Five Days in Azogues!

Hello Family,

We just learned last night that President Montalti is doing a leadership training meeting in Machala for the next five days and all the senior companions are going to be there for the week.  I will be working with Elder Badger in Azogues for the next few days.  It is the only sector in our zone that is not in the city of Cuenca.  It is its own city about 45 minutes away.  Elder Badger is from my travel group and is a football player from Notre Dame.  It will be an interesting week.

Azogues with Elder Badger

This week we have been working with a young man named Carlos.  He has a pretty fixed schedule, so we have been able to have quite a few lessons with him.  He is excited about the gospel and is always ready for us to teach him.  He is a huge fan of the Liga, the futbol team here in Cuenca and we were afraid we would have to compete with La Liga every time we wanted to teach him because we had to cancel one of our first visits because he did not want to miss their game.  I think he felt pretty bad about canceling on us because during our next visit, he decided to listen to us and miss part of his game.  It was a big game between Quito and La Liga.  We told him it was alright if he wanted to finish the game and we could come back later.  He told us that he knew that what we had to teach was more important and that he could always watch the game later.  I think one of the biggest blessings of being a missionary is being able to see the people I’d least expect turn out to be sensitive to the sacred nature of the message that we carry.

This coming week is Carnival.  In Ecuador, they celebrate by throwing water, paint and chalk on everyone.  Here in Cuenca, the tradition is also to eat lots of chancho. Everyone bakes a whole pig and then puts it out in the middle of the street where everyone is having a big pig blood fight.  For this reason, most of the members have planned holidays in other parts of the country for this week.  It becomes socially acceptable to dump a bucket of paint on someone or hose them down while they are walking down the sidewalk.  We will have to keep on our toes.

I just got a bunch of letters today.  Since we won’t be having any district meetings, we got our mail earlier.  The Valentine's Day package made it up.  I need a picture of Lia with her new wheels.  I hope Luci had a great birthday this past week.

Thank you for all your support. I love you much.

Love, Elder Ludlam

Trip to Giron Falls

Hello Family,

All these elders squeezed into the truck
for a 20 minute ride down to Giron Falls.

Well, the family that we have been working with, Jessica and her brother, Jonathan, are progressing quickly, we have added Tatiana, the partner of Jonathan, to our little group.  When we first met her, she told us she was a Testigo (Jehovah's Witness)and that it would be a sin to listen to us, but Jonathan did not want to listen to us alone and asked her to accompany him to our lessons.  We started a conversation and she began talking about how she did not like the fact that she could not celebrate birthdays so we shared the Message of the Restoration with her and she liked it.  She came to church with us this week and liked that too.  Who would have known it was possible to give a missionary lesson to a Testigo?

A little fun in the cab...

We had a Valentine’s Day branch activity.  They had a big sound system set up and everybody danced.  All the different organizations were supposed to have a number prepared, but nobody except the Relief Society and Primary were ready, so there was a lot of improvisation.  The Young Men and Women prepared out in the hall way about five minutes before the performed.  The next day in Branch Council Meeting, the young married couples and the grannies had a nice friendly Mormon argument about whether or not there should be so much laughter in the Lord’s house of prayer.

Elder Nuñez and Elder Naño

Grant thought this was a nice gesture of hospitality--
charging tourists twice as much as everyone else.

Getting a little misty at Giron Falls

They called a new Branch Mission Leader because the old one disappeared somewhere in Machala.  The new guy is the Branch President’s son, so hopefully he will be a little easier to get a hold of.  The branch is excited about visiting our investigators.  Hopefully it will help the investigators to know that more than just the missionaries are interested in inviting them into our church.

Well, until next week, I hope to hear from you soon.  (The office mail strike continues)

Élder Lulán de Washington no la capital

 Hello Family,

How are things going?  Did you get my emails and pictures from last week?  A bunch came back as unsent.

P-day overlooking the city from Turi

Things are about the same in Totoracocha.  We are back in finding mode.  Our investigator who is progressing, Jessica Nacipuchi, has been out of town this week because her brother just got out of rehab.  She has been talking to him about what we are teaching her and he would like to hear our message.  We’ll see how it goes with him.

Los Elderes Lulán y Nuñez, Cuenca

This week I had got to see all the members from back in Monay.  Familia Patiño, the last family that Elder Salvioli and I were working with, got baptized and I got to go to the service.  They were ready to get baptized since our first visit with them.  At the end of the baptismal service, they both testified about how there was a new spirit of peace and respect in their home after they started listening to us.  I was glad I got to go and support them.  Elder Salvioli also told me Hernán blessed the sacrament this week.



Well, I hope they will have sent the mail tomorrow.  We are still in a mail famine.  It has been a few weeks since anything has arrived from Guayaquil. 

Love you all,

Élder Lulán de Washington no la capital (this is how people introduce me)

Missionary Work is Exciting & Cuenca is Cool

Hello Family,

How are you all doing?  I got the Livi baptism package this week. Thank you for the letters.  Had you sent that sample of your stake missionary project yet, Dad?  I hope it did not get lost in the mail. We have had some mail problems recently.  There was an office purging also, so we have a lot of new staff working in the mission office, handling the mail among other things.

Things are going well in Totoracocha.  We were able to help a young woman named Jessica to come to church this week.  She has liked what the Hermanas had taught her, but she did not want to come to church. She had a change of mind and decided to attend with us.

The house was a block from the airport

I think the branch is ready to start supporting the missionary effort.  They just called a new Relief Society president from Columbia who certainly has a few ideas about how the ward will run.  She asked President Fernandez, the branch president, for some time to talk about how she wants to implement a new visiting teaching program during our branch council meeting.  She sort of ended up hijacking the meeting.  Turns out her plan also included home teaching as well as the missionary effort.  When I first met her, I thought this is a woman who likes to make visual aids.  She made a visual aid for her branch council presentation.  It is good to know that we will have lots of support from the Relief Society when we want to teach investigators in member homes and to fellowship our progressing investigators.  I was glad that before I left Monay, I could see the members there excited about visiting with our investigators, too.

View from our house on Pan de Azucar

We also discovered a super missionary-machine abuela (grandma) named Blanca Sigüencia.  About half our lessons are with people that she finds and just starts up a conversation about the gospel and then invites them to her home for a "family home evening" with the missionaries.  She said that after she joined the church, she has always wanted to go on a mission, but she is already running the mission effort here at home. Elder Nuñez and I are thinking of asking President Fernandez to call her as Branch Mission Leader.



Anyway, missionary work is exciting and Cuenca is cool.  Hope to hear from you soon.

Love, Elder Fancy Pants