Craziest and best week of my life!!!

Sorry for not writing a letter last week but I didn’t really have a p day. I had to travel to Guayaquil for a couple of conferences. So this month I have been to Guayaquil 5 times and soon to be 6, which is really irregular because most people go there once every other month or once a month at most. So I have been really lucky to be able to go to all these big events! 

My trainer finished his mission last week and I had to get my new companion. Elder Humble who is from Oregon, but lives in Utah right now. He is super tall, loves basketball, super good at singing, and super super spiritual. This guy is very animated and always excited! Best comp I could ask for!!! He has been in this special choir that the mission made with all the best singers to go around and sing in these huge public places so that’s been crazy fun!! Especially when they buy us Carls Jr or some other rare American restaurant here!

Also we had Elder Godoy from the quorum of the 70 come down and gave us a fireside. And I literally mean fire!!  Like he didn’t directly roast us, but he told us very directly that we have been decreasing greatly in out success lately which bad because this mission used to be one of the most successful in the world. We all left feeling very determined to work super hard which we have.

During this time I literally got to live at the temple for 3 days!!! Literally the church has a hotel within the temple grounds that we all stayed at and we got to eat inside the temple and do a session alsoª!! That was super amazing because the Ecuador temple is absolutely amazing!

I have 2 baptism dates set for December 3rd, which is super exciting and another as soon as the president can interview him! So the coolest thing in my life right now is that we have an investigator that really wants to get baptized but can not because she is not married, but she isn’t married because she cant afford it, my companion and I decided that we will help her pay for it and she is going to get married on the 2nd and be baptized the next day!!!

Super exited for December and could use all the prayers you can offer for the missionaries!

les quierro!!

November 14

I will have a weird rotation of companions for the next week until I can have my real companion. I already know him because he has been living in the same house as me and he’s my zone leader. I really really like this guy. His name is Alex Humble and went to BYU for a year before his mission. He speaks Spanish better than any other gringo I have meet and is super animated, always happy and smiling. He is super humble and a giant, literally and spiritually!

(Zack far left, his new companion is the tall guy in the back)

The house doesn’t have an address but it does have a name if that helps

Cdla naranjal calle Eugenio espejo

Today was pretty rushed but we played volleyball, withdrew money from the bank, ate hamburgers, washed cloths, went to the Tia which is like a mini Wal-Mart but is huge compared to anything else here, and am writing now.

 

Le amo tanto y perdon for mis favores, estoy muy feliz que usted esta sentindo el Espiritu podorso!

Quidase mucho!

Welcome to Ecuador!

Naranjal

So today and the last 3 days has been this huge party in the sector that I’m in. Naranjal. Which has been super fun to walk through but supper hard to have a successful week. 

This is the last week of my companions mission so I may be changing sectors already or receiving a new trainer.... not sure how I feel about that because Elder Hudson has been super fun and helpful to me lately!

I would like to invite all of you to think of one person you know that could use the gospel right now and give this name to a missionary in your are! It is such a blessing to receive references from the members here and I could use some good karma.

Totally forgot to tell you that we all quote Brian Regan here all the time. I have 4 gringo elders con mi y ellos encantan esta comico! We always fight over calling the hump seat haha. No one wants shotgun, we all fight over the middle seat!

This week has been very humbling and I have been learning that I really am nothing without God. Charity has been such a blessing here on the mission and I am so grateful for what I have received from the members here. Testimony is growing stronger every day!

Happy Halloween!

No one celebrates this holiday in this country but that’s cool, I’m going to celebrate with buying a mango for 50 cents every day cuz that’s like my favorite thing of every day. The fruit here is so crazy!!! Other than mangos and bananas I have never seen or heard of these things in my life. Some are good, some are bad and some are horrible but I like trying different things.

This week I was able to make chocolate from scratch that was awesome!! It was a super fun night but home made chocolate tastes pretty nasty 

We also got to make this Arepas with this family from Venezuela! I love learning how to make crazy food from here and other countries

Not much time this week but I’m getting excited for my second baptism next week!

Today was pretty rushed but we played volleyball, withdrew money from the bank, ate hamburgers, washed cloths, went to the tia which is like a mini Wal-Mart but is huge compared to anything else here, and am writing now.

Baptism and the Temple!

So I guess I never explained why last week was almost the perfect week.... well it was super awesome and I was crazy excited because I had my first baptism planned last week but on Saturday she never showed up for it and that was so depressing, but then I realized it was for a good reason and that she needed to learn more before she, Paola, was baptized.

However, this week I had my first baptism!! Like I’m so pumped about this still! Its crazy to think that I’ve only been here for 3 weeks but at the same time every day is starting to go by faster and faster. My converts name is Belisarìo and he doesn’t like pictures but is actually a really happy guy! (I’m hoping the pictures will work this time)

This week there is a huge soccer game! It is against Barcelona (no idea how to spell it and its a local team not the other one) against Amulek (which is another huge local team) it’s like the biggest rivalry game and everyone is getting pretty excited about it! So yeah Wednesday will probably not be too productive.

This week we were told to leave Naranjal and go to Guayaquil for this big meeting of leaders (my comp is the DL) so that was super cool and I meat a ton of the missionaries in my mission!! After the two days of meetings we were told we could go to the temple!! Which is actually a huge deal on the mission! But when we got there no one had their recommends so we couldn’t enter.... we decided to go work in another sector and on the way back we saw a Wendy’s and they all freaked out!!!! Ha-ha I was dying! They made the taxi pull over and we grubbed hard. I laughed because I have been there within the last 3 months but they haven’t been in almost 2 years

Super fun trip and the temple is beautiful!!

Almost The Perfect Week!

This week has been so much better I cant believe that it’s actually the same place!! I can understand so much more of what everyone says. I finally clicked that it’s the way they end words that’s been throwing me off so much. They say a lot of ismo and ito at the end of every word. Defiantly not what they did in Mexico, or at least the CCM.

Haha so one funny thing is that I get called a gringo every day here, which only means white person but I’m not sure if its an insult or not, I don’t think so but still... in honesty, besides missionaries, I have seen exactly 0 other white people here which is kind of cool actually. The people here don’t have much but what they do have they give and share with everyone. I feel so bad taking anything from them but all they other elders just love it. I understand it’s rude to refuse these gifts and they will be blessed because of their charity, but I still feel guilty. We truly are so blessed to live where we do. APPRECIATE your clean water!! But I’m loving everything about this country. 

There are animals everywhere here haha. Like I kid you not, one member has 3 pigs living IN his house. There are dogs and cats and chickens everywhere. Cows and horses are also pretty common. We find a couple lizards in the church building every week and some bats. Goats are often in peoples "back yards". And honestly I love it; it’s so funny to me that they are everywhere. In the states everyone has some kind of pet, but you cant see them on the streets. 

Gym time here is so nice, we get up super early every day and go work out or play basketball, just "basket" here. I have gained 15 pounds since the start of the mission, but on the bright side its mostly muscle.

I thought I would lose a lot of weight here but turns out that you can buy bread and cookies for like 10 or 15 cents, which doesn’t help.

Life is good and every day is going by faster and faster. 

Lo siento sobre las picturas, I will try to fix the problem