Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Hey everyone, sorry I haven`t written in a while. A lot of stuff has happened like internet going out and getting an emergency change. I`m now in the southern part of Quito. My zone is called “zona chillogallo” and let me tell you things are a lot different here. I`m going to make a list of all the positive things about being in quito:

1) I get to shower with hot water

2) Its not 95 degrees everyday. Instead its usually around 70 (perfecto)

3) My apartment is 1000000000000000 times better than my apartment in esmeraldas. It has wood floors and theres no bugs or lizards or mud or dirt. Oh and it has real windows instead of just holes in the wall.

4) I don’t sweat in my sleep. It does get kinda cold over night but I have blankets so its not a huge deal

5) I have mcdonalds, KFC, Pizza hut, and many other wonderful restaurants IN MY SECTOR (that means any time we don’t have a lunch appointment with a member we get to eat wonderful American fast food)

6) There is a ridiculous amount of support from the ward here. We have appointments to go out with members almost everyday this week.

7) Everyone here speaks super clear Spanish that is super easy to understand

Other good news:

1) I have a cell phone now (now when I feel something vibrating in my pocket I know that its not just my imagination or the famous “phantom vibrate”)

2) We just found out that president sloan is going to let us watch the world cup games on Monday

3) I have a gringo companion(Elder Brailsford from Mesa Arizona)that is brand new so we get to experience all the crazy culture shocks together and make jokes about them haha

4) My companion has a guitar and we`ve been learning some hymns. (if anyone has guitar tabs for hymns I would love if you could send them to me)

Basically I like being in Quito so far. Although I was pretty sad when I left Esmeraldas because there was a family that I had been teaching for a long time that was about to get baptized and I had to leave all my hard work behind. But that’s what happens on the mission sometimes. I really wanted to be there when they got baptized but its all good. I saw miracles with that family. They went from being a completely broken family to accepting the gospel and finding joy in their lives. The dad went from being a completely drunk to a loving father. Hopefully I can have similar experiences here in my new sector. This week has been kinda hard since my companion and I are both new here so we`ve been pretty lost. We had investigators with baptismal dates but we didn`t know where they lived so we`ve been working frantically this week to try and find all the investigators and all the members who feed us lunch and stuff like that. Anyway, that’s about all I have for right now. I love you all and hope everything is going good for everyone back in the states. Until next week.