Almost...

Some photos of the baptism we had the other week, the national census (cops everywhere!), and some of the little critters that hang around in our new apartments (I prefer them over the roaches any day!).


Buenas Tardes!

So how about that Christmas devotional?  It was pretty awesome I must say!  I was just grateful to be able to watch it in English!  That backdrop they used kind of hurt my eyes though!  I kind of felt like I was watching Jay Leno or something like that.  I really enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf´s talk.  Silly little Whos.  Great message to think about.

This week´s big goal for me and Elder Diaz...  contacting tons of people!  I was looking through the area book and discovered that the past missionaries have been visiting the same few people for about a year, with nearly nothing to show for it.  So we´ve been searching people from every mountain, and from every hill, and from out of the holes of the rocks (scripture mastery!).  It´s starting to pay off!  We even had a man accept a baptismal date on the first visit!  Still a lot to do though.  We´ll see how it all goes.

Well this week has been a bit of a transition period, so no big stories this time.  Oh wait, I lied.  I´ll tell you about the old guy that we have to run from!  He keeps trying to ask us for money!  The first time we had nothing with us.  The second time I gave him a quarter so he could ´go to the market´.  The third and fourth times I decided that he´s just trying to take advantage of us.  And he keeps following us every time he sees us!  It would freak me out so much if he didn´t carry a big huge knife in his belt.  Hopefully he won´t cause us any trouble.  We have to move quick though!  No near-death experiences have occurred as of yet.  I pray that it stays that way!

How about some photos?  I´ll see what I can do about that.  Take care!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Here Comes December!

Buenas tardes!!!!!

Another week in Regocijo.  And it´s been great!  We´re completely
moved in to our new apartment and are having a great time!  Running
water all day everyday!  Lots of space to move around as well!  We are
living the life.

The investigators are doing super!  We now have nine people who have
accepted baptismal dates for the month of December!  Now the trick
will be getting them to keep progressing up to the actual event.  The
national census didn´t really help us make progress, but we survived.
At least we didn´t have to spend it in our old apartment.  I finished
the Book of Mormon again as well!  That makes twice in the mission so
far.  It really does strengthen one spiritually.

So now we just have to work hard with everyone who has a baptismal
date.  No real problems right now.  Just annoying people who keep
asking me for money because I think I´m rich.  Quite the contrary,
which ends up to be disappointing for them!  We also are a bit on the
edge because our mission ends up with lots of ´emergency transfers´,
where missionaries get changed around during the transfer itself.
It´s a bit stressful, but I guess it´s good motivation to always keep
my things in order so I can pack quickly!

That´s all!  The sunroom pictures are great!  I remember when that
place had a cement floor and I would ride my bike around in it!  Crazy
to think how different things already are.  Well take care everyone!
Glad to hear you´re doing well.

Haaaave a good one!

Love,

Elder Wallace







Thanksgiving... I ate a really big lunch... fish, rice, and
bananas....  and we had a district meeting.  That´s the gist of it.
Hope all went well with all of you!

Love,

Spencer

Transfers!

Buenas Tardes from Esmeraldas!

 

Transfers today!  We lucked out and nobody in our district has to go anywhere.  I kind of like it better that way.  Less packing and freaking out about where everyone is going.  Also no need to spend any money.  So ready for this week´s news?  You sure?  Ok!

 

So we have had a lot of zone activities this week.  The first one is called an ´invasion´.  Always fun.  We all went to the area where the sister missionaries work and contacted everyone we could in the space of two hours.  Elder Diaz and I had a pretty great experience, a lady let us in and told us that her oldest son had died.  Then she said her deepest desire was to see her son again.  Of course we were all over that and explained everything to her, that it will be possible.  That helped me remember why I´m here.  I´m also greatful we had that experience because we kept running into JW´s for the rest of the morning.  That always worries me because Elder Diaz is very persistent, which is good thing unless we meet a contentious person.  Luckily we prevented any bashing and made it back safely!  

 

The second activity that we did yesterday was a presentation in the central park.  We set up placards (I had to look that up, so sorry if it´s wrong!) with questions and pictures about various gospel topics.  Then we tried to get as many references as possible.  That went rather well because lots of people go to the park Sundays.  The only opposition we had was a little boy who kept throwing crabs at us.  Odd little child.  Who throws crabs at random people at the park?  Still a lot of things I don´t understand about the people!

 

Yesterday we had ten investigators show up to church!  In our tiny ward, that was a pretty big deal.  We´re teaching a lady named Martha, along with her kids and some of her grandchildren.  She´s very receptive and has accepted a baptismal date in December!  A major obstacle here with baptisms is that the people don´t get married.  But Martha is married!  The other major obstacle is that the men here are pretty abusive and like to dominate over their ´wives´ (at least that´s what they would be if they would marry them).  We got super lucky this time!  Turns out Martha dominates over her husband.  Good deal.  It felt great marching into the chapel with a big ol´ parade of investigators!

 

As for the house... the member who was going to help us move had a problem - his truck broke down!  We could move some things, but I´m loathe to move into the new apartment without a fridge!  Hopefully by the end of the week.  There´s a national census this Sunday and I don´t want to spend the whole day in our current appartment!

 

So there you have it.  The story of this week.  I will be here in Regocijo for Christmas!  (I hope!).  I will try to send some photos if I can.  And if I don´t forget my camera.  And if the computers here will recognize the format.  I think it will be good though.  So take care everyone, and talk to you next week!

 

Chao!

 

Elder Wallace

Time to Move!

Hey everybody, how´s the week been?  I´ve heard lots of Magic Mountain and a lot of throwing up as well. Hope everybody´s feeling better!

The good news of the week:  We´re getting a new apartment!!!!  I haven´t sent pictures of the one we´re in now, but it´s pretty run-down.  Not too spacious either.  We´ve also been having trouble with the water.  The neighbors keep turning the valve off because the tanks are leaking and they blame us.  They also have a little dog that barked for hours in the middle of the night.  I went out with a broom at three in the morning and taught it a lesson.  Now it runs away yelping every time it sees me and the owners are getting suspicious.  Yep, it´s definitely time to move!  We had the senior missionaries who look at houses come and check out the old apartment, then the new.  Elder and Sister Geldmacher are still pretty new and don´t speak spanish, so I got to play translator for half an hour while we filled out contracts.  That sure gave me a headache!  But it´s all good now, and we´re excited to move!

Investigators are doing well... they´re really easy to pick up here, but not too good at progressing.  A lot of discernement has to be used as far as which ones to keep and which to drop.  We found a neighborhood this week with lots of receptive people, so we´re excited for that.  We just have to do a lot of work with the ward because the people need strengthening.  Our elder´s quorum class this week consisted of the president, the teacher, and the missionaries.  A lot of good people here though.  I have learned a lot too.  The bad days are a good opportunity to step back and evaluate yourself to see what you´re lacking.  We´re almost done with the transfer, so it will be interesting to see what happens.  I think both of us will be staying for this transfer.  But if I don´t get a chance to write next week, it´s because I´m getting sent somewhere far!  

That´s all for now, so take care everyone!  I have to go fax some paperwork so we can move into our NEW APARTMENT!!!

Love,

Elder Wallace

24 Hours in the Hospital!

Hey Everyone!

My letter this week is going to be brief because I´m short on time!  It´s been crazy because I´ve been in the hospital all of yesterday afternoon and all of this morning.  I had to stay there overnight as well.  But I got to leave around 3 this afternoon and things have been going pretty well.

As for my health, I´m doing great, seeing as I was not the one being hospitalized!  We had to send all of the new missionaries to Quito to get legalized in the country, so I went with Elder Segura, my district leader.  He´s from Costa Rica and is also training a new missionary, so I went on divisions with him.  He wasn´t feeling too well, so he went and rested for a while.  But then he got a really bad fever and could barely even walk, so we called his bishop and took him to the hospital.  And there I was with him for 24 hours!  Extremely boring, since he slept all day.  Luckily I brought my mini Book of Mormon with me, so I had something to do for all that time.  At 9 pm his bishop came and brought us food, which I was REALLY grateful for, seeing as it was the first Sunday of the month!  I got lucky when they released the guy in the bed next to Elder Segura and told me I could sleep there.  I did NOT want to spend the night in a hard plastic chair!  I was kind of worried about nurses bursting into the room all night long, but the night passed incident-free.  Now I´m with another elder, and we´re writing frantically before we have to go back to the hospital (ick!)  But all is going well and we are finding lots of receptive people.  A lot of mean people as well, I had a guy spit at me the other day as well as another try to hit me with a rock from on top of a hill.  Other than that, we´re getting accepted quite nicely.  Good to hear about everyone´s birthdays, and about all the family trips.  Hope all goes well!  As for questions that I´ve received... we have a little electric piano for sacrament meeting, I only get to play it once a week, but it´s better than nothing.  Also, the dialect is a bit different around here.  The people are a bit more sloppy with their Spanish.  And they talk fast.  I´ve learned a lot of new words, some of which I wish I didn´t know.  But hey, what can you do?  But anyway, that´s all the time I have, so I´ll talk to you all next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

It's November Already?!?

Buenas Tardes from Ecuador!

It´s kind of hard to believe that we´re already getting into November!  Happy birthday this week to Jessica, Tanner and Aaron!  I´m going to miss the crazy birthday week.  I hope that all went well with Halloween and all that.  Those martian costumes look pretty wild.  If I was a little kid I probably would have cried too!  haha.  I´m glad you all had a great time.  Halloween is a bit different here.  Mostly just a lot of partying, drinking, etc.  Made it pretty hard to visit anybody in the evening, although it´s been nice and quiet all day because everybody is either on vacation or sleeping off the ´party´ from last night.  I don´t really mind.

We did a lot of cleaning today.  Mostly because our power has been out for the last week and we had to throw out a bunch of stuff from the fridge.  Nasty business.  So we headed down to the power company to see what was up, but it was closed!  Everybody is going to be on vacation until Thursday!  You wouldn´t believe how not having a functional fridge limits your food options!  We´re trying to get out of our current apartment as soon as we can.  Luckily we don´t have to spend too much time there.  Reguardless, the work goes on!

Things have been going great as far as working with the members!  They really help a lot, the only drawback is that sometimes they like to talk a little too much.  We´re starting to catch on to which ones are good for lessons and which ones are not.  We met a military officer the other day who was taking a vacation.  He was pretty scary looking, but it turns out that he has a lot of faith in God.  He told us how he was in a vegetative state for weeks, but later recovered.  Some pretty wild stories around here!  Our Elders´ Quorum president apparently got kidnapped several months ago for a day or two and beaten on pretty badly.  He escaped to a friend´s house with his arms tied behind his back.  Kind of makes me grateful to be from Utah!  Nobody has tried to beat us up yet.  We get shouted at from time to time, mostly teenagers who think they know English.  I´m just glad that there are people who are willing to listen.  A lot of good people here, it´s just that they´re usually the ones that stay in their houses!  Lots of contacting.  Always the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The good is that we found three different houses where the people accepted a visit!  The bad is that we got a bit of rejection, but that´s to be expected.  The ugly is that we almost contacted a house of prostitution.  Luckily I saw the sign on the door just in time.  Maybe I should have left them a chastity pamphlet? 

Anyway, that´s this week in a nutshell!  Our success with some of our new families, the trials of a run-down apartment, and the ups and downs of street contacts!  Thank you for your emails, and see you all next week!  Pictures are on the way if this computer will recognize them! 

Love,

Elder Wallace

Espero que haya photos!

The baptisms of Ruth and Janise (the Ortiz family).

The view from the top of the hill in my area.

Me, Elder Diaz, Elder Hendrickson, Elder Sanchez.

Me flying!