Best Christmas Yet!

Crazy to think that I’ve been out 4 and a half months already! But officially I am no longer being trained! Kinda crazy week being in a trio, it was super fun but sadly not much work gets done in a trio. I will be getting a new companion tomorrow, I have been told that he is from Colombia which will be fun having my first Latino companion.

Christmas was absolutely amazing!! I had such a great time here with the ward and my gringo companions. Not going to lie, but I was defiantly the happiest kid in the world to get crayons for Christmas (scripture highlighters) then to make it even better church was only an hour! haha don’t get me wrong I love church, but we literally teach every class and run church so it was nice to have a break and have more time to study!

By far the best part of Christmas was Skyping home!!! Oh my gosh it felt so good to see my family! Crazy to hear their voices again! (Epically Tysons, he sounds a lot older now which was kinda weird) I’m not sure if the time has flown bye for everyone but it feels like yesterday I was in the States with my Familia! Defiantly the best present I got!

Hope everyone had a great day and enjoyed time with your family!

Blow some stuff up for me this Sunday!

Christmas Skype

Feeling like a Real Missionary

This week my second trainer went back home to the states. And again I was alone with Elder McAdams. He is a great missionary and is super smart. But I say that I am alone with him because he has less time and Spanish than I do haha. Plus there are no other elders for hours in any direction... this week I have realized how much I actually depended on my trainer. Because this week I was technically senior companion. At times I have felt more lost than ever before in my life. But after a couple days I have learned such a powerful lesson of trusting in the Lord. I have felt the spirit incredibly powerfully these last few days. Having to lead the lessons and answer questions of the investigators has helped me understand the importance of the spirit in every moment of my life.

I have been very humbled this week, and oh how great have the blessings been!

I remember feeling like a puppy before this week. Just following and teaching when it was my turn. But now I know the power of missionary work and feel much closer to my Savior.

The craziest thing this week is that we had a baptism!! We were scrambling so hard to make sure everything would go well and we were very blessed to have it go so well! It turned out great and was super fun too!

Hope you all have an amazing Christmas! Eat some good food in my honor!

Meeting Zack's Trainer Alex Humble

Traning a newbie as a newbie + baptism + wedding

So first off I thought I’d explain that my mission decided to change our writing rule to only 30 minutes a week. But it’s ok because I have faith in my mission President and trust in his decisions and revelation. However I may not have time to write many people back or this weekly email sometimes. I am very sorry about this but I would still love to hear from all of you and get your letters!!

Anyways this week has been awesome!! First highlight is that I am stuck being trained right now and there is another guy who has less time than me in our zone. Well our 2 companions got called to Guayaquil this week and they left us together.  Normally this is no big deal but we were the only 2 elders in the entire sector and I was made senior companion basically!!  Haha  usually when something rare like this happens they just have the new missionaries stay in the house and study all day. But President said that he trusted me enough to go out and work and teach. Oh man that was an interesting time.... haha like I’m not bad at Spanish but I am in no way a perfect teacher.

Second is that we had another baptism this Sunday!! His name is Machuka and he’s been like my best friend here for the last 2 months, which has been super fun!

 

Third is that we finally had our investigator’s wedding today!!! Oh my gosh it was such a cool experience and I’m so glad we got to help her obey Gods commandments and prepare herself for her baptism this week!

 

Love you all tons and hope you are enjoying Christmas and doing lots of service!!

To my Mom:

I decided to write letters by hand and take pictures to save time but I am having problems with the pictures. Tell me if you can read it when I send it! And I though that I’d let ya know that my companion is coming home this week and has his homecoming talk this Sunday if you want to go!! He lives like 30 minutes away in Highland. He is super fun and I’ve loved my time with him. I will be sending home letters and   a tie or two for you guys as gifts! Hope you can read the letter and meet my companion this week!!!!

 

I write from a Cyber Computer joint that charges me by the minute. 

Our Branch is too small to have a building so we rent out this garage looking storehouse.  We average 70-80 members a week.

Upset but following the rules with faith

I’m not sure if this new rule will stay but we have been told that we can only write for 30 minutes a week now and that our companion needs to watch us the whole time. And this in 30 minutes I also need to write president which has taken me 15 minutes to do every week in the past..... Not sure what I’m going to do but ill try and get a decent weekly letter out and hope its good. Let me know if you have any questions

te quiero bastante!!

Interesting Week

Another interesting week has come and passed. I wrote last week that my companion is super good at singing, well this week he has basically been "touring" Ecuador singing all over the place with this choir that our mission made. So while he has been doing that I have been in a trio with my other zone leader and his brand new companion. Ha-ha its kinda funny having the two of who are being trained trying to teach together. Lets just say we aren’t the most fluent companionship in the world right now. (My zone leader knows a lot of Spanish but his accent is worse than mine haha)

So one thing that has made this week so interesting is that I have been told by 3 different little kids that their older sister likes me... So first off that is super awkward alone, but one of my companions loves to bring it up every time he sees one of them. It is seriously the most uncomfortable I have ever felt in my life!! 

 

I had a baptism this Saturday in the coolest place in this world!! Our tiny branch had this really cool activity where they went up in the mountains to go swimming in the river/pools there, play eco volley (Ecuadorian volleyball which the net is like 9 ft. so people cant spike) and to eat tons of food and just have a good time. Well this area they went to is way out of any sectors boundary but we got special permission to go and have this bautismo there! The river alone was absolutely incredible! But the mountains were so stunning! I was literally in the wilderness surrounded by jungle, Mountains, rivers and fields of Mariqua (passion fruit) which was cool cuz we found tons of them and they make the best juice I have ever tasted in my life!

Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and is enjoying the holidays!