Last Week of Transfers!

Hello everybody!

This is the very last week of transfers!  I don´t know whether I´ll be staying here in Chillogallo, or being sent somewhere else!  We´ll have to see.  I just hope it is somewhere up in the mountains where it isn´t so hot!  I learned that they are just getting done with ´winter´ here, so I don´t know what summer is going to be like!! 

This week has been a good one.  Things are going well with my companion and with the investigators also.  We gave the chastity lesson to the couple, and they took it very well.  I´m grateful that they have sincere desires to accept the gospel.  They´re going to try to be ready to be baptized by the end of the month!  They´re pretty great.  I went on splits with our ward mission leader, Edison, to go and visit Rosa, an investigator who is going to be baptized this saturday.  (She lives up on this really steep hill, and Edison´s a big guy, I was a bit worried about whether he would make it!)  We taught her a lot of things, but the highlight was definitely teaching about taking care of our bodies.  Mostly because when I mentioned that the women should only wear one pair of earrings, she misunderstood me and thought I meant that she could only OWN one pair of earrings!  I don´t think I´ve ever seen a more frightened face on any of our investigators!  She understood everything though!  I´ve also found out that the Fall is probably the most difficult part of the entire Plan of Salvation to explain.  A lot of misconceptions about it around here.  One lady that we visited asked us about ¨hombres monos¨  (¨monkey-men¨), but she finally understood that Adam and Eve did NOT have fur, and were just like any one of us.  Glad that got cleared up! Probably our hardest investigator is a man named Darwin.  His wife is a member, but he has doubts.  He´s very educated and asks some tough questions.  We even devoted one morning of companionship study just to prepare to teach him!  I wonder if he thinks Adam and Eve evolved from apes... (that would be ironic wouldn´t it?  Seeing as his name is Darwin...).  Anyway, lots of testimony is required!  That tends to work better than anything else.  He said if he received an answer, he would be baptized.  So now we just need him to pray for one. 

What else...?  It´s pretty much been the same routine really.  I hope all is well in Roosevelt and that have been no wind-storm casualties!  That´s one thing I don´t miss!  Way to go Tanner on the mini-marathon!  Best wishes to everyone, and talk to you all next week!

Hello Again!

This week sure has flown by!  First of all, Happy Birthday to Nate!  Hope it all went well!  Glad to hear everyone is managing just fine.  School is almost out isn´t it?  That´s pretty weird to think about, so I´m not going to.  Ha!

We baptized Nicól and Andrés this week.  Nicól on Saturday morning, which went well!  I remembered her entire name too!  It´s a bit tough here, because all the names are so long!  Saturday turned out to be an interesting day.  Some old guy was being weird on the bus, and we couldn´t figure out what his deal was.  We discovered later that he had stolen Elder Fuentes´ phone, so that kind of made things hard for the day.  When we finally got the baptism service started, Andrés was a no-show.  We couldn´t figure out what was up with that, so we just baptized Nicól and went on with the day.  Afterwards, for about 3 hours, every single one of our appointments fell through.  That was a long afternoon.  Finally, we decided to call Andrés from a phone booth, and visited him that evening.  Turns out his hard-core Catholic aunt had locked him in the house to keep him from going to his baptism!  I´ve heard of opposition when a baptismal date is set, but that´s just ridiculous!  Luckily the bishop approved us to do it Sunday afternoon, so it all worked out.  Anyway, that was my weekend.  Absolutely crazy!  I´ll send some pictures of us.  (The bishop also threw a party in his office while we were filling up the font.  I think we have the coolest bishop in Ecuador!)

We´ve been finding some more families since we just had two baptisms.  Not too difficult, plenty of great people around here.  The teaching has been getting easier, and I have been understanding more.  The only difficulty right now is that my companion wants to do the following division with the ward missionaries:  He goes and visits some active members, while I go and teach some co-habitating investigators about the law of chastity.  I´m not too keen on that, since it´s a really big deal and I still have trouble getting the full gist of the conversation.  Hopefully that all works out!  We went and played some volleyball with the members this morning.  They only have 3 players on each side, and they use a soccer ball.  A little more intense!  It was basically a big party with a lot of the ward.  They´re great. 

No strange food this week.  Just this weird drink one of the members gave us.  It just about did me in!  The headaches the next morning were pretty bad too.  Just kidding.  But really, it was not a fun walk back to the apartment!  I found pancake mix at the store today.  I´m a very happy missionary right now.  I have also discovered ´oritos´, little bananas that are really sweet tasting.  Dirt cheap too.  I´ll send a picture of them as well because they´re just that awesome. 

That´s all for now, I think!  Congrats on the scholarship Aaron!  Hope that went well.  The food was fabulous if I remember correctly.  Hopefully the speeches weren´t as long and as boring as they were three years ago!  Everybody take care!

Love,
Spencer

It's Been a Month!

Hey everyone! 

 

I have now been in Ecuador for about a month now!  It´s been a pretty great week, mostly because I have the whole routine down pretty well!

 

Investigators...  We challenged a couple, Sixto and Janet Lopez, to prepare to be baptized on June 12!  They´re great.  We taught them about sacrifice and how it is necessary to living the way that Christ would have us live.  Elder Fuentes told the story about the rich ruler who didn´t want to give up his posessions.  Sixto got a little confused, but I managed to explain to him that we don´t have to sell everything we have, we just have to be willing to put Christ first in our lives and not love anything else more.  Andrés and Nicól are going to be baptized this Saturday!  They´re both doing well.  Andrés is going into the millitary a week later, so we´re making sure that we can have someone keeping contact.  There are always trials once a baptismal date is set, but it is worth it in the end. 

 

Got a bit of bug on Friday, but I think I´m finally over it now.  Makes things a bit inconvenient.  And dad, thank you for the cipro!  It worked the best I think.  Pepto-bismol runs out too fast, and coke makes my companion think that I´ve apostatized.  But yeah, it´s all good now.  I think I´ve had more varieties of fruity drinks than I´ve ever had in my entire life!  I like the mango-y ones the best.  Chicken feet in my soup has become the norm.  I don´t even really think about it anymore.  I actually got a chicken head in one bowl. 

 

We went down to the mission offices today.  I´m so grateful that my area is higher up in the mountains, because it was HOT!!!  Probably the most interesting part of the day was when our zone leaders called us and told us that Peru had shot a missile into Ecuador.  A lot of hype about that throughout the whole mission.  Turns out it was only a threat, nothing more.  At least I hope it´s nothing more!  It was intersting at the offices.  Met a lot of other missionaries.  Things are going well.  Some lady tried to show us ´seven contradictions between the bible and the book of mormon.´  Turned out to be a bunch of half-hearted complaints put together by a bunch of ´religion professors´ who obviously have never read the book of mormon.  Their doctrine would make life very convenient, but it´s still false (too bad for them).  That´s probably about the only opposition from others that we´ve had.  Just remember how lucky we are to have the truth in our lives!  That´s all for now!  Pasen bien!

 

Love, 

Spencer 

With Elder & Sister Sloan in Quito April 19th

A group of wonderful new missionaries have arrived. Here we are at the Panecillo from where we have a beautiful view of city of Quito and surrounding mountians. L to R, Elder Alacorn (Ecuador), Elder Keeling (USA), Elder
Whitlock (USA), Elder Kearns (USA), Elder Cauhauna (Ecuador), Elder Brailsford (USA), Tim and Cindy, Sister Cooper (USA), Sister Menchú (Guatemala), Sister Groesbeck, our fantastic nurse, Elder Buckland (USA), Elder Wallace (USA), Elder Matagi (USA) and Elder Hendrickson (USA).

¡Hola Familia!

Things are going pretty well here!  I´ve learned a lot more Spanish and killed the fleas! (My bed smells like a giant can of mosquito repellent, but it was worth it).  We´ve been picking up new investigators pretty constantly, and the ones we have are for the most part progressing nicely.  We have two baptisms in two weeks, one of which I will be doing!  Good thing I memorized the prayer while I was in the MTC! 

The chicken feet soup didn´t really bother me.  It´s actually rather tasty.  Maybe I´ll make all my chicken soup like that when I get home (maybe not, since finding chicken feet would be a challenging task in the states!).  My policy with foods that I don´t recognize is this: don´t examine it or ask any questions, just eat it.  It´s worked for me quite nicely.  We´ve had some interesting drinks, usually with a really tomato-like or strong citrus taste.  Most are really good.  Some have been not so much to my liking, but I get around that by just chugging it while nobody´s looking.  Most effective.

Thanks for all the advice on keeping the Spirit and on working hard!  It helps a lot.  Time has really started to fly here, since Tuesday-Saturday feels like one big day.  I´m able to teach more and more, and the people are actually understanding most of what I say!  I´m still working on getting to know all the streets and areas, but that is coming along nicely.  Since yesterday we had our phone call, there´s not much else for me to say!  Hope everything continues to go well for everybody, and I will talk to you all next week!

Love,
Spencer  

The Mother's Day Call

It's Mother's Day and we just got off the phone with Elder Wallace...so great to talk to him!  He is doing well and his Spanish is coming along.  The ward mission leader's wife told him how to kill the fleas in his bed.  He found the spray she told him to use in his apartment and said his bed smells TERRIBLE now, but he's certain the fleas are all dead.  He eats lunch with members of the church every day and usually it's some kind of soup and a rice dish.  He said he has chicken parts soup a lot and the other day had a whole chicken foot in his soup, so I posted this photo taken by Elder Thomas who is in the same mission.  He says they are teaching a lot of people and have 2 baptisms coming up at the end of May.  They usually don't have to look for people to teach.  Generally they only knock doors when an appointment falls through, so that is awesome!  He says to tell everyone hi.  It sounds like he is getting mail about every week, but I think it takes a long time to get back and forth, so if you have something you want to e-mail him, you can send it to me and I'll add it on his e-mail or you can put it as a comment here and I'll forward it to him.  

2nd Week!

Hello from Ecuador!

 

The second week here has been much better, since I´m getting the hang of things!  The only obstacle I really have is the language.  I´ve talked to other missionaries and they say it´s a bit tougher for the missionaries from the states who have latino companions.  They couldn´t care less whether you have time to study spanish or not - they already know it.  Hopefully that all works out.  I can usually understand the main idea of what everybody is saying though.  

 

Things have been going well and we have several progressing investigators, two with baptismal dates.  Usually things go pretty well.  We have two kids who want to be baptized but their father won´t let them because he doesn`t like the idea of tithing.  The only other challenge was with a man named Luis who is sincerely searching for the truth and wants the Gospel in his life.  Things were going pretty well until his mother came and wanted to talk with us too.  It was just fine until she pulled out her "New World Translation."  Now he´s confused.  We weren´t terribly thrilled about that.  He´s still inviting us back though, which is good.  The other investigators are doing very well, keeping all their commitments, and wanting to change their lives.  They really make the day better.  The members are all really nice.  I bore my testimony yesterday, which is pretty unnerving in Spanish!  I also did a blessing in spanish, which wasn´t as bad since there wasn´t a really big crowd!

 

I´m still adjusting, but things are going well. If I can get rid of the rain and the fleas, things will be fabulous!  Take care everybody!

 

Love, Spencer 

Hi Spencer, 

So I'm going to type some questions and then you can reply and add the answers to them...deal?

So what is your apartment like?  Is it just you and Elder Fuentes, or are there others who live there..if so how many and where are they from?

 

It´s just me and Elder Fuentes.  It´s a good apartment, we have a kitchen at least.  We eat at our desks.  Our only two difficulties at the moment is that our water heater is broken and I´m trying to get rid of the fleas in my bed.  ("Black Walnut" does not work, by the way).  Hopefully I can get that taken care of.

You said you had a baptismal challenge...who was it to and did they accept?

 

We actually have two now.  Their names are Nicol Jara (10) and Andres Roman (18).  They both accepted. 

Do you have a mamacita?

 

No.  We do everything ourselves.  We usually eat lunch with a member.  My comp is not big on breakfast or dinner, for that matter, so I bought a big bag of oatmeal and have been eating that for breakfast and usually dinner as well.  I found a place near our house that sells eggs and other things, so my meals should improve somewhat.

Are you taking your black walnut and your vitamins every day?

 

Vitamins, yes.  Black walnut, yes.  Although I am no longer a believer in black walnut. 

Well, black walnut is actually to kill parasites, but my friend said that her son had fleas that would bury themselves in his legs and that when he took the black walnut they came out of his body...ick!!!  So did dad send you stuff to use on fleas??

Yeah, I´m going to have a permethrin party in the very near future.

Sister ***** made it sound like Ecuador is really dangerous, but I can't imagine it would be since you obviously have sister missionaries there too...I'm sure some parts are, what is your take on that?

They keep the sisters in Quito or nearby.  I´ve only heard of one or two people getting robbed.  The worst I´ve seen is a couple of drunk guys passed out in the gutter.  I´m probably in greater danger of getting hit by a bus! 

So, I mentioned that Scott is coming on the 11th or so...I've asked around and I think you should probably get permission from your mission president to have him call you or take you to dinner or whatever.  Maybe when you call for mother's day you can give me that info...or you can e-mail me so I can let Scott know.

I´ll ask.  I´m not sure how that would work out, since mondays are the only day we have even a tiny bit of time.