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!

Week #...Well Actually I've Lost Track!

Buenas tardes from Esmeraldas!

It´s been a great week! We had two baptisms this Saturday! Their names are Ruth and Jerelyn, two sisters. It felt good to finally have some results of our work! Now we just need their parents and their older cousin to all get married so that they can be baptized too. Which makes like... 5 different couples that we´re teaching who need to get married. That´s life on the coast!

What to talk about this week... we´re teaching this young couple, Daniel and Karen. They´re pretty great. They´ve come a really long way since we started teaching them. In fact the only thing they lack is... you guessed it... getting married. You know that scripture in 2 Nephi 31 that mentions something about following Christ with full purpose of heart? I think that describes them very well. We also are teaching a lady named Julieth, from Columbia. She finally prayed on her own the other day!!! I was SUPER happy that day! I´m glad to have all of them to teach. It´s such a relief teaching them because we´ve been running into lots of excuses with everyone we talk to. You would be surprised how ´busy´ the people get when we come to the neighborhood. I´ll tell you about a conversation we had with an old Catholic lady the other day. Rather amusing:

Elder Wallace: So, Señora So-and-so, when can we come another time to talk more?

Lady: Well, the thing is, I´m Catholic and I can´t change religions.

Elder Diaz: That´s okay, we can share a short message with you anyway.

(At this point a look of desperation settles over the lady´s face as she realizes that her professed allegiance to the Catholic religion isn´t going to make us go away. She struggles for words as she tries to make another excuse).

Lady: Well, what happens is that sometimes I´m at home, but sometimes I´m not, because maybe my neighbors or one of my friends will ask me to come over and I´ll have to go over there and so I wouldn´t be in the house and you wouldn´t be able to come visit me because sometimes I´m not at home. And I would be lying if I said I would be at home and lying is bad.

And that´s the nature of many of our contacts. I wonder if they know how silly their excuses sound. Oh well. That´s the opposition I guess! We just move on and give others their opportunity, and eventually get accepted by a wonderful family that´s prepared to receive the gospel! That´s the great part. Elder Diaz is doing very well, and the two of us are getting a lot done. I learn from him as well because he´s had less time to forget the things that they teach in the MTC! Anyway, that´s about all. Great job to everyone in all of your sports/races/activities and whatever else you´ve been up to! I did hear about the ´death´ of Elder Law. I see we´ve already got Nate speaking in missionary slang! Ha! You wouldn´t believe what the people here pick up from the missionaries. Have to be really careful! Anyway, we´re headed out now. We´re going to meet up with Elder Hendrickson and his companion to go on a bit of a scenic hike because my area is right on the beach! I´ll try to get lots of pictures! Take care everybody!

Chao chao!

Elder Wallace

First Week With A Greenie

Buenas Tardes once again! 

 

This has been a crazy week!  I thought my last transfer as a senior companion was a bit stressful, but I had never imagined being a trainer.  I guess I´ll have a lot to learn!  Seeing as this was a very eventful week, I will give a day-by-day synopsis!

 

Monday:  I left Esmeraldas early in the morning with the other missionaries that were getting greenies and began the 7 hour bus ride to Quito.  A lot of sleeping.  We got off the bus in Quito and it was COLD!!!  Made me miss home a bit, but it was still nice to get out of the heat for a while.  We met up with some other missionaries and went to stay in their apartments for the night.

 

Tuesday:  We had our trainers´ orientation.  It was pretty large, since there are 27 new missionaries that have come!  A lot of familiar faces, missionaries that I worked with in the past months.  But not as nice as the pizza!  I really can´t remember the last time I had pizza.  It sure beats rice though!  That night I worked with the area of Oriente Quiteño, where my old zone leaders are. I just about died, my chest hurt so bad!  There´s pretty much no air up there!  The trip from sea level to 10,000 feet can be a bit tiring! 

 

Wednesday:  We went back to the chapel for the last orientation, this time with the new missionaires.  I met my new companion, Elder Diaz!  He´s from Peru.  We have been getting along great, and he is willing to work hard.  I sure got lucky!  The only part I didn´t look forward to was 7 hours back to Esmeraldas!  We finally made it home, although late at night.  Thus began my transfer as a trainer.  My trainer Elder Fuentes, as they say in the mission, has ´died´ (finished his mission and gone home).  Pretty crazy how quickly the time goes.

 

Thursday:  Weekly planning and district meetings!  Half of our zone is now made up of new missionaries.

 

Friday:  A good day working.  A lot of rejection, but we did get some baptismal dates set.  That always makes the day worth it.  The bad news is that our running water has cut out.  We´re now bathing with those big water jugs.

 

Saturday:  Regular work day, still no water.

 

Sunday:  A whole bunch of our investigators came to church today!  Even some of the inactive members decided to come today!  All I can say is that I was super happy to  see so many of them there! 

 

Monday:  Another P-day!  We´re enjoying the rest, and trying to get a hold of the landlady to find out what is wrong with the water!  We´re getting ready for a family night with some members and investigators.  I´m going to make German Pancakes!  I also learned something really important this morning that I´m going to share with all of you.  It´s in the story of Ammon and Aaron, the sons of Mosiah, and their experience with King Lamoni´s father. Ammon, after being attacked by this king, could have killed him but chooses not to.  The king pleads for his life, offering anything up to half of his kingdom.  The interesting part is when the king is speaking with Aaron, Ammon´s brother.  Aaron explains the Plan of Salvation to the king, who desires to have eternal life, or in other words, to live in the presence of God.  He says he will give up everything and abandon his kingdom to gain such a gift.  It really makes one think about how precious the gospel really is and how much we need it.  This king valued salvation more than he valued his own life.  Sometimes we take for granted what a great opportunity we have knowing what we know.  Hopefully we can all be a little more greatful for the light that we have in our lives.  

 

Anyway, that´s how my week went!  Hope all is well at home and with all the other missionaries!

 

Love,

 

Elder Wallace