Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

August 30, 2010

Hey everyone. Let me tell you a little bit about my week. I guess i`ll start with the biggest news…. I got changed. I`m still in quito but more to the northeast than where I was at before. My zone is called “Los Chillos”. I`m a zone leader now. My companion is named Elder Archundia and he his also from mexico which is good because that means I will get to keep eating a lot of Mexican food. Elder Archundia was my zone leader for like a month in Esmeraldas and has 5 months left in his mission. Hes a cool guy so i`m excited that hes my companion. This change was kinda interesting because I knew that where I was going 2 days early. On Friday, one of the elders from my MTC district called me and said “Hey elder messer, I have some news for you” and proceeded to tell me that he new what the changes were gonna be and that I was coming to his zone. Then on Sunday it was stake conference so president sloan came and spoke. Afterwards he came up to shake my hand and said “Elder messer, I hate to take you out of the zone but I need your leadership. I`ve got a special calling for you. You`ll find out later tonight.” So that basically confirmed all the rumors that I had heard. I`m glad that i`m still in quito so that I can keep enjoying all the wonderful food and whatnot. Apparently theres a restaurant in my new zone called Rustys that is super good. Rumor has it that they sell curly fries there….. I have a feeling that i`ll be eating there a lot.

The bad news of this week was that I got super sick. I think I ate something that gave me some type of bacterial infection in my stomach or something like that. The nurse has me on antibiotics and i`m feeling a lot better now. But I haven`t eaten anything but Gatorade and ritz crackers in the last 4 days so i`m still kinda hungry and week. Anything I would eat would just come back out. I did manage to eat a chicken sandwich from mcdonalds today and and still doing pretty good so that’s a good sign.

So we went to the offices today and a sister was there that was about to go home that was in my old sector in Esmeraldas. She gave me some good news and some bad news. Apparently the ulloa taipe family is having some big problems. Their daughter ran away from the house with her boyfriend again and the husband and wife are fighting because they both think it’s the other persons fault and apparently the husband moved out. I`m kinda worried about them but this happened before and they were able to solve their differences so I still have hope. I`m gonna give them a call later and see if I can help them a bit. The good news is that Harlington(one of my converts) and his neighbor (who I also taught) are the ones that bless the sacrament every week which is huge because when I was there there wasn`t anyone to bless the sacrament so the missionaries had to do it every week. And apparently they have formed there own little missionary group and go knock doors and try and share the gospel with everyone. Also, jordy is still active even though he has no support from his family and apparently he brings his friend to church every week. Rocio Martinez is active as well which was really good to hear because had gone inactive when I left but apparently she came back and goes to church every week now. Speaking of converts….. 2 weeks ago Ronald went to the temple and did baptisms for the dead. He`s only 13 but hes one of the strongest converts that I have. He has no support from his family but he is in church every week passing the sacrament and is at every young mens activity. And all the young women want him… Hes basically a stud!

I don’t know anything about my new sector but apparently we have a golden family that is gonna get baptized this month and a few other golden investigaters. I`m looking forward to meeting everyone this week and seeing what I have to work with.

Well that’s all I have for this week. Hasta luego!


August 23, 2010
This week has gone well for Elder Resendiz and I. We`ve been working hard all week to find new investigators to teach and were able to come up with 8 new people. I think thats the most that i`ve gotten in one week since i`ve been in Quito. Before I think my record was 4. In esmeraldas we got 18 one week but that really isn`t that hard in Esmeraldas. We knocked a lot of doors and talked with all sorts of people. Some were rather strange. We were teaching a lesson at a door one day because there was no man there so we couldn`t go in and all of a sudden in the middle of our lesson we heard someone from down the street Yell “Chicos… Chicos” so we turned and saw some guy sticking his head out the door. He asked us to go to his house after we finished our lesson. So we finished and were thinking that it would be an golden investigator but when we got there it turned out to be a half crazy guy that was building a church in his house and that was gonna be a pastor. He gave us some juice and bread (the “bread of life” as he called it) and started talking to us. He wanted to know what we did to find people to teach and was asking all sorts of advice . Then he started preaching to us and Reading to us from the bible and after every verse that he liked he would say “amen, thank you Lord”. Then he started telling us about how he used to do all sorts of stupid stuff like drink and do drugs but how the lord sent angels to protect him because the lord new that he was gonna use him to help other people. Then he showed us his guitar and asked if i knew how to play and I told him yes so he asked me to teach him so that he could play songs in his church services. All in all he was kinda crazy and it was a rather interesting experience. He was from columbia which explains alot because everyone that i`ve met so far from Columbia has been kinda different. We also ran into a 20 year old lady that is already a member but just moved to quito and didn`t know where the church was so she hadn`t been going. We took her to church on Sunday along with her husband who isn`t a member so hopefully we can work with them.

My birthday was on Friday. It was pretty much just like any other day. No one knew that it was my birthday. One person did know and gave me a card and some chocolates. All in all it was a good day. Thanks again to everyone who sent me a letter or package for my birthday!

Next week are changes so I have a chance of getting chaged but I dont think it will happen. I bet i`ll be here for at least 6 months like I was in esmeraldas but we`ll see what happens. 27 new missionaries are coming this change which is a lot (last change there were 8) so there are gonna be a lot of changes. 27 people are gonna be training so thats 27 changes garrenteed and like 7 zone leaders are going home so thats another 7 changes and those are just the changes that have to happen. There will likely be more so we`ll see what happens. Well thats all I have for this week. Thanks for everything. I love you all!