Día de los Defuntos

Dear Family,

How are you all this week?  I have been excited all week waiting to find out what my sisters will be today.  Is there not a single kitty among you?  You’ll have to send me exactly what everyone is.  Here in Ecuador, for día de los defuntos they make a special drink called Colada Morada and make people-shaped cookies called guaguas de pan.  I never realized it but when I got here last year I tried them a lot but then forgot about them after the holiday was over.  Now that it is that time of year again, it is bringing back memories from back when I was new.

We had a good week.  We were able to get a good number of people to church this week.  Elder Johnson did a really good job during our meeting with the ward missionaries getting everybody excited about helping us to bring people to church.  Yesterday, we had 6 other people to help us comb every part of our sector, reminding everyone to come to church.  I have some things I can learn about leadership.

This week, there was a baptism for a little girl in the ward.  She brought her neighbors, a Grandma and her grandson, Roy.  I guess Roy really liked the service, because he was excited to come to church the next day with his mom.  Liliana, the mom, told us that usually Roy is a misbehaved boy that likes to play video games all day.  When the grandma tried to get him to go to the baptismal service, he threw a big fit but eventually went.  The next day, however, he got up all by himself and asked his mom to take him to church.  The mom realized something really weird was going on and decided to come to church and had a great time.  She participated in the Gospel Principles lesson like she was a member.  She has been praying to find God in her life.  We are very excited about their family.

These last two weeks I got to go to the temple.  We got to go with all the missionaries from Elder Johnson’s group.  I overheard President Montalti telling the Assistants that he liked how it went and wants to try it with other groups.  I think it would be great to be able to have a session in the temple together with Elder Fares, Heaps, Snow, Badger and the gang.  I hope we get to do it.

Well, I am looking forward to my shoe box package.  Hope to hear from you soon.

El Naño

Holes

Dear Family,

How are you all this week?  I got a big huge letter last week.  I think the first person to write in the week has their name written as the sender of all the letters.  At first, I thought Holty had written me an 8-page letter.  You will have to tell Mr. Grease Lightning to ask his Chilean exchange student ¿Qué tal, po?

Well, the camera does not work.  I have a few pictures with Elder Fares but I still need to get them from him.  If we take any pictures, I can get them from my companion.  If you want me to start taking my own pictures, you could risk sending a camera.  I don’t know when I could get permission to go buy one. 

Madre, Ana, Karla, Simone, Carlos Vallejo

What I do need is for you to wire me money for new shoes.  These soles are starting to fall apart again and they are starting to mess up my feet again.  The leather has so many holes, it does not make much sense changing the soles again. 

I am glad Ava is really enjoying running.  Sometimes I wish I could just take off and run.  Every once in a while I have to run after the bus.  I liked being able to run like that.  It is kind of a release.  Sometimes I think of throwing out my arms like John Dunbar and saying, "Matenme...porque me duelen los pies."  (Kill me…because my feet hurt.) What XC events are you doing, Ava?  The Beaverton cross country team had a sweatshirt that said, "Our sport is your sport's punishment."  I thought Ava might like that.

Things are going well here in Amazonas.  My companion and I are plucking along.  Lia, when you read Heart of Darkness, after learning about Kurtz, you will be able to answer your questions about my situation. 

Anyway, I will talk to you later,

Victor das Kinder Taufer

Well, I don't know what I'll do about the new one-at-a-time on the computer rule.  Maybe I can send you more snail mail.  This is starting to feel like another Sánchez.  I have always felt that I lost to him, but this time I hope we can end our time together on a better note.  President said something interesting to me.  He told me that he thought I was a good person, but I need to talk.  If I don't talk, people will think I am a bad person.  I think I have found that to be true.

El Actual has certainly done handstands looking for anything he can use to convince himself that I am a bad man.  I think I need to learn to open up.  First, I'll get to know myself and then maybe I'll give people a l'tour di Victor.  I used to like that Billy Joel song, "In every heart, there is a place, a sanctuary safe and sure."

Ava can help you find it.  I used to think it was such a wonderful idea, having my own personal hermit, emotional safe house where I never let anyone in.  I guess it probably doesn't work that way.  "I am a Rock," by Simon and Garfunkel will have to go to.  What do you think?  How do I bring down the Fortress walls around my yo interior?   I read a poem about that once.

A Family of Eight

Most beloved family,

How are you all today?  I passed by the office the other day to renew my visa so I got some early mail.  I got the most recent letter from the 9th.  I am still missing letters from three weeks before that though, so I will probably be hearing about your pre-sibling reunion activities soon. 

It was an interesting experience getting my visa.  Elder Heaps and I both came to the office to get them renewed on Wednesday, Oct 12.  I think that was the same day I arrived in Guayaquil exactly one year ago.  At about 11:30 am, as Elder Heaps and I began climbing the stairs to go up to the mission office, Elder Heaps told me, “At this time exactly one year ago, we came up these stairs for the first time.”  A lot has happened since then.

Well, we had a good week here.  We have about finished up with all the investigators from the last transfer and are starting to look for new people to work with in November.  The less active family strategy is still giving fruit.  We have some good people; we are just having some problems getting them to church.  We are going to try and involve the ward council more in our teaching appointments this week.

Elder Johnson had to go downtown today to get his censo (census) and identification.  They also gave us portable DVD players to watch the Preach My Gospel videos as part of our study sessions.  Aniñado, I know.  Somos pelucones aqui en Guayaquil Sur (We are big shots here in Guayaquil South).

I was able to talk to Elder Liberato today.  His companion was also getting his censo.  He told me something really cool.  On our last night together, we found a new family.  We did not have anything to do that night, so we decided to just contact and look for new people.  We saw an elderly man outside his house so we started talking to him and he invited us in.  He liked the message and accepted a baptismal date.  After they pulled us out of Los Esteros and brought in the sister missionaries, his whole family, eight people, were all baptized and they were able to remember Elder Liberato's name and track him down in another part of Guayaquil to ask him to baptize a few members of their family.  In all our 2.5 weeks together we worked with quite a few people, but none of them continued with the lessons.  It was literally our last hour together that we found them.  I guess that right when we finished up everything we had to do -- we got pulled out.  I thought it was interesting.

Well, I hope to hear from you all soon.  Hope everyone is reading their scriptures.  Je Je

Su Guayaco favorito,

Nannel

The ward is good

Clan Dudlan

How are you all?  How has the first few weeks of school been for you?  Hopefully I’ll get some mail tomorrow to know how you are all doing.  Sorry, I have no idea were the ceremonial get up garb is.  That is not Elder Johnson’s first name.  Trevor is my zone leader from back in Cuenca, but he’s long gone.  He was cool.

Antonia (Douglas Madre), Ivet, Duvan, Douglas, Moroni, ---, Maria del Rocío (Moroni Madre), Jaquelina (Duvan Madre), Misioneros

We have had a great first week here in Amazonas 2.  President Montalti has been asking the mission to try to implement a new finding strategy.  He wants us to look for really inactive families with little kids, reactivate the parents, and baptize the whipper snappers.  That way, the ward is happy with us and we get baptisms.  I am still warming up to the idea.  The last two elders were really into it.  Amazonas 2 is the land of the inactives, so this strategy works really well here.  It is a small area, so it has been combed over and over.  There is already a Libro de Mormón in almost every house and everyone knows a member somewhere in their family.  We have several families that we are working with.  We are actually having lots of success, both with plan pingüino and with finding more mature investigators.  I still am a little sad I got transferred though.  Eating all my hazelnut cookies by myself without Elder Fares, Kartchner, and Anchundia kind of made them feel stolen.

The ward is good.  There are several ward missionaries here.  They are really good.  A lot of them are RM’s (return missionary) and the other is the seminary teacher.  We had a big member training meeting.  We talked about some of the past general conference addresses.  There was one by Elder Uchtdorf where he talks about how his family tried to talk about spiritual experiences they had over the weekend with their non-member friends in open and casual ways.  We also talked about Elder Perry´s talk from last week, too.  Then we practiced (like missionaries) starting friendly, spiritually-oriented conversations with friends that can lead to deeper conversations about doctrine.

Love,

brother nano

Well, this is a new breed of companion, unlike I've had before.  Se cree Jesucristo.  There is a new rule.  We have to watch each other's monitor while we write.  More information later.

A quick email later that day:
I've never really liked that thing some people do where they say to little kids, "You are the best generation there has ever been.  You are going to do what they never could.  Now missionaries think that people a few years ago did not know what teaching with the spirit is because they did not have Preach My Gospel.  I think that is happening again with Preach My Gospel 2, which just came out.  

The new missionaries are all here to teach us how to teach people, not lessons.  I have been told that I need to change how I teach because I am not looking for the investigator's needs.  I guess it was a blow for my ego, but it is kind of aggravating because he goes around telling the members that they need to straighten up because he's on the scene and they have never seen a missionary like him.  

We were able to get special permission from a mom who did not want to let her son get baptized because of her personal  grudge against the church (which is evidence, I guess, that we are special).  It made me think a lot about being back with Elder Salvioli.  He was a really good missionary and a hard worker, but I always felt we could be teaching better.  I think he could tell I was frustrated with how it worked, too.  I didn't try to pretend that I knew what the solution was to our problems, though.  I don't know.  We will try to figure it out together.

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

I would like to invite you to join me in a mass groan of frustration because I have yet another transfer.  This makes 8 areas and 8 companions.

I got the hump day package.  Actually, Elder Fares and I got our packages the same day.  It was funny, because his family sent him a photo album and a bunch of camel pictures, too.  They sent him a ton of junk food.  We have a picture of him lying on his bed with all his stuff all over him.  Thank you so much for the picture though.  (FYI, buscear is like deep sea diving and not swimming pool diving.  A lot of people have asked about that.)

Elder Fares and I had a very lovely General Conference.  I actually only got to see sábado por la mañana (Saturday morning) and the Sunday sessions.  Our zone leaders told us only selfish missionaries go to General Conference and that we should be working.  For some reason, all my zone leaders have said that and then I see them watching Conference.  I guess listening to the prophet is a privilege for only the best missionaries.  As Miss Trunchbull would say, "much too good for children."  I have a plan, though.  I am planning on getting the sessions I missed downloaded onto the MP3.  Je Je

We were able to get a few people to come and listen to Conference, and I think the investigators heard some things that will really help them.  We had a really good week with Nancy, a recent convert.  She was pretty unsure about joining the church but has told us that she has been so pleased with her decision.  She has already made a lot of changes in her life.  She said that after her confirmation, for some reason all her family has started eating their meals together.  She told us that before everyone would eat in separate rooms at the same time, but that now they are together.  Her brother came to visit a few days ago and was really surprised to find everyone together, so now he wants to investigate the church.  We have also gotten the mother to come to church a few times. 

I guess Elder Fares and his new companion will have a lot of success there.  We also had a good experience with Vicente.  He lost his wife about a year ago and it left him pretty devastated.  He got hit by a car and hasn’t been able to work recently so he has kind of secluded himself to the 2nd story of his mother-in-law’s house and doesn’t really converse with anyone.  The other day, we taught him a little lesson and then afterwards he invited us to see his pictures of his family that I think he kind of broods over all day.  It was really good for him to let us share that with him.  Hopefully, the members will be able to get the same kind of confidence with him that we have been able to get.  The Elder’s Quorum has already come to his house and washed his car.  I will try and get you the picture.  We took it on the Zone Leader’s camera and they were going to give it to us today.  Oh well.

Elder Johnson

My new area is Amazonas 2 in Centenario, right across the river from Amazonas 1, which is where I was in early summer.  My companion’s name is Elder Johnson from LA, California.  From everything I can see, he is super pilas.  They seem to have a pretty good program here.  I sure will miss working with Nancy and her family.  I guess I should never get too comfortable in an area because that means I will probably be transferred.

Well, I hope to hear from you soon,

Love-- Elder Lovelumps