May 30, 2016

So this week was District conference ps district is like a stake but with all branches instead of wards and the mission president is incharge of all the districts here so he was presiding and it was amazing they talked a ton about being self sufficient spiritually and temporally and he talked about scritpure study, temple attendence, tithing and fasting and it was amazing if we keep these comandments we dont need to worry about the money the relationship in family we will know what to do. he talked about first you have to know what these things are then we have to understand them and the only way we can do that is by trying them out then we have to have the faith sufficant to recieve them and that is believing with a true desire that god can bless us, after that comes the change our lifes will be different and we will have more confidence and will be able to overcome challenges that we face.  and slowly we will build a strong house upon the rock which is Christ the lord.  I love this gospel i know this church is the one true church on the face of the earth i love studing the scriptures and fasting with true prayer and i love Ecuador!!!

ok well i have to go now keep remembering to keep the sabbath day holy and always and always try to find the spirit of the lord in everyday and try to feel the peace that it provides especially sunday cause that the lords not ours

May 23, 2016

also i dont know what to do my teeth and going to be crooked ahhhhhhhh i dont know what to do i dont have my retainers.  also i had to take a 3 hour bus ride to guayquil this week so the doctor could look at my foot cause the regular medice from the famacia doesnt work anymore so i had to get a bunch of subscrition for abunch of cream stuff but its already getting beter

ya there is a giant corn here but its kinda far from my house so i dont know if ill be able to take a pic with it but ill try.

its really cool that old guy that i said we took to church that was cripled really likes the church!!!! he is super dope!!! he said if you guys tell me i need to be babtised ill get babtised hah but its not good cause he need to have a better testimonio than that before babtism with joseph smith and that this is the only true church. but i love him to death!!! hah. he cant read} but i have to go now love you bye!!!!
 

Large Corn in the Middle of the city of Ventanas

May 16, 2016

Sorry i have not writen in a while but im still alive!! haha So in Babahoyo i had and experience that was super cool. so the bishop in our ward was showing us a few houses with less active people and we were looking for this family that the bishop felt that could be reactivated with in 3 months so we went looking and looking and we were like crossing ponds and the bishops wife had heels on so she was freaking out haha but is all good anyway we were probably looking for a good hour and asking people  where the house was and we asked this dood and i had a really strong impression to share somthing with him about the church and turned out he was a preacher in another church and he started yelling at us and stuff like mormons are wrong and stuff so i was like ok that sucked and we started to walk away when this lady comes out of no where is was like hey wait wait!!  And she was the lady that we were looking for!!!!  her house was kinda far away from where we were but she said so looked out the window and saw a dood with tie and a white church and she thought now they cant be form my church they are talking to that preacher guy they must be missionaries of his church but she said somthing told her to look back so she did and she wasnt sure so she decied to come and talk to us that is why so was yelling wait and stuff!! so i beleive that is was the spririt that told me to talk to the preacher guy that turned out to not want anything so that she could see us and talk to us. Turns out she has a lot a problems in the family with her husband and its really sad cause he thinks she cheated on him and stuff but we talked and we told them the only way that things were going to get better is if they start going to church again and reading as a family and praying as a family and they went to church that sunday!! then i got transfered!!! ahhhhh!! hah no its all good now im here in Ventanas and i love it here!! my companion is from las vegas!! he is super dope and played football and stuff and was super swoll before the mish but he lost it all cause he has almost been out here for 2 years now and is going home in july but we are having alot of fun here we weeled a cripled dood to church last sunday and he said he liked it and would like to come every week if we come and pick him up every week!!! im down with that he is a super sweet guy!!  he has diatbeetys so he lost both feet and one arm so he doesnt to much with his life anymore but we are going to help him out

i know god and my savior live and know they loves me and their children i know that is is the true church and that joseph smith was a profet called to restor the church of god and he did a great job!!! i know im here today cause of him!!!

After this FANTABULOUS letter, we couldn't seem to go back and forth.  His emails were coming at weird times of the day, but we did get a short little nugget toward the afternoon, long after he was on the computer.  I had asked him a couple of questions:

*Was this a normal time for transfers?  We have lost track of normal transfer times.  the normal time is sunday night like a 11 in the night i dont know why because it sucks to start packing that late but that is how it is.  i left at 9 oclock in the morning so i slept a good 4 hours or so haha
*Are you still a district leader? I'm guessing not?  Well i wasnt this whole week and i kinda enjoyed it haha cause Elder mecham was district leader and all i did was help but we got a call from the zone leaders today and they said that now im going to be the district leader and that Elder mecham is training me to be a zone leader.  so i got to enjoy being a lesser companion for a week but back to the grind.

May 9, 2016

May 8, 2016-Mother's Day

We didn't know what time he would call on Mother's Day so we spent the day waiting close to our ipads and phones.  We got this message at about 345pm at church.  We breathed a sigh of relief to finally know:

ok thanks im going to call in 1 hour

 

After talking for about 5 minutes or so, the wifi in his area gave out and we couldn't get him back for anything more than a sentence or two.  But he blurted out that he would call on Monday at 4pm.

 

 

May 9, 2016-Second Mother's Day

We were all set at 4pm, and he emailed this:

hey ill call in like 45 mins

That turned into a little over an hour. But he called at about 515 and we had a GREAT visit - for about 30 minutes.  Then the brother of his companion logged into his account, which Caleb was using, and kicked Caleb off.  We were never really able to get back on at that point, so we called it good.  Maybe saying good-bye is overrated!

He sent this after a while of trying to get him back:

thanks love you guys too the thing i was going to say was all of you guys look really old like cammie already looks like a teenager haha no im joking but it is really wierd for me haha but tell them all that i love them and sorry.

 

 

The craziest part of these phone calls wasn't even the fact that the wifi wasn't cooperating.  It's that on Sunday night, after we had spoken with him in Babahoyo, he received a call from the office.  He was told to pack up and catch the bus to Ventanas, north of Babahoyo.  He got transferred between phone calls!!!  Never would have expected that!  His new companion is Elder Mecham from Las Vegas.  His first gringo!  Elder Mecham goes home in July. New adventures!

May 2, 2016

Well, not much of an update because we spent the entire time going back and forth about when he can call for Mother’s Day.  The important part is that HE CAN CALL FOR MOTHER’S DAY!!!  Woohoo!!

There are a few little nuggets of info that he mentioned.

I asked how things were going with the cleanup efforts:

“ya nobody is doing anything here anymore.  In Ecuador when things fall all the people just forget about it so all the houses that fell are just sitting there in the water cause no body bothers to do anything, haha but the families that lost there homes just moved out of the church so now we can use our church”

Another nugget of info:

“ill try to send more pics next week i suck at taking pics cause i dont want to look like a tourist. like today in the mall we were just eating our food and a bunch of teenage girls came up and were like we want to take a selfie with you guys cause your gringos and stuff and we had to explain to them that we are not here to take pics with teenage girls we are here to preach the gospel haha they go super disinterested after that haha”

And now my favorite nugget of info:

“somthing really cool happend this week that i need to share with everyone to so next week ill have to write! but i have to go right now sorry to leave you on a cliff hanger hehe but i need to go cause weve been in here for ever”

REALLY SON???!!!

So there you go…that’s all we get this time.  He will try to call sometime on Sunday (Mother’s Day), when we aren’t at church.  Ugh!  Wish us luck J

April 25, 2016

Service week and picture time!

Thanks dad! love you too!  keep studying isaiah but keep looking up the words of 2 nefi too cause i have found that it helps a ton hah i feel like nefi, my father studies the words of isaiah!

He sent some pictures of the service they have been doing.

oh ok ya the service was super fun!  you can tell that a lot a people are in need over here. right now there are 12 families living in the stake center and my church is the stake center so this week we only had sacrament meeting and next week we will have church in another building in the city.  at 2 in the afternoon its insane haha.

ya thats true we are super blessed!  but what is worst is in manabi and esmeraldas its bad.  A bunch of members of the ward went over there and came back saying that they dont even have water to drink so i think the ward is going to try to plan more activities to help them out over there 

ya i heard that they had to close a few zones over there and the misioneros had to find there own way back to guayaquil and had to walk forever haha im glad im not there haha no but i imagine that they are doing a ton!!!  oh also president just told us elder rasband will be coming to quayaquil!! im super pumped he comes 11 de june!! its going to be really cool!!but we are going to have to meet as all 3 guayaquil missiones in one spot i dont know how they are going to do it haha!

also i need your help so there is this chick named Jennifer Salas and she and her little brother are having a hard time right now cause there mom doesnt like the chuch cause sometimes they get home like a 930 at night from activities and the mom gets mad at them. so do you think you could write her a letter she is like 19 or 18 years old and her little brother is 16 and she needs help so you could just write her an email and i will give it to her but ask dad to help you translate it and maybe hunter or max too but just share personal experiences about you 

thanks mom and i have to go now but i love you so much and thanks for raising me to be a good boy

 



 

This is the missionaries and members of the church giving service after the earthquake.

 

 

 

This is how they iron clothes.

 

April 18, 2016

He sent this quick email on Sunday April 17, the morning after the earthquake:

hey president told us to write our families real fast there was an earthquake yesterday like at 7 in the night but were i was it wasnt really strong so nothing happèned to us over here in babahoyo but in other parts of ecuador its kinda bad in guayaquil and in Esmeraldas but here just a bunch of scared people and happy birthday Dad!!!!!

I will also just say he is such a good boy because before we received this email from him, he had already given our email address to a sister in his area and asked her to let us know that he was ok. (not anticipating that President Riggins would have them send their own email out.)

This is what he wrote for his normal email on April 18:

hi mom!!!!

I asked him how bad the chaos was.

haha its not that bad but do you want me to tell you were i was when it happened?

Then our email wouldn’t refresh for about 10 minutes.  GREAT timing!

ok so we were teaching this member family and asking for a reference and when we finished up she was like come and eat So we ate really quick and we were just about to leave and the dad started to talk to us so we talked a bit so we were talking to him but i knew we had to leave cause we had a bunch of appointments but then the kid in the family was like look and he pointed to the tv and it was shaking and in ecuador there is all ways these things called temblors and the ground just shakes a bit and they happen a lot so i thought o cool then it got really strong and i was like ok this might get bad so my companion was holding the tv to make sure it didnt fall and i was holding the fridge! which a thought about later if it was stronger the fridge would have killed me so i learned something there but then the power went out and then i got kinda scared hah but it stopped after like 60 seconds then and the family was like crying and stuff so we sang some hymns and said a prayer and we had to go straight home after that. 

oh also i bought fabric today for like 13 bucks to make some pants im going to send it to a guy in the ward that can make pants

I asked if he anticipated doing a lot of service now or if things would be mostly normal teaching.

regular work there were a few houses that fell in another sector and all of sunday the other missionaries were helping out but we literally got un invited to do that cause i guess the zone leaders wanted us to work ugh but i really wanted to help cause its not like everyday you get to help clean up after and earthquake!!!!!

oh and we were going to have multi stake conference with colombia and peru and venesuela but cause this happened there were people that had to sleep in the church so it all got canceled for Ecuador but i heard in the other countrys its they all had there

I reminded him to trust his leaders and that maybe there was a reason that he wasn’t on clean up duty.

ya i was kinda ticked up oh well i guess there is a reason we have leaders and we should trust them...

i heard colombia could feel it but im sure they didnt have to cancel anything

but last night was funny cause all the members were like oh theres going to  be another one! and it going to be bigger!!! hah so we had to pack a backpack with clothes and stuff that we may need but nothing happened but it was sure hard to sleep

I told him I was surprised that things were so bad in Guayaquil because they are further from the epicenter.  They are more developed and have more cement infrastructure.  Cement doesn’t do well in earthquakes.

ya its kinda weird but i guess people died and everything!!!  in the mall apparently a lady was just walking and a giant peice of cement fell on her head and she died instantly! but i guess we are super blessed here in ecuador

I told him that I was glad the home he was in did not suffer damage.

ya and we were in a bamboo house and still nothing happened it was super crazy and we were just swaying back and forth

only stick houses fell that are over water

only like 50 houses fell and there not even in our ward or my district only in one ward called barrio lindo and the zone leaders are over there

my sector is the poorest in babahoyo and almost all the house are made of bamboo and nothing fell it was pretty much a miracle haha

its good but i have to go now but everything is ok here thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers and i love you all