Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Hey everyone! So this week has gone really well… better than most weeks I would say. We have found a few new families that we are teaching that we`re excited about. It’s always a big deal when we find a family that will listen because there are hardly any families here and if we do manage to find a family they usually don`t want to listen. But we have found 3 in the last 2 weeks so we`re excited about that. Also, we had a baptism on Saturday. We baptized a young man named Jordy. We met jordy about 4 months again when I was with the other Elder Lopez (the one that I trained). We were just walking down a street and I had a book of mormon in my hand and jordy saw it and came up and started asking me about it. I showed him the pictures in the front of the book and explained about how Nephi and his family came to the Americas from Jerusalem and how the book of mormon tells the story of their family and of the ancient inhabitants of the American continent. He had tons of questions so we set up an appointment to come back. We started teaching his brother and sister and his mom as well but they weren`t as interested as he was. His mom is really hard to deal with. Her heart is super hard and she gets offended really easily. She has been the biggest opposition to the progression of Jordy. He was going to get baptized a few weeks ago but his mom wouldn`t give permission. Jordy begged and begged her and she finally said yes. On Saturday we passed by jordy`s house to remind make sure that he was going to show up to his baptism on time (here it is very normal to show up 30 minutes to 1 hour late) and we found him crying. Some of his aunts and uncles had come by his house and invited his family to go to the beach. When he told them that he couldn`t go because he was getting baptized they started giving him a hard time and telling him that he had been brainwashed and stuff like that. And he really wanted his mom and his brothers and sisters to come to his baptism but they had decided to go to the beach instead. We gave him some encouraging words and explained that whenever we get closer to God there is always a greater opposition. Its becoming predictable to me. For almost every baptism that we`ve had so far something has happened either right before or right after. Anyway, he got baptized despite the opposition from his family and was confirmed on Sunday. His mom ended up feeling bad for not coming to his baptism so she came on Sunday and watched him receive the Aaronic priesthood.

We have another baptism scheduled for this Saturday. Its for a man named Harlington. He has been to several different churches and has studied the Bible a lot. He has been coming to church for like 6 weeks now and went to all of the sessions of general conference. He is very motivated when it comes to religion. There are still a lot of things that he doesn`t understand perfectly because he has been to so many churches and has so many different ideas mixed up in his head but he has a testimony and believes the book of mormon is true and the joseph smith was a prophet so we`re gonna baptize him next week. His interview is scheduled for tonight.

Random thing that I ate this week: Cow utter……. Surprisingly it wasn`t that bad. They didn`t tell me what it was till after I ate it which is good because if I would have known it might have tasted a lot worse… haha

This is the last week of the change so that means my companion goes home in a week and i`ll get a new one. I`ll let you know what happens next week.

We just found out that the 1st councilor in our bishopric (one of the 4 priesthood holders that we have and one of the strongest members in the ward) is moving this week so that might take its toll on the ward. We`ll see what happens.

Anyway, that’s all for this week! Thanks to everyone who has sent me letters! I`m in the process of writing back right now. I love you all!

I'll put pictures on facebook soon! I promise! There's not very many...only like 4...but coming soon!

April 5, 2010

Hey everyone! I hope all is well back home. This week has been good for me. It was full of meetings and conferences. We almost didn`t get to work at all this week. Monday was pday, Tuesday we worked until 3 and then had interviews and meeting for the rest of the day, Wednesday was zone conference, Thursday is weekly planning and district meeting, Friday was a normal day of work, Saturday was 3 sessions of general conference, and Sunday was another 2 sessions. Needless to say we didn`t get much work done this week. We spent a lot of time getting taught and not as much time teaching others. But it was a nice change of pace. It’s the closest thing to a vacation that i`ve had since i`ve been on my mission. But its over now and this week will be full of hard work. Conference was good though. I liked elder oaks talk in priesthood meeting about giving priesthood blessings and I liked elder hollands talk too… like always. I just like how he speaks. I especial liked his joke about tea. It was pretty funny I thought.

In zone conference we studied alma 32. President sloan spent a lot of time talking about “the poor in heart”. He said that the poor in heart have no dreams or goals and have the philosophy “I was born this way so that’s how ui`m gonna stay forever” faith doesn`t exist for them because they don’t think change or better things are possible and they have no hope. Then on Thursday (the day after zone conference I met someone exactly like that. I was waiting at line in the ATM and some guy came up and started talking to me. He told me all about how poor he was and how jesus taught that we should give to the poor and that obviously if I was a representative of jesus that meant that I should give him money. Then he went on about how he doesn`t have a house and how he sleeps on the beach and gets wet by the waves everynight. I wanted to say, “That’s sucks, if I was you I wouldn`t sleep on the beach.” He didn`t understand that he could change his situation. He thought that since he was born sleeping on the beach and getting wet that that is how he had to stay forever. We told him that if he wanted our help that he should come to church Sunday and we would teach him there how HE could change his life.

Were taching a lesson this week in a little store of one of our investigaters when all of a sudden someguy walking by got tackled and taken away by the police. The police were really rough with him and had their guns out an everything and all the nieghbors left there houses and surrounded to watch. Then he got taken away in the back of a police truck. Apparently he had robbed someone earlier so they took him to jail. I wonder what the jail is like here. I`m pretty sure that jail in the US is nicer that how a lot of people live here so I wonder what the jail conditions are like her. Probably not very good.

We were knocking doors on Friday and ran into the uncle of Antonio valencia (a soccer player that plays for manchester united). It turns out that he is a member but inactive. He said that he used to be the elders quorum president and we was a ward mission leader. He said that when he went to church there was 150 people every week. I am curious to no what happened between then and now because now we are lucky to have 60 and there is no elders quorum president or ward mission leader. But anyway, I thought it was cool that I ran into the uncle of a soccer player that plays for my favorite team. Apparently antonio valencia is from esmeraldas. Hes a person that has done something with his life. To go from esmeraldas to professional soccer player for one of the best teams in the world is quite an accomplishment I think.

Anyway, that’s all for this week. I Love you all! Until next week!


March 29, 2010

Hey everyone,

Let me tell you about this week in Esmeraldas. I think I told you last week about Jordy.. He`s 12 years old, really smart, has been reading the book of mormon everyday from the beginning, and really wants to get baptized but his mom didn`t want him to. The good news is that this week we managed to get his mom to sign the baptismal form so now he can get baptized. The semi-bad news is that they went out of town this weekend so he couldn`t get baptized this week end and next weekend is general conference so now he has to wait to more weeks. But that’s not that big of a deal. But it’s kinda frustrating for him because he wants to get baptized right away. You should have seen him when his mom signed the form. He was super excited and started hugging and kissing his mom and telling her thank you like 100 times. It was also a really big victory for us because we`ve been trying to win the confidence of his mom for a really long time. She got super offended a while ago because she offered us tea and we told her that we couldn`t drink it. Its taken a lot of work and diligent kindness to win her confidence.

We did a service project this week where we had to hike to the top of a huge mountain and then clear out a huge spot to grow crops. The grass was like 4 feet tall so we used machetes. It was kinda fun but really hot and it was hard work swinging a machete for an hour straight.

Random: Have you seen the picture at the beginning of chapter 14 of the new gospel principles book? Everyone here thinks that the guy on the right is me. Like they seriously think its me and ask me how I got in that picture. And for all of you from BYU last year; the guy kneeling down in the middle kinda looks like spencer cleg…. At least I think so.

The only other exciting thing that happened this week was that I ate cuy (guinea pig) for the first time. I got to see the whole process from it being killed to eating it. It was quite the cultural experience and I took lots of pictures. There were 3 of them and it was kinda sad because 2 of them were pregnant(we found out when they were pulling the guts out and found babies) and one of them had twins that were about to be born in 2 weeks. It actually didn`t taste that bad. Its not like chicken or beef. Its unique. I don’t really now how to describe it. Maybe i`ll make some for everyone to try when I get back…kidding(unless you really want to try it)

I`m really looking forward to this week because its zone conference Tuesday and Wednesday and general conference on Saturday and Sunday. I`m praying that i`ll be able to watch conference in English. For the Christmas devotional they had an English room for the American missionaries so i`m hoping it will be the same. If not….. at least the music is in English. I should be able to understand the talks in Spanish, its just a lot easier and more comfortable in English.

My companion goes home in 3 weeks so hes starting to get a little trunky… haha. I`m not gonna lie; him being trunky is making me a little trunky. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about the day a land back in the states and I have to stop myself and get refocused.

Well that’s about it for this week. I hope all is going well for everyone back home! Write me letters and keep me updated on everything!

-Elder Brandon Messer




March 22, 2010

This week has gone well for Elder Lopez and I. It was filled with challanges but we also had some succeses. The biggest challange lately has been with the members. We havn`t had a ward mission leader in a while so this week we asked the bishop if he could call one. He told us that he didn`t know who to call and asked us for suggestions. We started naming people but every person that we named isn`t allowed to have a calling right now. Other than the bishop ric there is only one other melquesidek priesthood holder that can have a calling and we all agreed that it would be better if he wasn`t called as ward mission leader because he tends to cause a lot of controversy. So for now we`re just going to keep doing the best we can without a ward mission leaders. We`ve also had some problems with some recent converts that don`t want to go to church because they feel like they are being judged constantly by the members. For example, 2 of them have told us specifically that they don`t like being bothered for not wearing a skirt and they dont like how some of the members make comments about it. Elder Lopez and I are trying to work things out the best we can. We asked the bishop if we could have a few minutes in the next ward council to teach a little bit about “hermanamiento”(befriending people) and we asked the Zone leaders to come this Saturday to talk with all the ward leaders as well. We`ve also been concerned lately because our investigaters aren`t feeling the spirit very much at church. Sacrament meeting is good but the gospel doctrine class and priesthood aren`t exactly going so well. For example, this Sunday in priesthood there was an argument on weather or not cain and able were the first children of adam and eve that completely destroyed any spirit that was there. They asked us for the answer so we turned to moses and read with them where it says that adam and eve had many children before cain and able… but that only caused a bigger controversy. One of the counelors in the bishop ric said something like this, “well it says here (in moses) that they had other children first and I respect the scriptures …but the bible makes it very clear that cain and able were the first children of adam and eve.” Meanwhile in my head I was screaming “the bible was translated by men and has errors . Thats why we have the Book of mormon and the pearl of grand price. If the bible was perfect we wouldn`t need any more scripture.” It was frustrating because now we are going to have to try and explain to our investigaters that the guy from the bishop ric was wrong and that the pearl of grand price really is a true book. Also. This week the 1st councelor in the bishop ric (the same guy the started the adam and eve controversy) told us this week that he doesn`t understand why he isn`t bishop yet. He told us all about how the bishop is a bad leader and how he thinks that he should be called as bishop. FULL APOSTASY!!!!!! Haha.

This week has been difficult with a few investigaters as well. We`re teaching a family (the taipes) and this week there 16 year old daughter ran away with her 22 year old boyfriend. Later that week we read the proclamation with them and the dad broke down and started crying because he was failing at being a good husband and father. They told us that they have been living together unhappily for 16 years and that they didn`t think there was any hope to save they`re family. We taught them that through the gospel of Jesus Christ all families can be happy even when they have problems and that there was hope and that we are going to be there for them to help them become a happy family. I feel bad for the kids. They have an 8 year old daughter and a 13 year old son that have to watch all the problems. Their parents aren`t married and the dad was a drunk. Hes better now since we`ve been working with him but the mom doesn`t want to forgive him and she has lost all hope and just wants to separate. They made it to church this week which was good and we`ve seen a lot of progress since we`ve been teaching them but they still have a long ways to go.

I saw a 9 year old buying beer this week and drinking it on the way back to his house to give his to his dad. I`m not gonna lie, this is the most wicked city i`ve ever seen.

Other than all that the week was well. We have one baptism scheduled this Saturday. He was going to get baptised last week but his mom said she wanted to wait another week before she would sign the ficha. We`ve also been trying to work a lot with the people on our baptismal goals for next month and we`re excited to see them keep progressing. I`m looking forward to general conference as well. It will be a good oppurtunity for some of our investigaters to listen to the prophet and apostels and a good oppurtunity for me personally to refill spiritually.

I love you guys! Thanks for all your support! Until next week.

-Elder Messer

March 15, 2010

Hey everyone! I hope all is going well. This week has gone good for me. Its been pretty normal with no huge surprises or big events. First things first, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DESI!!!!!!!!!!!! 11 years old?!?! Its gonna be crazy when I get back in 18 months and you will be 12 and like 2 feet taller than you were when I left. And don’t worry, i`ll bring you a birthday present from Ecuador when I get back in 18 months!

I ate cow feet this week. It was gross. I didn`t know it was possible to eat cow feet but apparently it is. The lady that made it for us was taking to us the whole time while we ate it telling us how good it was. I didn`t agree at all. It was hard to keep a happy face and I had to lie to her and tell her I liked it because she asked me like 3 times…. The things I do to not offend people haha. At least it wasn`t fish eggs this time and at least it didn`t make me sick. One of the people that I baptized in January said that they were gonna make cuy(guinea pig) for me next week…. Wish me luck.

Everyone here is paranoid that an earthquake and/or tsunami is going to hit Esmeraldas. Apparently and earthquake here like the one in Chile would cause devastating results because the buildings here aren`t that strong. The beach was even closed the other day because they were so convinced that a tsunami was coming. One lady was talking to me about the earthquake in chile and asked me if the U.S. shared a border with chile haha.

We might have a baptism this week. We`ve been teaching a 12 year old named Jordy and he wants to get baptized but we just need permission from his mom. Jordy is one of the smarted kids I`ve ever met. He understands and remembers pretty much every word that comes out of our mouths and he reads the book of mormon and the Bible everyday. If he gets baptized and stays active he has a lot of potential in the church. My biggest concern right now is that he will get baptized but then go inactive since hes only 12 and theres not very many deacons in the ward right now. The ward isn`t exactly the strongest ward you`ve ever seen. Only 60 people show up on a good Sunday, theres now elders quorum presidency, no ward mission leader, and no young mens program. On a normal Sunday we bless the sacrament, lead the music, sometimes give a talk, teach the gospel doctrine class, and teach elders quorum unless someone from the stake shows up. Needless to say there are lots of opportunities to serve. And that’s what we`re here for so its all good.

Thanks again to everyone that has sent me letters and/or packages! I love getting updates on everyone from back home! I love you guys!

Hey everyone!
sorry I didn`t send this yesterday. the internet went out and we had to go before it came back. but here is my letter this week...

I hope all is still going well back home! This week has been good for me. We had changes yesterday but I didn`t get chaged so i`m still in esmeraldas with Elder Lopez. Our zone got split so know there is zone esmeraldas and zone san rafael. I`m still in zone esmeraldas but now there are only 11 missionaries in the zone instead of 26 like before. Also, i was kinda dissapointed to find out that 2 of the elders from my mtc district got transfered so now i`m the only gringo in my zone… oh well.

This week I had an interesting experience with a man named washington. I dont really know how to explain washington…. He`s very unique haha. Hes from esmeraldas but has lived in and has wives in the united states and mexico. Hes crazy… seriously… there is something wrong with him mentally. He speaks english. His face is deformed and he only has sight out of one eye. Hes rich. He says that hes a member of the church but I dont believe him. And for some reason all the girls want to marry him (i witnessed a woman propse to him that he had just met). I`m not sure why i`m telling you about this guy …… but there it is. There are some wierd people here… haha

I had a cool experience when we were tracking this week. we found a lady named ana maria that let us in and started talking to us. After we had talked to her for a little bit she told us that she had cancer and had to go in for surgery today and that she wasn`t expecting to live for that much longer. Then she told us that she had been praying a lot and that when we came to her door she knew we were an answer to her prayer. She went in for surgery today but hopefully we can find her again when she gets out of the hospital so that we can teach her more of the plan of salvation.

On Sunday at our lunch appointment there were tons of ants in the juice that our mamita gave us. It wasn`t hard to see that there were ant so i`m not sure why she still gave it to us to drink. It was kinda wierd. I was dying of thirst though so i just fished them all out with my spoon and drank it.

Other than that nothing really exciting happened this week. we`ve just been working hard trying to get our investigaters ready for baptism and trying to find the elect.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me letters and packages! I love to hear from you all!

For Pictures go to http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=125090&id=713547841&l=c79747f802

I hope that works! But its such a hassle to post them on the Blog sometimes....I try tho!

Feb 29, 2010
Another week as come and gone in Ecuador. This week was normal for the most part. Elder lopez and I have been working hard to try and get things set up and finalized for a couple of baptism that we have coming up. Elder Lopez was under the impression that he was going home at the end of this change but his flight plans still haven’t come yet so now he’s thinking that he’s gonna stay for one more change. So that means there is a chance that I could get changed in 2 weeks. But I’ll just have to wait and see.

So on Tuesday night at about 2:30 in the morning we were awaken by someone knocking on our bedroom window and yelling at us. I had no idea who is was or what they wanted so it was kinda sketchy at first. But it turned out to be our neighbor from downstairs. Apparently his ceiling was dripping water so he come upstairs to see what it was and stop it. It turned out that a house in our bathroom had broken and water was being sprayed everywhere. The whole house was flooded. We had to find the key that shut the water off to the bathroom house and it turns out that that is the key that shuts off the water to the whole house. So we haven’t had water for a week… well we’ve had water but it only comes out of the hose that connects to the toilet in the bathroom. So we’ve been showing with buckets and washing dishes with water bottles. Its been kinda annoying but that’s how things roll down here in ecuador. We’re trying to get it fixed though so hopefully we won’t have this problem for that much longer.

I’m not sure if I already wrote about this but every Thursday night we get to watch a movie in the chapel. Its a missionary activity so that we can bring investigators to make friends with the members so the bishop asked that we be there. So basically I get to watch a movie every Thursday. And the best part is that its always in English with Spanish subtitles. So far we’ve seen, jhonny lingo, mobsters and Mormons, the home teacher, and beauty and the beasy (a later day tale). They’re all movies produced in Utah by members of the church. There’s a lot of jokes about Utah and Mormons so.. sometimes I’m the only one that gets them… its kinda funny.

This Saturday we had a zone activity where we all went to the park, set up big signs about the church, and contacted people. The signs all had a picture with a thought provoking question. For example, mine had a picture of Christ in the Americas and the questions was “sabia usted que cristo visito las americas”(did you know that Christ visited the americas). Another one had a picture of christ and his apostles and the question was “jesucristo organizo su iglesia con 12 apostales, donde esta su iglesia ahora” (Jesus Christ organized his church with 12 apostles, where is his church now). It was surprisingly successful. They signs caught the attention of a lot of people and we were able to get some good contacts. We’re gonna start doing that activity every 2 weeks to try and find the “escogidos” (the chosen ones)

I was able to end a few letters this week so if you’re expecting a letter from me it might get to you soon. Thanks a ton to anyone that has sent me anything since I’ve been here! It always makes my day to here from people! Que vayan bien hasta la proxima semana. Les amo.

March 1, 2010
Hey everyone, let me tell you about my week. It was pretty good… a little more eventful than usual but still nothing huge.

On Monday night we went to an appointment with an investigator that got baptized on Saturday and his mom. After we finished teaching the lesson his mom invited us to eat dinner. We were hungry and you cant say now when people offer you stuff so we accepted. When sat down at the table and she brought out the food. I had no idea what it was. We asked her and she said that it was “huevos de pescado”(fish eggs)…. And it must have been from a HUGE fish because it was bigger than any egg i`ve ever seen before and I only got half of one. Long story short it was disgusting but I managed to get it all down… but… it made me ridiculously sick. I was up all night throwing it up and I was sick the whole next day. But all is well now so no worries. Hopefully no one else tries to feed me fish eggs!

On Tuesday we had interviews with President Sloan. It was good to see him again. I hadn’t seen him since the day I got here. He’s doing a lot better. He still has trouble breathing a little bit since he’s missing half a lung but other than that he seems to be doing pretty good.

On Wednesday we had zone conference which was really good. President Sloan taught a class about what it means to have real confidence and the zone leaders taught a class about verifying commitments. Something odd happened when we were eating lunch though… there were a few members there with us because they wanted to come to the zone conference. We were all sitting down eating when president Sloan walked in and just started looking around. All of a sudden he got a worried face and walked up and started talking in a whisper to the elders sitting behind me. He had seen one of the members (a 20 year old girl) and he didn’t like the way she looked so he was telling the elders that they weren’t allowed to have any contact with her whatsoever. It turned out that this girl was a ward missionary and would help the missionaries all the time and that her mom was one of their mamitas so normally that ate lunch at her house once a week. Later president Sloan told us that he did it because he would rather offend the girl and protect the missionaries than have something happen with the girl. I thought it was kinda odd how he just looked at her and didn’t want the missionaries to talk to her or anything, just from looking at her… I guess that’s just one example of mission presidents being inspired.

On Saturday night we got home and our neighbors that live above us were having a party and being really loud. They were really drunk and it sounded like they were having a huge fight. They were yelling a lot and one girl was screaming her lungs out. It was weird because normal there’s only one guy that lives there and he’s always super quiet. I asked one of the neighbors about it and he said that the people that are living there right now are thieves and that they live somewhere else but that they only come and stay with their dad every once and a while when they’ve done something big and they need to hide and lay low for a while. It could just be rumors but that’s what they told me.
We had a baptism on Saturday and it went well. We baptized a 19 year old guy named Ronny. He has a lot of enthusiasm for the gospel and always wants to learn more. He’s excited to come out with us to help us teach. He also was able to receive the priesthood on Sunday and we’re planning on having him up his with the sacrament next week. His mom has a baptismal date for this month so we’re going to try and arrange things so he can baptize his mom.

Today for pday we went on an adventure. We went in search of a waterfall that we had heard about. Long story short we ended up having to walk for 3 hours before we finally got there but it was pretty cool so it was worth it. We didn’t want to walk 3 hours back so we ended up hitching a ride with some guy that was driving a truck with some bulls in the back. We had to hang on to the side of the truck and dodge all the branches sticking out into the road. We were driving through the jungle so there were a lot of branches. It was sketchy but that’s how everything is here. It was my first hitchhiking experience though so that was cool haha.

Feb 8, 2010

This week has been good. We had a baptism on Saturday where we baptized a 10 year old boy named Ryan and an 8 year old girl named Dana. Ryan’s parents are members but they are both inactive and they aren’t married. We’ve been working with the whole family to try and help them as much as possible. I think it was good for the parents to see their son get baptized. They’ve been at church the last 2 weeks which is good and they’ve been making a lot of progress. We’re gonna keep working with them to try and help them stay active. Dana is 8 and her mom is a members so it didn’t count as a baptism for us but we still baptized her because there is no priesthood in her family. Her mom is one of our mamitas… that means that she makes lunch for us every week. Dana bore her testimony about her baptism on Sunday and it was way cute haha.

We don’t have any baptisms planed for this week but next week we have 2. Violeta and Rodney. I``ll write more about them when they actually get baptized.
So there’s a senior missionary in our mission that served his mission in Mexico and has some CRAZY stories about it. I heard one and thought it was worth telling so her it is:
He showed up in a little town once and as soon as he got there all the people ran up to him and started asking him if he could baptize them. He didn’t understand how they knew who he was or why they wanted to be baptized so he started talking to them. They told him that a few years earlier 4 men came and taught them everything but that they said that they couldn’t baptize them but that others would come that could baptize them. They already new all the doctrine and everything and there were 80 that wanted to be baptized. Because there were so many in one place at one time the church sent Marion g Romney to make sure everything went smoothly and to make sure that all the people were really prepared. When he got there he said that they were all ready so they baptized 80 people all at once. Then later Marion g Romney pulled the elders aside and said “congratulations, you just baptized some of the people taught by the 3 nephites and john the revelator”. I thought it was a cool story. Oh and one more random story. my companion is from Mexico and he said that there’s a huge stone there in some ruins that has a picture of Lehi`s dream on it.

My companions “trunky papers” got here this week, aka his paper that he has to fill out before he goes home. Hes leaving at the end of this change… so in 4 weeks. I`m not gonna lie, its making me a little trunky to have a companion that’s going home so soon haha. But luckily he still wants to work hard and finish out his mission strong.
We ran into a guy that was SUPER drunk yesterday… I mean i`ve seen drunk people but nothing like this guy. He couldn`t walk straight and he was absolutely crazy! He started asking us how to walk with god so we tried to explain that the first thing he had to do was stop drinking. He didn`t quite understand and just started cussing us out. Luckily I don’t understand cuss words in Spanish haha.

One last thing, the rules changed on sending packages… they can know be up to 8 pounds. Before it was only 4 pounds but it just changed. Just in case someone wants to send me something.

I hope everyone is doing well! Until next week…


Feb 16, 2010
Well, another week and another email, although this week my email is being sent on Tuesday because pday was changed this week because of “carnival”—a ridiculous south American holiday when everyone goes crazy for a few days. Here in Esmeraldas it’s a giant water fight. Everyone just gets drunk and throws water on whoever they can find. Normally the missionaries don’t leave their apartments during carnival but president Sloan had us go out and work anyway. So basically if been getting water thrown on me for the last 3 days. I’ve had little kids, crazy teenage girls, and crazy drunk guys all throw or dump water on me. One girl just walked up to us as we were walking down the street, poured water all over us and then just stood there and watched as we walked away. She didn’t even say anything. Another guy approached us as we were walking and asked if he could pour water on us. We told him no so he waited till we passed and then threw water all over us anyway. Another time we were walking down a street and a truck drive by with people in the bed and they all just chucked water at us as they passed. People don’t seem to care that we are wearing shirts and ties or anything. And yesterday we saw one girl that was passed out from drinking to much being carried away to the hospital. And we found one of our best investigators wasted out of his mind. It was disappointing. We talked with him and asked him why he decided to drink and he said that he was weak and that Satan had already won the battle and that he didn`t think he could stop drinking. He started crying and everything. We told him that we were there to help him and encouraged him to not give up. We’re going back tonight to see how he is doing.

It’s been raining a lot lately and as a result all the houses on our street have flooded. Luckily we live on the 2nd floor though so our house didn’t get flooded. Also, there were only 27 people at church on Sunday because of the rain. Nobody wanted to get went so no one came to church. It was kinda disappointing.
Anyway, there’s not much else to say. We might have a baptism this week depending on weather or not one of our investigators got married. I was going to send letters today but the post office was closed for carnival so I’ll have to do it next week.

I hope everyone is doing well! Until next week!

Jan 25th
Hey everyone,
This week has been good. We had changes yesterday/today. I stayed in my same area but elder lopez(mycompanion) left. My new companion just got here and his name is Elder Lopez too. Our investigaters are gonna laugh when they see that elder lopez left but that another elder lopez came. My new companion is from mexico and he only has 3 months left on his mission. Hopefully he`ll be able to teach me a lot with all of his experience. Its nice to finally have a companion that is experienced at being a missionary.

Other than changes not much happened this week. It was pretty normal. We did manage to offend a lady really bad though. We went to teach a lesson to this one family and in the middle of the lesson they brought out some type of tea for us to drink. We weren`t sure wheather it was the kind of tea that we cant drink or not so just to be safe we explained the word of wisdom and told them that we couldn`t drink tea. Then the mom got mad and just flat out called us out on it. She had invited us to eat before but we told her know because we had another appointment. Anyway, she just got really mad and started asking us all these questions about why we always reject their food. She thought it was because we thought her kitchen wasn`t clean and all this other stuff. The whole time I was just thinking “is she really that mad about something so stupid” but I guess that’s just there culture. Someone told me that in otavalo if you reject food you might as well not even go back to the house because the people will never forgive you.

I had to speak in church yesterday on “hermanamiento” which means being friendly I guess. I`m not really sure what the direct translation is. The bishop told me like the day before so I only had an hour in the morning before church to prepare. But it went alright I guess. Its always hard for the bishop to find people to speak because there aren`t very many active members.

Thanks to everyone who sent me letters! I`m trying to write back as fast as I can. Thanks for all the support and prayers!



Feb 1st
This week has been good in Esmeraldas Ecuador. My new companion and I have been working hard trying to find and teach the Lords chosen people here. Elder Lopez is a really solid elder. He’s been out for a long time and knows a lot of stuff and is a really good teacher. I’ve been learning a lot from him. We have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday. A 10 year old boy named Ryan. His parents are members but are inactive because they are living together but aren’t married so they’re embarrassed to come to church. Anyway, we’ve been teaching Ryan and we even got his parents to come to church with him this Sunday so that’s a good sign. The biggest problem that we have to face as missionaries here in Esmeraldas is people that have broken families. In the whole ward there are only 4 married couples. My new companion Elder Lopez as served all over the country (Quito, otavalo, baños, Ambato, Ibarra, la Concordia) and he said that its not like this in other places. He said that in his last ward the average attendance at church was 180- that’s like 3 times the size of our ward here haha. But seriously, its all because families almost don’t exist here. Kids just grow up in broken homes and its normal to them so then when they are older they have kids and raise them in broken homes as well. Life is seriously sooo much better when we live the gospel inside of families. Its hard here because even if we can get a convert they usually don’t have a family to support them so its hard for them to stay active. They really have to be self motivated to gain and maintain a testimony.

Ok culture shock time,
1) We knocked a door this week and a lady came and answered without a shirt or anything. It was kinda awkward. She just opened it, looked at us, then closed it and when and put a shirt on and came back and opened it again.
2) On Sunday we went to eat lunch with a member and they gave us rice with some sort of meat. I tried it and thought it was good. It tasted kinda like beef. Then after we left my companion told me that it was some sort of cow organ that we just ate. Its probably better that I found that out after.
3) There’s an elder that just got transferred to Esmeraldas that has a huge ponytail. He’s from otavalo and apparently if he cut his hair it would be like denying his heritage and really bad so they let the otavalo missionaries keep their long hair. They make all sorts of weird exceptions in the rules for them
Other than that not much else is new this week. I did manage to convince one of our investigators that I speak Chinese though. It’s this 12 year old boy named jordie that has an obsession with learning languages. He always asks me how to say something in Chinese and I just make some weird noise and he believes me. It’s kinda funny. Oh and it’s been raining a lot lately which is good because now the rivers are filling up and we don’t have power outages anymore but it’s bad because my shoes and clothes are getting destroyed by the mud. My companion slipped and fell in a bunch of mud, but luckily I haven’t done that yet.

Thanks to everyone that has sent me letters or packages. I loved getting them! I’m working on writing back. I’m gonna try and send some letters next week if I can get them all written.