Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Let me tell you a little but about my week. Last money we were playing soccer at one of the churches because the have a grass field and we accidentally kicked the ball over the fence into some guys yard. It landed in his tree and did no damage whatsoever but for some reason he got super pissed off and wouldn’t give us the ball back. We went over and we super nice and offered to wash his dogs or do some type of service as a form to say that we were sorry but he didn’t want any of it and refused to give our ball back. It was my companions ball and it costs like 50 bucks which is a ton here so my companion really wanted it back. We called the police and asked for help and they came and talked to the guy and told him to give the ball back and that we weren`t gonna play there anymore but he still didn’t want to give it back. He finally agreed to give it back to us on Wednesday so we had to go back on Wednesday night and get it. He was still really mad but at least he gave it to us. Long story short, we have to find somewhere else to play soccer on pday

This week Elder Archundia and I did divisions with 2 companionships. On Tuesday I was with a new elder named Elder Anderson. He just got to Ecuador 3 weeks ago so he is brand new and doesn`t speak much Spanish. On Wednesday I went to a place called San Golqui with Elder Vasquez(one of the district leaders. His sector is really big and has a lot of areas that are out in the middle of nowhere. We went to a few places with some farms and got lost a few times walking through big forests/rivers/fields. The scenery was really pretty though so that was good. We went to one appointment with a new investigator and taught about the restoration and gave him a baptismal challenge for the 9th of October. When we asked him if he wanted to be baptized he said that he did and couldn’t wait because he new everything that we had taught him was true because he had felt the spirit. It was a cool experience and proof that there are some people out there that are just prepared. We just have to find them.

I met a returned missionary this week that just got back from Guayaquil south that served for 8 months on the Galapagos Islands. He gave us a reference of his sister and her family so we are going to contact them this week and see what happens. He said they were really interested.

This week we had a “capacitacion especializada”(special training) with president and it was really good. He told us a story about how when his kids were younger he had a weed garden in his yard just so that his kids could pick weeds and learn how to work. It reminded me about how dad always use to tell me that when I mowed the lawn that he didn’t care as much about the grass being short as he did that I learned to work. Being in Ecuador has really opened my eyes about the difference that good parents can make in the lives of their kids. I’ve realized that there is a reason that Ecuador is poorer that the United States. It’s because not many people teach their kids good principles and manners or how to work and as a result the culture us really rude and Lazy which makes it hard for people to make money and be successful.

This week we had a new family come to church. We met them last Sunday and only taught them 2 principles: God is our loving heavenly father and baptism, and we gave them a baptismal challenge for the 9th of October and they accepted and came to church this week and are really excited. It’s a pretty young couple with 2 kids. A 6 year old boy and a 5 year old girl. Their kids are really cute and are always really excited when we go to teach them. The only problem is that they aren’t married. We are gonna teach the law of chastity this week and take a the 2nd councilor of the bishop ric and his wife because they weren’t married before they got baptized so they have really strong testimonies of the blessings of being married. If all goes well they will accept a date to get married and will be on track to be baptized the 9th of October.

We might have a baptism or 2 this week. We have a couple people with dates for this Saturday so were gonna set an appointment for their baptismal interviews and hopefully they accept. I’m pretty sure they will try and say that its too soon or something like that but we’re gonna do all that we can and we’ll see what happens.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for everything. I love you all!

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!

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!

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!

This week has been pretty normal and uneventful. I don’t even know where to start because nothing exciting really happened this week. We’ve kind of hit a rough spot in our sector. All the investigators that we had have either been baptized or we’ve dropped them because they weren’t progressing. So basically our biggest problem right now is that we don’t have anyone to teach. We’ve been knocking doors and contacting people like crazy all week but we haven’t had much success yet. We met a lady that has 2 nephews on missions and her whole family lives in Utah and her brother is a bishop but she doesn’t want anything to do with the church. We also met a family of Jehovah witnesses that only wanted to debate with us. I didn’t understand them at all….. Their doctrine is really strange and doesn’t really make sense to me. We’ve met a lot of people that “Were born catholic and that are going to die catholic no matter what” and a lot of other types of people. Knocking doors in Quito is a lot different than knocking doors in Esmeraldas. In Esmeraldas it was easy to get in a house and teach. Like every 10th house would let us in. In Quito it’s a lot harder. I think I’ve only gotten in 1 house since I’ve been here and it was someone from Esmeraldas. The people are a lot more closed here. But the good thing is that when we do find someone to teach they are serious about it. In Esmeraldas nobody was serious about anything. Life is a lot different here in Quito.
I’m not gonna lie. Things have been kinda rough lately. My companion is having a really hard time. He’s been here for 4 weeks and he is super homesick. He talks about going home a lot and is really frustrated with everything. He says that he hasn’t been able to sleep since he got here and that he just wants to go home but that something inside of him tells him that he should stay. Its been kinda hard because I already have all the weight of my sector and district on my shoulders and now I have the weight of my companion as well. But I guess that’s what the mission is all about… going through rough experiences and learning how to depend on the Lord to overcome them all.

A new mall just opened up in my zone. It’s the biggest mall in Ecuador. It’s pretty cool. I felt like I was in the states when I was there. It has a bunch of good American food. I even got some baskin robins. It was pretty tasty.
Well sorry that my letter is so short this week but that’s all I’ve got. I can’t think of anything else that would be interesting. Until next week….

Hey sorry that I couldn’t write much last week. I’ll get you all caught up right now. Last week was pretty crazy I was in meetings everyday and hardly got any work done. Monday was pday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday there were meeting for all the leaders in the mission that lasted all day, Friday was weekly planning and district meeting, Saturday we had a mini conference with the zone, a service , and a baptism, and Sunday we had church executive committee and ward counsel. I think we only got to teach like 12 lessons last week. But we did manage to have a baptism so that was good. We baptized a 12 year old kid named Kevin. Is dad and brother were already members but for some reason he has been really hard to get through to. I’ve been teaching him since I got here and the missionaries before me were teaching him as well. Usually it’s not that hard to get younger kids baptized. Usually they can’t wait to get baptized but for some reason it was really difficult with him. Luckily we have a really good young men’s president that helped us out a lot. He talked to Kevin and managed to overcome all the doubts that he had and all the things that were stopping him from getting baptized. His biggest doubt was that he was afraid that his parents were going to pressure him too much and that they were going to get angry with him if he didn’t want to go to an activity for some reason. That’s what he had seen with his brother who was already a member so he didn`t want the same thing to happen to him. But anyways, he finally got over it and got baptized. Now his mom is the only member in the family that isn’t a member and we’ve been working with her a lot. This week we managed to uncover one of her biggest doubts. Everyone has always talked to her about getting married in the temple so that she can be with her family forever. This week she told us that the reason that she doesn’t want to get baptized is because she still doesn’t want to get married in the temple. She has passed through a lot of struggles with her husband and says that she doesn’t believe that true love really exists. Basically she doesn’t love her husband enough to be married to him for time and all eternity. We talked about it with her and are going to continue to visit her and work with her. We’re thinking about taking some members that have happy marriages to their house. We’re gonna do everything we can so we’ll see what happens. She has always been a pretty tough investigator.

Alright I don’t really want to explain all the stuff that happened in the 3 day conference last week so I’m just gonna make a list

-Normally we have interviews with the president and zone conference every 6 weeks but now we’re just going to have in every 3 months

-Now we have a new meeting with the president and the APs every month that is called “capacitacion especializada” (I’m not sure how to translate that)

-There is a new meeting for all the leaders in the mission that will happen every 2 months

-They also taught us a lot of teaching skills that we have to teach to all the missionaries in our zones and districts…. For example: we no longer plan what we are going to teach in every teaching visit. Now we just show up and start talking to the people and let the spirit guide us. There’s a scripture in D&C 84:85 that says “take no thought beforehand for what you shall say, but treasure up the word continually and it will be given to you in that very moment the portion that will be meted to every man” (or something like that…. I have it memorized in Spanish so that’s a translation)

Those are the biggest changes that they are making. We’ve already started to put it all into practice and its working very well.

Last Monday our whole zone went on an excursion to a huge waterfall in the middle of the jungle. We hired a bus to take us as deep into the jungle as he could and then we walked for like a hour before we got there. It was really pretty. The whole time we were walking next to a huge river and through trees. We even had to cross a wooden plank bridge like the ones you see in the movies and one of the zone leaders got bitten by a crazy dog. It was quite the adventure. I sent pictures so enjoy.
This week has gone good as well. We had “Capacitacion especializada” and zone conference so I learned a lot. In zone conference President Sloan taught us about how having a testimony and be converted are 2 completely different things. Having a testimony is knowing that the things are true but being converted is a process of becoming something. We read a talk that was called “the challenge to become” (I can’t remember who it was by). It was a good talk though. When someone is truly converted they literally become charity since charity is a condition. President told us that if we don’t feel the desire to share the gospel everyday its because we haven’t experienced the atonement in our lives and haven’t really been converted. The Sons of Mosiah were such powerful missionaries because they experienced the atonement in their lives. They experienced the love of God and wanted to share it with everyone else. They used to be vile sinners but repented and felt the joy of the atonement and wanted everyone else to feel it as well.

President Sloan came to our ward this week as well and spoke in sacrament meeting and said the same thing. He told all the members that if they were scared to talk with their friends about the gospel it was because they weren’t converted and hadn’t experienced the atonement in their lives and that they needed to repent…. He spoke very boldly and he even made one lady cry (the most prideful lady in the ward) but it was good and hopefully we’ll see some results and start to get some more references.

Anyway that’s all I have for now. Thanks to everyone that keeps sending me letters even though I’m really slow at writing back. You know who you are. I love you all! Until next week.