Full of Pingüinos!

Hello Family,

How are you all? I had a good first week in Los Esteros. The members here really like the missionaries. Mucho Cariño (they care about the missionaries).

We found a new investigator named Javier. He is the son of a part member family. When we came to visit with his father, Javier invited us to come back and visit with him. He told us that he had intended to be baptized with his family but had lost contact with the missionaries when he left town for a new job while they were still teaching his family. He came back to live with his family, but never really became interested again in the gospel. Hopefully, we will be able to start teaching him and help him gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

We are also working with a young girl named Karola. She can't decide if she really wants to join the church or not. Much of her problem is her parents. I think they are disappointed that their son, Yahir, did not solve all his problems when he got baptized so they don’t want the same to happen with Karola. We taught a few of Yahir’s friends. Those chicos have quite a few problems. In my one week here in Los Esteros, I think I have run into more pura babilonia (pure Babylon) than anywhere else in my mission. This place is crazy.

Here is some more missionary jargon. A few years ago, there was some problems with missionaries paying little kids in ice cream to sit down to be taught and then be baptized so now missionaries like to refer to such kiddie-baptisms as Pingüinos (a big brand of ice cream here in Ecuador) At least that’s how the story goes. Anyway, if Las Amazonas was full of Dollies, then Los Esteros is full of Pingüinos. Je Je. Actually, a lot of the kids here are really good. They know their stuff. When we come to give the new member lessons, we just have to say, "Plan of Salvation. Go!", and they teach us.

Well, I might get another trip to the Bahia and Malecón. Elder Liberato needs some new clothes so he has been asking permission to go there to get them cheap. They told us no for this week. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get you some pictures with the new companion next week. The pictures with Elder Garcia didn’t really turn out. I was angry because Brian, our investigator-guide-shopping consultant was afraid to let us take his picture. I think he was still suspicious deep down that we were somehow affiliated with the CIA even though we went to his house almost every day of the week for nearly a month. Oh well.

When I asked him if he would accompany us to Malecón, I asked using a word that sounds ever so slightly different but means something very different indeed. He gave me a "What did you say to me, boy?" look and then remembered I was a gringo who still did not know what most of the words coming out of his mouth meant. Oops.

Anyway, I guess your summer has finally come to an end. I don’t know if it went faster for you guys or for me. Lia’s a senior. Now you need to be the Bull Goose Looney on campus (you’ll read that book this year). Ava’s going to start high school and seminary. Who is the Freshmen-Sophomore teacher? Sorry if I am forgetting anyone else’s steps up the scholastic hierarchy. You’ll have to remind me what grade the other gua guas are in.

Well Ta-Ta for now,
Guh-ur-aa-double "n"-ter

Transfer to Los Esteros!

¡Cambios!

I just got transferred to a new sector in Guayaquil called Los Esteros, Zona Puerto Nuevo.  So far it reminds me a lot of Los Almendros.  They are pretty close to each other.  Nice wide streets, well-kept side walks.  This is the nicer part of Guayaquil.  I am told they have quite a few people ready to be baptized in September.  I was a little disappointed that I will miss Patricia’s baptism, but I guess that is almost always how it goes with transfers.  She was pretty excited to join the church.  We still had some trouble getting a hold of her this week, however, since her life is kind of up in the air. 

Elder Liberato

My companion’s name is Elder Liberato.  He is from Guatemala.  (He is in a picture I sent way back when I first started with Elder Castro and we had a barbeque on top of our house, if you’d like to look it up)  He tells me this is another good ward and the members are all willing to help.  There is a sister here who is preparing to leave on her mission.

Elder Garcia gave me his MP3 device so now I will be able to listen to my Men of the MoTab whenever it strikes my fancy.  Elder Garcia is going to train his last transfer.

Your package with the pants got here.  My district was quite impressed.  Thank you so much for the book.  Even though it was a marriage book, it was really more about the atonement.  I got some good material out of it.  Even though it has basic gospel truths, I really liked how the author organized them all and turned it into something practical.  I have already used its message a lot.  Are we really living in a way in which we can see the power of the atonement taking a daily effect in our hearts?  Especially here in South America, people say all the time that Jesus is in their hearts and that they already  feel his love, but they don’t realize that if that were completely true, they would not be subject to all the heartache and suffering in this world and they could be free from committing sin.  Like Elder Gonzalez said in his conference talk, the covenants that we help people to make are an additional help and blessing to all who are already trying to come unto Jesus.

Just so you know, I am not quite sure that reading books that are not in the missionary library (even if it is gospel related) is completely in "accuerdance" with the rules.   I think I made up that world.  You may consider removing my record above of our illicit actions.

Well, I hope to talk to you soon.  Happy Birthday, Lia.  Hope you had a fabulous Moses Lake extravaganza

Love, Your brother Nan.

Also, the ward is going to have a foreign foods night.  I was hoping for suggestions of something within a missionary’s budget and my culinary abilities (I will remind you of my Freshmen College diet of Raisin Bran and PBJ sandwiches)  They want a meal and a dessert.  Elder Griffin, the previous elder, had already committed to bring some yummy comida estadounidense (USA food).

Spacetime in Guayaquil

Hello Family,

How are you all?  They gave us permission to go to Malecon.  It will be fun to visit.  We are bringing Elder Garcia’s camera.  I don’t know how things will turn out.  I will try to write again afterwards to see if I can send pictures of Elder Turista (Tourist).  Brian and Joao will be going with us.  The real purpose of this whole expedition is for Elder Garcia to buy his dirt cheap iPod, I will remind you.  We are hoping Brian and Joao can help us buy it at a Latino price and not a gringo missionary price.

The young lady I told you about last week is progressing well.  She told her family that she has decided to join the church.  We haven’t had too many appointments with her because she has been busy moving all her stuff to her parent’s house and getting her children enrolled in new schools.  We also learned that she may have a few problems with not working on Sunday, but that should not be too much of a problem.

We had a little issue with people letting themselves into our chapel by jumping the fence to celebrate 10 de Agosto (yet another Ecuadorian independence holiday).  ¡Viva la fiesta!

Well, I hope to hear from you soon.  Last week, I somehow got the letter from you from the same week.  They gave us mail a little later in the week.  You all seemed not so far away, only being about three days distant on the time-space continuum.

Love,

Your brother (who is already forgetting his AP Physics)

Feely:  We found a young man who the missionaries had taught over a year ago named Guillermo.  He is in a navy school.  He had gained a testimony back with his first missionaries, but his mother had not let him join the church.  His 18th birthday is in just a few days so we will see if he has the valentía (valiance?) to do what he knows is right.  His situation kind of reminds me of Miguel Antonio.  I think I wrote to you about him.  Both these young men were quite involved in church activities for a long period of time, but because their parents did not give them permission to join the church, they could never really become integrated and eventually separated from the church.  The bishop even told us that Miguel was always the first youth to arrive for sacrament meeting and was very active in seminary.

Actually, one time our zone leaders came to visit him and Miguel was able to remember a scripture before the zone leader.  I think the main reason he fell away is because of the incredibly ugly situation at home.  We quickly learned we could not teach him at his house because his mother and grandmother would not stop telling Miguel to stop lying to us and that he was a lost cause and so forth.  He spends most of his time in the streets looking for stuff so he can try and escape from his family members.  Since he fell away from the church, he has picked up a lot of bad habits from the people he is spending time with.  These are bad habits that will keep him from joining later when he turns 18.

I have been thinking about him and about what he has gone through.  How responsible will he be for what is happening in his life at the Judgement Bar at the Last Day?  I am hoping that since Guillermo is a little better founded in a military school and has his life in order, he will be able to succeed where Miguel could not.  We invited him to be baptized in September, but he said he will have to think about it.  His mom used to like the church and the missionaries a lot until she suddenly did not want anything to do with the church.  We learned this was due to Guillermo's soon-to-be father-in-law, a Testigo de Jehovah (Jehovah's Witness).  Now Guillermo's mom wants him to be a JW.  Luckily, he told us he does not care too much for them.  He told us there is some weird stuff going on in their Bible.  Je je.  I am looking forward to talking to him on Thursday.

Pretty Good Week

Dear Family,

How are you all this week?  This week has been pretty good for us.  We have started teaching the oldest daughter of a part member family.  She has recently moved back in with her parents.  When the home teachers came over to talk with her family, she asked for them to send us to talk with her.  She had never read the Book of Mormon, but has heard a lot of rumors about the church and decided the best way to find out about the church was reading the Book of Mormon.  She found by herself in Moroni 8 and said she really liked it, which is a response we don’t hear very often in a country in which 98% of the population is Catholic.  Most people have found that Mormon uses some strong language. 

Anyways, she has picked up the information really quickly.  The only problem is that she has already told us that she received a spiritual confirmation to her prayer, but is still a little unsure if she wants to join the church yet.  She has studied with several different religions, which is good because she has been able to see the crystal clarity in which the Book of Mormon lays out many of the most highly debated topics in the Christian theological world, but it is bad because she is having a little trouble renouncing old ideas.  We have our next lesson on Tuesday.

We are also working with another gentleman who has had several head injuries but has been interested in what we teach him.  If we talk about a subject that is familiar to him, he is usually able to hold a completely coherent conversation, but sometimes we have to put our lessons on hold for a moment or two because we realize he is staring blankly into our foreheads.  He is easy to get a hold of, so we have been able to work with him a lot.  He works on shipping boats, so we don’t know if he may leave soon.

Those are our two main investigators for the moment. 

We didn’t get permission to go to Malecon.  Maybe next week.  I guess you saw in the last pictures I sent that Elder Garcia’s camera has the same purple problem as mine.  We have similar Canon models.  I am afraid my camera has finally expired.  It has come back from the dead a few times, but I don’t have much hope for it this time.  I might give it to someone to see if they can do anything.

Well, I’ll talk to you soon.  I was very pleased to hear about your ninja adventures at camp mom.  I hope you were able to let all your giggles out.  I am sure glad to hear you’ve started biking to work, Dad.  Every now and then I get the ganas to get on a bike and ride around.

Sincerely yours,

Mr. Squiliam G. Sledgeham, esq.

Feely:  I am having Peru problems.  I guess you know that Peruvians and Ecuadorians don't like each other at all.  I am afraid that my relationship with my companion is deteriorating lately.  I have been ignoring most of what he says because everything is either comment about how terrible our ward and Bishop are or he is making fun of the mentally handicapped young man that likes to follow us around or how things would be different if we were in Lima.   I am still looking for a good way to broach the subject and ask him if he could please be a little less discriminatory and biased.

This has actually been one of my favorite wards.  I tried asking Elder Sanchez to be a little less prideful, and it did not go over too well.  "How dare you?  What have I ever done that could possibly have been taken as prideful?"  I have realized making petitions like these are like explaining to a blind man what the color red is.  Any how, things are actually going pretty well between us.  I have found that buying food, shining shoes and cleaning up the house every once in a while is enough to make just about any companionship with a latino work as long as they don't have a pre-existing vendetta against you.

Mi Recinto

Dear Family,

Hope you had a good time in Oregon.  Sometimes I still say that is where I am from.  I tell them that is where Nike is.  Washington is where Microsoft is.  Sometimes I just say I was born in the Bronx.  People like that one the most because they know where it is.  "You're from a barrio dañado, también (damaged neighborhood, too)?"  Well sort of.  Actually, I lived with Jewish medical students.  I did have my diapers stolen, though.

For Faro, they had a cultural night that I think you would have enjoyed.  They made food and did traditional dances from each of the different providences of Ecuador.  Everyone’s favorite part was when the Relief Society President’s family represented Los Ríos and did impersonations of the main character from a TV show here called Mi Recinto .  He runs around swinging a machete, makes lots of double entendres, and talks funny like they do in Los Ríos and Manabí.

Next week, Elder Garcia and I are hoping to visit Maricón and Las Peñas, Guayaquil’s traditional neighborhood.  There are a couple of good sites there.  Elder Garcia also wants to look for a cheap iPod in Ecuador’s largest flea market, La Bahia.

This week, Joao brought a couple of his friends to church.  They were not all that impressed and tried to run off after sacrament meeting, but Joao chased them down and brought them back to the corral.  One of them tried hiding in the girl’s bathroom.  He has won a couple more karate tournaments.  His mom, Hermana Dioselina, got mad at him the other day because he was in the newspaper and did not tell anyone.  He does not like too much attention.  I also just learned today that Pablo Elizalde passed away.  I am sure glad I got opportunity to get to know him.

Elder Ludlam and President Montalti

Recently, President Montalti has been asking this question a lot.  "How do you feel about the Savior?  The plan of Salvation?  The Book of Mormon?  Elder Nash also talked about those questions when he came a few months ago.  It can actually be quite an introspective question if you don’t just quote or paraphrase a scripture.  It is what I have been thinking about and I wanted to know your thoughts on it.  President Montalti’s other favorite question recently has been "Do your key indicators reflect the doctrine of Christ?"  You don’t need to answer that one.

Bup sure looks great in that picture you sent.

Well, I’ll talk to you soon.

Nannels