Letter to Mom

Sounds like an awesome week momma!! Wow those mountains look so beautiful!!! I’ve decided that I will never live in a big city cuz I just miss the mountain too dang much... in Naranjal and Santa Rosa I was close enough to them to not miss them too much, but here in Guayaquil its kind of ugly and I do miss the mountains. But on the bright side I love getting to wake up looking at a Mango and Coconut tree every day!!

Say hi to the family for me!

Yeah I got to work a lot with Galapagos! Everyone tells me that after serving in the office for about 9 months I’m almost guaranteed to go to Galapagos. Honestly I don’t really care too much to go to Galapagos or not. I love being a missionary and it doesn’t matter where I serve! I mean sure it would be great and awesome to say that I served there but that’s not why I would want to go. I also kinda hope that I don’t end up staying in the office for that long but I guess well find out.... 

I wrote a few cards that Elder Chogas has in the backpack that I sent home with him! He also gave his Homecoming talk yesterday but it was in Spanish so I guess you didn’t miss out...  he goes to a Spanish ward obviously. But hey he’s got all the stuff and wants to drop it off but I don’t have his email or any other way to contact him besides his home phone number that is in the church records!

Hey can you do me a favor and find the video of dad giving his speech?! I would really appreciate that!!

My mission president and his wife thing its the funniest thing ever that you made that cut out of me for the wedding!!! haha they think its great! It sure makes me laugh too!

I love you too momma bear and I’m so grateful and proud to call you my mom°!!

P-Day on a Thursday

What up Friends and Family?? Sorry to keep you all anxiously waiting for your favorite missionary to write ya this week but I’ve been insanely slammed this week!!

I guess being the Secretary to President also means that I will sometimes literally too busy to sleep haha! (Like seriously I went 3 days on less than 5 hours of sleep.... but don’t worry I’m caught up and beautiful again ) So the reason I was so busy is because I am in charge of these things:

-New Missionaries

-Terminating Missionaries

-Visas

-Flights to Galapagos

-Transfers

-Anything else the President/His Wife need

But what made it all so much "Better" is that this was my first time doing it all alone (my trainer Elder Barba had cambios) and so it just happened this week that they all Needed to be done at the exact time.....

It was a fun week, don’t get me wrong!! It’s just that it robbs so much time from us being in the Sector  

Anyways besides that craziness I’ve got some other cool news!! So I had changes this last week which I’m actually super sad about (for the fourth time ill say this... I HATE CHANGES!!!)

I understand the Lord has a plan for all of us and needs me here at this time. But I’m just so sick of saying goodbye to people... especially to such a cool ward like Los Claveles!! My new changes are actually to return to my old´ sector Letamendi. I also have a new companion Elder Chin! The funny thing is that he went to Bingham high as well but I never knew him before!! So yeah shout out to Ryan Chin, let me know if any of you know him!

Last but not least we had another baptism!! Her name is Maria Fernanda, she has consistently gone to church for MORE THAN ONE YEAR!!! But she never got baptized before because she wasn’t married. We worked every day that we could with her and finally got a wedding date (last week) so she was baptized the next day by her son!! YEAH BABY THATS 2 WEDDINGS IN ONLY 9 MONTHS!! *Guess I was kind of upset I missed the wedding of my older brother so I decided to just "have one here" ;) haha but seriously it was so cute to see the family together and get more active in the Church!!

That’s about all I got for you kiddies today, stay safe and keep on keeping on!

Elder Stidham

 

1. Compañero Estudiando 

2. The setup of the Wedding (sorry this is literally all the photos on my camera of the wedding)

3. Maria Fernando getting baptized by her son David.

4. Saying Goodbye to Samilia Alcivar.

5. Hermana Sandra making empanadas (she is the best chef here in South America!!!!)

6. The last Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) me and Elder Barba had here :(

10. Familia Villena (pronounced Bee-yay-na) 

11. Hermana Carolina is an incredible Artist!! Ill send pics of the Painting she’s doing for me when it’s done!

12. Me and my new companion Elder Chin