Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Hey everyone! Well I guess i`ll start with the news from last week since I didn`t really write anything last week. It was a pretty good week. On Tuesday we went and did a service helping someone build a house. They had 2 HUGE truck loads of cinder blocks so we had to unload them all and carry them a little ways to the spot where they were gonna build the house. I don`t think my arms have ever been so tired in my entire life. They felt like they were about to fall off. Seriously all we did for like 4 house was carry cinderblocks. We didn`t even get to start building because by the time we had unloaded all the blocks we had to go because we had an appointment.
Later that day we had to do a baptismal interview for a lady that wanted to get baptized in the zone. I did the interview but it wasn`t exactly a normal interview because the lady didn`t speak Spanish. It was an old indigenous lady that only spoke quichua so her grandson had to be there to translate. It was an interesting experience trying to determine whether or not someone was ready for baptism when I didn`t understand her and had to rely on a translator. And it was kinda weird asking such personal questions about worthiness with her grandson as the translator. I guess I really had to try and depend on the spirit to tell me whether or not she should get baptized. After all was said and done I felt like she was ready and gave her the OK.
Last Sunday there was a return missionary that gave a talk in quichua so I didn`t understand anything but then he said “BYU” and about a minute later mentioned “Brigham Young University”. I didn`t understand what he said but it caught my attention that he mentioned BYU. So after the meeting I asked him what he was saying (He speaks Spanish, English, and Japanese as well) and he told me that he had stoped in Utah on his way home from Japan and his ex mission president took him to BYU and that while he was there he just thought it was the best place in the world because the temple is right there and there are a ton of beautiful mormon girls and that his life would probably be a lot easier if he went and studied there but he doesn`t go because the prophets have commanded people to build up zion in their own lands. I thought it was kinda funny…. Other missionaries and some members talk to me about BYU all the time and they always get jealous about how there are so many members there are and all the opportunities there are… especially to get married. Haha
On Saturday we were walking down the street and ran into 2 members from Oklahoma. The guy served his mission here 10 years ago and was visiting with his wife. They said that they have family in Castle rock that live by the outlet mall. Steve and Elizabeth Kramerk or chris and ann Candi… do those names sound familiar. I assume they are in the other ward…. The people that I met were the Bomans.
This week was a good week as well. We had a new family come to church for the first time on Sunday. The Cevallos Narvaez family. They were references that we received from a member about 2 weeks ago and the only way to describe them is golden. They are way open to us and always read the chapters that we leave for them to read. The wife isn`t as receptive as the husband but she is still way receptive. The husband used to be an alcoholic but hasn`t drank since we started teaching them. They have a baptismal date for this month.
Last Sunday a 17 year old guy showed up to church named Giovani, We have been teaching him this week and he came to church again yesterday and has a baptismal date as well. He says that he wants to be a missionary like us.
Basically I love this sector. We have a good program and get a lot of references and things are looking up.
This week Elder Warr and I went to do baptismal interviews for 2 little girls who are older than 8 and their parents are becoming active again. After the interview we both asked them who they wanted to baptize them and they both said us. I tried to convince the one that I interviewed that it would be better if the missionaries that taught her baptized her but she was pretty stubborn so I just ended up baptizing her. That’s why I sent home baptism pictures.
Elder Warr got changed today so now i`m with Elder Quexel. He is from Guatamala and has the same amount of time in the mission as me. I was kinda sad that elder Warr left after only 4 weeks together. He was probably my favorite companion so far. We had a ton in common. But that’s how the mission is. I`m sure i`ll have fun with Elder Quexel! Well that’s all I have for this week. Thanks grandma messer for the package!!!! I loved it!!!!! I love you all. Talk to you next week!

Love,
Brandon

Ali Chishi familiataika. Imanaisha takangichi? Na cani maki faki.This place is absolutely crazy!!!!! This has definitely been the craziest/funnest week of my whole mission. We live in a small town about 2 minutes from Otavalo called Cotacachi. So far I love it. It’s a really nice/clean town. We live right next to a really nice park and have a cool view of a huge catholic church on the other side of the park when we look out or kitchen window. Otavalo and Cotacachi are huge tourist places and there are a ton of Americans that do business down here or that come to do humanitarian aid. There is an elderly couple that lives right around the corner from us that are from Nauvoo. They are called the Howell family. They are members of the church that just came down here to help the indigenous to raise there standard of living. They are really nice and fun. They give us nice home cooked American food whenever we want it. Yesterday we had taco soup for dinner and it was delicious. They are only 2 of the American people down here though. On Saturday we went to eat in a restaurant and some guy from Ohio walked in and was like “Oh you guys are down here too”… then another American guy sitting there said, “of course they are. They don`t let them back into Utah until they have saved enough souls”. It was kinda funny. We talked to them a bit and one of them ended up giving us 5 bucks to pay for our lunch and asked us to say a prayer for his granddaughter that has a brain tumor. Just barely when we were walking to this internet café we ran into 2 professors from Utah State University that are down here on an agriculture project. They were members. Anyway, it’s basically like a crazy mix of tourism, latins, and lamanites (Indigenous people). Sometimes I get confused when I here people speaking English, Spanish, and quichua at the same time.
Our stake is a quichua stake so we only teach people that speak quichua. It’s kinda difficult because there are a lot of Spanish speakers here but we can`t teach them and baptize them because they wouldn`t understand anything at church. If we find Spanish speakers we are supposed to refer them to the sister missionaries in the Otavalo zone but my companion says that they never come to cotacachi because they have their own sector and ours is kinda far away. We are going to baptize a latin this week though because he has been attending church in a Spanish ward in Ibarra. But he has been being taught here and is friends with the Howells so he counts as our baptism.
So Monday through Wednesday we were in Quito for some meetings. I first got to Cotacachi on Wednesday night so I had my first experience with teaching here on Thursday night after district meeting. Our sector is Cotacachi and a bunch of little villages in the mountains that surround us. Most of the indigenous people live in the little villages so we have to go teach them there and it takes a long time to get to some of them. Anyway, we went to visit a family on Thursday and we couldn`t get a member to go with us so we tried to teach them in Spanish. Most of the indigenous people now at least a little bit of Spanish. They speak about as well as I spoke when I had been in Ecuador for about a month. So we tried to teach them in Spanish but it was kinda rough because they didn`t understand very well. All I could think to do was try to help them feel loved and not focus so much on teaching the doctrine. I figured that love was something that you can`t misunderstand. We`re definitely gonna try and go with a member to translate next time. There are actually quite a few indigenous people that speak Spanish so its not always that hard. But its definitely an adventure out here.
I bore my testimony yesterday in church. I started of saying “Ali punja whyki kuna y pani kuna” (Good morning brothers and sisters) in quichua and I think I got a smile out of every single person there. It must be funny/cute watching some white kid try and learn their native language… haha. Speaking of church…..I was soo lost…. 3 hours of quichua was quite an experience.
All the men here have pony tails and I`m not really sure how to describe the dress of the woman. Just look up Otavalo on Google and I’m sure you can find some good pictures of the way they dress. Its hard to tell the difference between little boys and little girls because they all have pony tails and look the same.
The food here is pretty gross. Its usually just rice and potatoes without any type of flavoring and a piece of chicken. Its hard to eat it all when its all so plain.
The people here are literal descendants of the lamanites. Its pretty cool that I am actually fulfilling book of mormon prophesy when I teach and baptize them. Check out some scriptures that my companion showed me that talk about the lamanites …. Alma 9:16-17, Helaman 15:1-16
Its carnival this week so everyone is throwing water on each other outside. Luckily we haven’t been hit yet. Its relatively calm here compared to how crazy it was in Esmeraldas last year.
Happy birthday Desi!!!!!!!!!! Are you really already 12?! Crazy!!!!! Like I say everytime someone has a birthday… I`ll bring you a present in 6 months! Love you!
I can’t think of anything else to tell you so if you have any questions just ask and I’ll try and answer them in my next letter. I love you all. Thanks for everything. Thanks for the letter and the pictures Lindsey! They were pretty gnarley…. I hope I never have to get staples in my head!!! I`ll talk to you all next week!!!!

Love,
Brandon

Well this week was a pretty good week. We had a baptism and found 3 new families so I can`t really complain. Our baptism was a 10 year old girl named Nicole. Everyone in her family is a member but they have been inactive for a while. Over the past couple of months we have been visiting them and little by little they have been coming back to church. They have a lot of problems in their home and to be honest are very prideful and hard to help but we have been doing our best and they have been coming to church about every other week. Hopefully Nicole’s baptism will motivate them to keep coming and to keep improving. The baptismal service was good and bad at the same time… let me explain. It was good because that same day we had an open house in the stake center so there were a lot of members there but it was bad because there were only 2 members from our ward…the bishop and his wife. I guess it’s not hard to see why there was only 1 baptism in all of 2010. But hey if you look at it from a positive perspective we`ve already baptized as many people this year as all of last year and its only February! All of the missionaries in the zone were at Nicole’s baptism so we formed a small choir and I played the guitar while everyone sang “Nearer my God to Thee”. It turned out really good considering that almost no one in Ecuador has any musical talent. Here I sing well…. Can you believe that?! Haha
Anyway like I said we had a open house on Saturday. We had been planning it with the high council member in charge of missionary work for a long time and had everything planned out wonderfully…. But it didn`t turn out that great because all the members got there really late and not very many people brought friends. Each ward was assigned to a subject to talk about for 3-5 minutes. For example 1 ward was assigned to the restoration, another to the book of Mormon, another to temples, ect…. The investigators were supposed to come in and go from room to room learning a little bit about each subject. But they all got there late and weren´t organized at all. One ward got there half an hour late and started to set up their room and by the time they were finished 2 and a half hours later the open house was already over. They were supposed to come at 11 am to set up and be ready to start at 2 but apparently nobody thought it was necessary to come that early… I`m not gonna lie…. I wasn`t surprised haha. But at least we learned a lot about how to make it better for next time.
Random Story: My companion and I were walking to an appointment on Wednesday and we ran into a random member from Colombia. He recognized us and came up and started talking to us. He said that he was a member from Colombia and that he used to be the elders quorum president. We asked him where he lived now and he told us that he traveled all around Ecuador selling trash bags on buses and in the streets. I thought that was a kinda weird thing to do but then he explained his story. Apparently he worked for the government in Colombia and somehow was involved in some legal case against a rebel group in Colombia so the rebel group tried to kill him but he escaped to Ecuador but can`t just live in one spot because the rebel group can find him and kill him. He is trying to get all his documents changed and his name changed and he is trying to get a visa to Spain to escape. My companion told me that a situation like that was normal and that almost all the Columbians that come to Ecuador come for stuff like that. Apparently the Ecuadorian government helps them a lot to escape.

On Saturday my companion and I were walking home at about 8:40 pm. We passed by the Chicazia family`s house and as we passed by I had the impression to stop by and remind them about church on Sunday. We knocked on the door and they came out and let us in. It turned out that the oldest son had come home drunk and started beating his mom and the dad had stepped in to defend the mom and beat up the son and called the police and the police came and took the son to jail. We were able to calm them down a little and help them restore peace in their home. It was a cool experience because we weren`t planning on visiting them but the spirit told us that we needed to.

On Sunday My companion and I gave talks in church. The ward mission leader was supposed to give a talk as well but never showed up. I talked about a talk that elder Oaks gave in 2001 called the challenge of becoming or something like that. It talks about how the gospel isn`t just about having a testimony… It is about becoming something. It isn`t enough to just know. It isn`t enough to just know and do. We have to know and do with real intent and real desires so that we become. We can`t just go through the motions and expect to receive eternal life. The gospel isn`t just to know or do. It is to be. I have visited a lot of inactive members that have very strong testimonies. The problem is that they don’t do anything to act on their testimonies. At the same time there are a lot of active members that have testimonies and that go to church and do a lot of good things but they don’t do it with real intent so as to let themselves be molded and changed by their actions. They never become something. Its like it says in Moroni 7…. If a man makes an offering or prays without real intent it doesn`t profit him. Joseph smith waited 2 years after reading James 1:5 before he prayed and received his answer. I imagine in those 2 years he strived constantly to change his desires and to make them pure and real so that he could receive an answer. God will always grant us the desire of our hearts. If we aren`t receiving something it is because the desire hasn`t been etched onto our heart. If we go to church week after week and don’t feel like we are getting better and becoming what we need to be it is because we don’t desire it enough.

Anyway, sorry for that little doctrinal spill…, that’s all I have for this week. But before I finish I want to ask a favor of everyone at BYU that reads my blog. I have to register for classes in April and I don’t really have that much time to research things and pick classes and teachers and all that. I have to take the civilization1 credit, 4 religion credits, and I’m gonna take Spanish 321 and I’m thinking about calc and chem 105. If anyone has any suggestions about what classes to take or which teachers to take them from or which teachers to avoid PLEASE WRITE ME through dearelder and let me know!!! i would be very grateful! Ok that’s all I have for now. I love you all.

Hey everyone. I had another good week here in Ambato. On Monday we traveled to Quito to have dinner in presidents house and a doctrine class and we stayed the night to go to Zone leader council on Tuesday. It was good. I learned a lot from the other missionaries and we have a lot of new ideas to try here in Ambato. The mission set a new record this month: 206 baptisms. This is the first time that we`ve had more than 200 baptisms since I`ve been here. And it is especially excited considering that last year in January we had less that 80. The mission has changed a ton since I first got here. We are now one of the best missions in the area when before we were one of the worst.
Random story: one of the investigators in Pelileo had a dream about me last week. Apparently she dreamed that she was climbing up a huge mountain carrying a huge weight/burden and she dreamed that Elder Rodriguez (another missionary that used to be in Pelileo) and I came and took the burden off of her and put it on a raft and sent it down a river. I had only visited her once with Elder Rodriguez so it was kinda strange that I was in her dream but I guess that’s how dreams are right? Haha. She’s gonna get baptized this week.
The family that had problems with beating their kids is doing better. They didn`t come to church again this week but at least the mom stopped beating her kids. We went to visit them this week and the mom told us that her other daughter came home drunk this week and that she was about to start beating her but decided not to. She said “What good does it do to beat her anyway. That will just make her more rebellious. I figured it was better to just sit down and talk to her…” That’s a ton different from last week!!!! Hopefully they come to church again this week. “ of the kids have baptismal dates but we`re trying hard to get the whole family baptized together.
This week on Friday we were walking home after our last appointment when we saw a family walking towards us so we stopped and contacted them. They were in a hurry so the contact only lasted for like 30 seconds but they told us to come back the next day. When we went back the next day they let us in and as soon as we walked in we noticed that there was a spirit of contention. We talked about families and told them that if they learned and lived our message that they would be able to have a happy family. As we were walking out the husband talked to us for a little bit at the gate before letting us out and started telling us about all the problems that they have and how he wanted to change and be happier. He has a huge problem with alcohol and has gotten into a lot of fights. He has scars from knifes all over his arms and face from all the knife fights that he has been in. Talking to him reminded me of the Taipe family from Esmeraldas but a little bit worse. Anyway, they agreed to come to church on Sunday so we went to pick them up half an hour before church started. When we got there we heard yelling from outside. They were obviously fighting. We knocked and after about 5 minutes the husband came out and told us that they were fighting and told us to come in. We stepped in and immediately they started whining and yelling like little kids about how the other one was such a horrible person. It was overwhelming to have full grown adults telling us about all their marriage problems and fighting right in front of us expecting us to resolve the conflict. Luckily the spirit helped us out. We just assured them that they could both change and that if they accepted the gospel in their lives they could achieve a happy marriage (They aren`t legally married right now so that will be one obstacle to overcome in the future). Then we sang “families can be together forever” and asked them how they felt and they both said that they felt a lot calmer. We told them that at church they would continue to feel that peace and calmness. By this time it was 15 minutes until church stated so we told them that we needed to go. They came to church and afterwards they told us that they felt a lot better and that they weren`t going to fight anymore. We have another appointment with them tomorrow. They have a lot of things to change and get over but hopefully with time we can help them and see miracles in their family. They are very humble and willing to change but its going to take a lot of work. Only the gospel can save them from their miserable state and problems.
Random story 2: There was a family in church this week that I had never seen before. When we walked in I saw them and was wondering who they were. It turns out they were from my companions stake in Guayaquil. After the meeting they started calling his family so we had to run away so that my companion wouldn`t get homesick. He told me that stuff like that has happened to him his whole mission and that everywhere he goes there are people that know him.
Mom thanks a ton for the Valentines Day package! Thanks Jason and Desi for your letters!! Jason I can’t believe what’s happing in the premier league! What happened with Chelsea and Liverpool?! They are always in the top 4! Crazy! Yes I did get the letters from the high priest group. Please tell them thank you very much!
That’s all I have for this week. I love you all and I hope that all is well back in the U.S! Talk to you next week!