Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

This week was definitely one of the better weeks of my mission. On Tuesday we had a meeting called “consejo de lideres de zona”(zone leader council) and it was really good. All the zone leaders came to quito from all parts of the mission. The zone leaders from Ambato and Esmeraldas came and slept in our house. It was fun to talk about Esmeraldas and all the crazy things that happen there. And there were 6 of us so we ordered pizza. Papa johns delivers to our house here. Its pretty sweet. The meeting was really cool as well. We all decided that it was time to raise the goals in the mission. The old goal was 4 baptisms a month for every companionship and now we set a new goal of 2 baptisms every week. Its gonna be really hard but I think its important to set high goals. When the goal was 2 per month the average companionship baptized 1 a month. 10 months after it got raised to 4 a month the average companionship was baptizing 2 a month and now its at 2 a week so I think in a while the average companionship will be baptizing 3 or 4 a month. After the meeting president took us all to a bowling ally that they had rented out just for us and we got to go bowling and play ping pong and pool for like 3 hours. They also brought us really good food from a really fancy restaurant here. It was our reward for getting 200 baptisms in august. I felt kind of bad because everyone else in the zone was hard at work but I definitely don’t have any complaints. It was the most fun i`ve had since i`ve been on my mission. There are 3 other elders from my mtc district that are zone leaders so It was way fun to get to catch up with them and just hang out for 3 hours. Hopefully we get a lot of baptisms this month so we can have another reward like that haha. I think it also helped that president sloans son chad got home from his mission in spain that same day so president was in a good mood to let us have fun like that. The next day was the “Reunion de lideres” (Leader meeting) with all the leaders in the mission (District leaders as well).

Chad was at that meeting with us cool but kinda weird at the same time. Hes my age. He left when he was 18 because his dad is a mission president so it was kinda weird to see someone that was my age that was already done with their mission. Hes starting a BYU this week as well so that made my kinda jealous. I was talking to him for a bit afterwards while we were waiting for everyone to go home. He met one of my friends from byu (Gabby) while he was in spain. She was doing a study abroad thing and ending up in the ward while he was serving and would go to the English classes that he taught. And apparently she ended up dating his companion when he got home or something like that. The mormon world is really small. After all the meetings we went on divisions with the Elders that were staying in our house so that we could cover more ground and visit more people. I went with Elder Mata. He was one of my first zone leaders in Esmeraldas and one of my good friends in the mission. Hes from costa rica and speaks perfect English. But anyways, we went to visit the Itaz family and left at like 9 :15 to get back to the house at 9:30. I`m still new here so I didn`t know that buses stop coming at 9. We were like 5+ miles from the house and there were no buses coming and we didn`t know what to do. But apparently the lord was looking after us because after about 10 minutes of standing on the side of the freeway waiting for a bus a car whizzed by and slammed on the breaks and proceeded to back up (on the freeway). At first I was kinda scared because I didn`t know who it was but it turned out to be a bishop from Taylorsville Utah that was visiting family in Ecuador and he offered to take us home. It was a really random experience that couldn`t have happened at a better time.

On Thursday morning at about 10 am the 1st counselor in the bishop ric called me at told me that I had to give a 20 minute talk on Sunday about humility. It was kinda last minute and its not like I have a ton of time to sit down and prepare a talk. I only had personal study on Friday and Saturday. And on Friday I had to prepare to give a lesson to the zone on how to use the book of Mormon in the conversion of their investigators so I basically only had an hour on Saturday to prepare. An hour definitely wasn`t sufficient so I basically just ended up winging it on Sunday. But its cool being a missionary because the spirit always helps us out so everything went smoothly and I ended up having to cut myself off because I had too much to say and 20 minutes wasn`t enough. Its cool to think that I can just get up and give a 20 minute talk in another language without any problem. The spirit is awesome.


On Saturday the Itaz family got baptized. It went pretty smooth and there wasn`t really any huge opposition other than the fact that It was raining super hard and the family almost started sliding and almost crashed on the way to the baptism. The commented to us that they were having a lot of doubts on Saturday morning and almost didn`t get baptized but were able to overcome there doubts and decided to go through with it. They were really happy afterwards and already gave us a reference of their neighbors. We taught them once and they already accepted a baptismal date so all is well.

Well that’s all I have for this week. Until next week! I love you all!

Alright let me tell you a Little bit about my week and my new sector. I’m in “los Chillos”. Its kinda like a suburb of Quito. There are a lot of people here that have more money than most of the people in my old sector. There are a lot of really big houses and things aren’t as crowded and packed together. There are some houses that look like they would fit in perfectly in The US. My sector runs along the main freeway so all day every day we are walking on the side of the freeway with cars speeding by. We definitely walk a lot more here than in my old sector. This week it rained everyday so we got splashed all day as the cars drove by. I used my umbrella to try and block the water that got thrown at me but it didn’t always work that well and my umbrella got pretty trashed. There is a mall here that is way better than the mall in my old sector. They have a couple of good restaurants. Today we ate at a place called rustys. They sell huge burgers there and it is the only place in Ecuador that sells curly fries and root beer. But the root beet is super expensive. Its like 2,50 per cup. I also so a TGIFridays in the mall so i`m pretty sure that i`ll end up spending a lot of money there in the future. The ward I’m in is really solid. It just got made into a ward from a branch like a couple of months ago and the stake is new as well. It used to be a district. The bishop in my ward is way cool. He served his mission in Quito 6 years ago and was AP for 6 months. We eat lunch at his house on Saturday and Sunday and his wife washing our cloths for free. I took her my cloths and when she gave them back to me she told me that a few of my socks were missing because they had holes and she was going to saw them. They take really good care of the missionaries here.

This sector is probably the best sector that I’ve come to so far in in terms of the work. We’re teaching a family named the Itas family and they are going to get baptized this Saturday. They already passed their interviews and everything. I’m sure that opposition will come full force this week but we’re ready for it. Stay tuned to see what happens this time. We also have another baptism in 2 weeks. It’s a lady named sister llumiquinga. He 2 daughters got baptized last months and now she is progressing and wants to get baptized. She also had her interview this week but had a problem with question 4 so she has to have an interview with president Sloan or one of his counselors. So hopefully everything works out and she can get baptized in 2 weeks. We are also teaching a lot of other families and people. There are tons of investigators in this sector. Enough to last us for at least 3 months. We’re also teaching a young guy named Howard from Colombia as well. He has been to church twice already so this week I think we’re gonna give him a baptismal challenge. His girlfriend is a member that lives on the coast and Howard is a reference from her.
There’s a new elder that just got her that is in our zone named elder Cedeño. He got baptized 5 years ago and is the only member in his family. He’s 25 and was studying to be a doctor and has one year left but left it to come on a mission. He also speaks perfect English. He gives me a lot of hope that someday my converts will turn into something great and become future missionaries and/leaders in the church her in Ecuador.

At church on Sunday the priests challenged us to a soccer game so we played against them today. We won of course. I’m really happy that president Sloan gave us permission to play. It makes pdays a lot funner. Well that’s all I have for this week. If you have any questions for me let me know in your emails but highlight them in red or something so that I remember to answer them. I love you all. Until next week!