What More Can I Say?

So the Christmas season has ended...  I think it went well, considering all the drinking and idol worship going on... haha.  We had a great time though, and the Morales family went to church again.  They are getting their identification all worked out so we can help them get married!  The only difficutly is that the government has changed the price of getting married a little bit.  Just a little.  From six dollars all the way to 50.  Yikes!  We will see what we can do about that.

Apart from that, we're just working normally.  We're making arrangements to have a ward activity every Saturday, starting on the 7th.  We should get the ward more unified that way, and hopefully more referrals.  I enjoyed talking yeterday!!!  Tonight I have a meeting at the mission president´s house.  For the missionaries in my group.  I guess some kind of way to keep us pumped up all the way to the end!  

That`s all for now.  I`m out, and wishing all a Merry Christmas, Kwanza, Boxing Day, and whatever other holiday you all sent me!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Mi 2da Navidad!

Merry Christmas in advance to everyone!

This week has been an interesting one.  We´ve been working with a lot of people, although it´s been a bit tricky during this time of year.  Almost everybody attends what is called the ´´Novena´´ which is basically a countdown that starts nine days before Christmas, if I understand correctly.  It basically means going to mass every night and praying to the ´´Niño Divino´´.  Kind of hard to catch people at night because of that.  We´re working on it though.  

We´re doing a good job with the members though.  We´re getting more referrals from them, and they´re getting more excited.  Yesterday our mission leader called me an hour before church to tell me I had a talk.  I was good with an hour´s notice, considering that the branch president in Ibarra gave me ten minutes´ notice.  Of course it was about the mission work.  It must have been an awesome talk because right when I was getting started, a big parade marched right past the chapel.  Virgin statues, fireworks, and all!  Most certainly inspired of the adversary!  haha.  But we´re looking forward to a good Christmas this year.  Sister Castro invited us for Christmas dinner, and on Wednesday we have dinner at the mission president´s house.  We´ll just hope my comp doesn´t miss his mom too much, seeing how it is only his first Christmas, in his first six months!  haha.  It should go really well though.

Yesterday we went caroling as a zone to all the people who are getting ready to be baptized.  We were in the areas of Elder Diaz and also of the sisters, who are all expecting baptisms this next week.  We´re working on a few here in Conocoto.  Nothing terribly solid yet, so we might see some surprises!  Hopefully!  

So we decided that we will be calling at about noon, which would be 10 am your time.  Does that work?  Just let me know so that I can plan it well!  Talk to you on Sunday!

Love,

Elder Wallace  

Ward Activities

So this week we had our first ward activity in forever!  Actually it was just a simple movie night, we put on WALL-E and served popcorn with soda.  An inexpensive activity, but a good one to get things going here!  We had two of our investigator families there, which was good because we want to get them familiar with the chapel.  We talked to the bishop about starting to do a small family night every Saturday night at the church, and he agreed.  We´re starting it in January because the end of December tends to be pretty hectic.  We have a ward Christmas program coming up on the 23rd, so we're preparing for that and inviting people to come!  

With the investigators, things are going really well!  The M family came to church yesterday on their own! It was exciting for me because usually the people who say that they´ll come have some mysterious ´´difficulty´´ which prevents them from ever arriving!  But they came.  And stayed for sunday school.  I was happy.  We also are working with one of our members´ husbands who has been going to church for quite some time.  He seems to have a drinking problem, but being in Guaranda for six months has given me experience with alcoholics.  We just have to be sure not to underestimate his addiction, because it is usually something very strong.  We're going to help him though.

As far as the rest of the work, it hasn't been easy here, but we´re seeing lots of blessings.  It just depends on my diligence!  I´m happy that Elder Sotomayor came to the zone last week because now I´m not the oldest one anymore!  When people ask me how much time I have, I respond, ´´a little more than a year´´.  I also hid my calendars in my suitcase!  I´ve been working on getting referrals from the members because it´s a more effective way to work.  We got six yesterday, including a family of five.  Sure beats door-knocking.  I realize now that it´s kind of a last resort.  We have been having success just chasing down families in the street.  We do a lap or two around the center of town, and usually manage to chase down two or three families.  I´m grateful for the narrow sidewalks here.  Makes it easier to corner the people.  I don't think we scare them too badly!  Besides that, we have been having a lot of support from our mission leader and the other returned missionaries in the ward.  We´re lucky to have them!  

As for the trip... let me see.  Personally, I would really like to go to church in Guaranda, if that would be possible.  Kind of far from Otavalo though.  Do you want to go to the market?  It´s pretty hectic, and for me it´s just a bunch of overpriced tourist stuff.  But if you would like to go Saturday that would be fine.  I want to talk to my old ward mission leader there and see if he would have some free time on that day.  Can you think of some things to do in Esmeraldas?  I don´t really know of many activities there because we just played soccer every single Monday.  Maybe you could look into that.  Also, the first card you send came.  About a month and a half late, but it came.  So I´ll just hang on to the old one and we´ll figure out what to do when the new one comes!  That should work out well.  So that´s all for now!  I hope that everything is going well, that the leg is healing the members are working, and that everybody is healthy and happy!  Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Safe!

Well I got lucky this time!  No transfers for me!  Elder Housley is staying here too, so we´re excited that we´re going to be here for Christmas.

This week we´ve been busy looking for people.  Lately our tactic has been chasing down families in the street, and it´s worked pretty well so far.  The zone has been having some challenges, mostly with missionaries who don´t want to be obedient.  My comp and I were among the only 3 companionships that didn´t have to go get interviewed by the mission president.  Now the zone is receiving a whole bunch of new missionaries.  Among them is Elder Diaz, my companion in Esmeraldas!  It will be good to work with him again because he will be in my district.  We´re actually writing outside of the terminal right now because we have to wait for him to arrive.  It feels kind of strange that now there is only one more group older than mine.  On the 26th we have a meeting with President Ghent, I think to help us end well and not just bum around!  We´re working hard here in Conocoto, this Friday we have a movie night at the church, with popcorn, soda, the whole works.  The only rule is that to come, the members have to bring their nonmenber friends.  We´re hoping for a big turnout so that we can find a lot of new people to teach. 

Right now we´re getting some more investigators who are really good.  I´ll tell you about some of them.  The Morales family is a couple, Diego and Anita, who have two daughters.  They have a lot of interest in what we teach and have been starting to participate in the activities that we have.  They just need to get married.  Once they do that, they will be able to be baptized quite easily.  Janet Chamba is a lady who has a salon close to our house.  She was a referral from a member of another ward, and has been evangelical for a few years, although she doesn´t go anymore.  She likes what we teach because it is meant to help the family, and she is having trouble with one of her teenage sons.  Finally, we have Susana Vargas, who is an old friend of some of our members.  She´s been to church several times but hasn´t been baptized because she still has a few misunderstandings about what she can and cannot do after baptism (i.e. not being about to attend funerals, weddings at other churches).  We´ve been working to clear that up and are hoping to put a baptismal date with her very soon.  They´re all great people, and we´re glad we found them.  

Apart from that, we´ve been working and having a good time here.  We´re very excited for Christmas.  I did like the Christmas devotional, we were able to see it last night.  Apart from that, on the 25th I will be able to call.  Sometime in the afternoon, after church.  When would be best?  Let me know.

Love,

Elder Wallace

Mission Accomplished! Well, This One Anyway...

Well, it was a great week!  David got baptized!

Also learned some interesting things about the baptismal font here.  Like how the water heater doesn´t work too well. And how the water comes out yellow (good thing Elder Housley was the one getting in there!).  The baptism went pretty well though.  David was kind of nervous, but he´s doing great now!  He knew it was the right thing to do and now he is very happy for having done it.  Now we´re focusing on the Morales family, one that we found a couple of weeks ago.  The dad is very interested in what we share, and he really liked the Book of Mormon when we gave it to him.  We´re going to visit them tonight with Bishop Catucuago and his wife.  Apart from them, we´re working with Sister Castro and her husband.  Sister Castro is from Manabi (the coast) and happens to be our star mamita of the week.  She cooks so well!  Her husband is not a member, despite having known the church for some time and for being such a good guy.  We found out last night that he has seen some bad examples on part of the members, and is afraid of not being able to set a good example once he is baptized.  So we´re working with him.  Hopefully I will stay here for the rest of my mission to be able to see how he progresses.  

Thanksgiving was good. (Also send Alexis my slightly-belated birthday wishes before she leaves!)  It rained a lot, we knocked on lots of doors, and we also took an hour to have dinner!  With our limited resources and lack of eloquent cooking skills, we decided to have pancakes with kool-aid.  Also sliced bananas, wafer cookies, and oreos.  Not exactly traditional, but it filled me up for the moment!  I think we might see if we can arrange Christmas dinner with a member.  Who knows... this week we have transfers, so we´ll see what happens.  I just hope I don´t get changed again!  Kind of tiring.  I spend the first 17 months of the mission in 3 different cities, then the next 4 1/2 months in 3 more.  Interesting how that happens.  We shall see though!  I guess I had better talk to Elder Whitlock about van drivers.  Or I could just not send David´s baptismal record so that he´ll call me asking for it!  Maybe that´s not such a good idea.  Either way, thank you for writing me, and talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace

Thanksgiving Week!

Happy Thanksgiving in advance!  I hope it all goes well!

This week has been much better for us here in Conocoto.  We are working this week on baptizing David Calderón.  He´s 30 years old and lives with his grandma and his sister.  He already knows a lot about the church because his sister Paola served a mission in Kentucky.  All he lacks is making the decision!  He knows it´s all true, he´s just kind of nervous about trials and difficulties.  He´s really great though, and he´s getting more bold in his decision.  This week, he´s our main focus.  

The rest of my time this week has been largely dedicated to doing baptismal interviews and helping the other missionaries out with their investigators.  We´re also working to gain more confidence from the members.  Our ward mission leader is good, he gave a talk yesterday which was kind of boring until he started to go on about how the members need to do more and invite their friends to hear the missionaries.  He scored points with us, giving that talk!  We´re also planning a big movie night at the church for the 9th, which we hope gives the members an easy opportunity to invite their nonmember friends.  I liked when the bishop´s counselor announced, ´´the purpose of this activity is not for us to just party, but to bring all of our nonmember friends so that they can get to know the missionaries´´.  Glad he understood it so clearly.  The rest of our time is spent searching, searching, searching for new people.  Last Tuesday we decided to go out to the ward limits to a community we´d never been to in order to search for people.  A very filthy rich community.  And a very bad idea.  I guess they deserve their chance as well.  Not terribly time-efficient though.  

We´ve been working a lot with the pre-missionaries as well as the returned missionaries.  We get the most support from them.  The most supportive is Nefi, who got back from his mission about 3 years ago.  He´s really great and we learn a lot from him.  He´s also helped us out a lot with David.  The ward is a lot better than I thought when I barely got here!  I guess it´s just what you make it.  We´re working to make it great!  The district is baptizing, and I got to baptize one of the sisters´ investigators this last Saturday!  (I´ll work on getting a picture of it to send!)  I just barely unpacked my camera so there should be more pictures coming your way!  I´ll send some next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace      

Conocoto

Well here we are again!

Conocoto is kind of off to the side of Quito.  It takes us about 30 minutes to get to the main city.  We went there this last Friday to listen to one of the seventy, Elder Uceda.  He was a great speaker, and we learned a lot from him.  I was even one of the missionaries that he interviewed!  A very short and simple interview, but powerfull.  He counseled us all to work more effectively with the members.  Brother Rivera, the high council member in charge of the mission work, talked with us yesterday and told us of his plan to whip all the members of the ward into shape and get them working.  Needless to say, I was happy to speak with him, and I´m glad we have leader support here.  

This week we´ve been getting to know this area!  My companion, Elder Housley, has only been in the area for two weeks, and has only been in the mission for two months.  He´s from Draper, and we´ve been getting along great!  He likes to sing, so we´ve been singing to people at their doors to get them to accept us!  It´s worked pretty well so far.  It´s still a little early in the work for any stories, so it´s going to be short this week.  Sorry!  

In the meantime, I´m just working, hoping for a package (and that it didn´t get lost), and finishing strong.  More stories and pictures to follow next week!

Love,

Elder Wallace