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