Where is New Jersey anyway?

Hello Family,

About the shoes.  I used the money from the New Year's package to buy some cowboy shoes from my companion but they have thick soles and now the nurses want me to buy some new shoes because they my be hurting my feet a little.  They have stopped calling to bug me about it now, though.  I don't know what I'm going to do.

Well, I guess we'll be moving out of Washington.  I tried showing my companion were I'll be living on a map and I realized I don't actually know where New Jersey is.  It is west of Long Island, right? 

Brian Leon's Baptism next to his mother, Melva

What state is that?

Well, we are approaching the end of another transfer.  I just realized how little time I have left.  I am too scared to even write it.  Got to aprovechar (take advantage of) every last minute.

We found a young lady yesterday from Machala.  She is friends with a girl in our ward, Yuliana.  Yuliana is a super member-missionary and carries her scriptures around with her everywhere she goes in her backpack.  When her friend saw her Book of Mormon, she started asking questions.  They had a nice long talk about the Book of Mormon, and "compared it to the Bible."  We told her about the Restoration and she is pretty excited about it and accepted a baptismal date.  We'll just have to see what her parents say.  They still live in Machala.

Well, my companion is medio gruñón (a little grumpy) right now and is bugging me to leave.  We are waiting for the money to come in from the mission and it looks like it won't get here for another week.  I hope Ava has a wonderful Birthday this week.

Love you all; talk to you soon.

Love Mr. Uve

Be a Little More "Valiente"

Elder, Hermana Lamarca, Pereyda, Liberato, Ludlam, Marquez, Retuerto, Ñacato, Brock, Presidente, Neilson, Jimenez, Silva, Alvarado, Moss, Leonardson, Castro Dear family, How are you all?  Looks like a lot of snow fun.  My companion says he feels sorry for you being frozen. Melva Guanga and Fma Flores We had an interesting week.  We found a sister who has been going to church for a while with her sister but has never gotten baptized.  She is excited about finally being a member of the church. We are teaching a lot of great people, but they have many problems.  The guy I told you about that has had the Book of Mormon for 20 years told us he knows that the Book of Mormon is divinely inspired and that Joseph Smith would have to have been a prophet to write it.  But he is "unsure" that God restored His church through him.  It was a bizarre lesson.  Whenever we tried to get him to think it through, he would say he couldn’t because he was too confused.  I am not sure what we are going to do.   We are teaching another family, too.  The mom and kids all like what we teach a lot, but the dad is more reserved and doesn’t want to accept what we teach right away.  We finally got him to read the Book of Mormon and to understand why the restoration is a big deal, but when we asked him to ask God about it, he said he is willing to pray with us but wants to wait until later to ask God because now he knows this question is a big deal so he needs to be prepared.  I guess this means he already has an idea about what the answer will be.  It was a good lesson.  He is one of those people you don’t have to try too hard to listen because he does most of the talking.  Just kidding.  That’s not how it works. We also found a new family.  They are really good, too.  When we got to know them, they just let us into their house and we shared our message with them.  They all picked it up really well.  They were all going to come to church but disappeared the morning of. Feely I am trying to be a little more “valiente” in the lessons.  In the new PMG (Preach My Gospel), Part 2 Booklet, it talks a lot about inviting people to baptism and the other important commitments in the first lesson so the people know what our purpose really is in teaching them.  I guess it is easier to do that when you live on the coast and anyone will listen to you or when you're teaching old people, but it is a little easier to just try to talk pretty so that people will like what you teach more (especially when you find complete families in Cuenca).   It kind of feels good to know you have a big program with all these people, even if you are not helping them to progress.  But the people need to hear what we need to tell them. Even if they don’t accept, we are doing what we are called to do and the Lord will be pleased.  It was with His help, after all, that we are able to find people like that in the first place.  I guess the same thing goes with doing daily contact with the people. In order for the people to keep their commitments, sometimes we need to remind them every day. Sometimes I am worried they will get irritated, but they need to keep their commitments.  Anyways, this is my batalla contra la cobardía. I guess if they don’t accept, all that work is not really lost even sometimes it feels that way in the moment. Well family, I am hoping to hear from you soon.  Ojalá que haya correo mañana.  (Hopefully there will be mail tomorrow)  Elder Castro quiere otro paquete lleno de caramelos (Elder Castro wants another package full of carmels/ candies).  (Favorites: Reese's Pieces, dark chocolate KitKat)  Do we have the final word on NJ? Love, Nan

­­¡Muchas Gracias a los Evans!

Dear Family,

I got the package you sent with the Evans!  This has been a lot of packages all at once.  I loved the recordings.  Lia is sounding pretty good.  I would have liked to have heard from Ava as well.

Anyways, this past week we have been working in a different part of our area.  It is way out on the edge of town, but it seems like there are a lot of good people out there.  We have been using a new contacting strategy.  We call it using the "Gringation".  It works best at night.  One of the problems we have here is that people don’t like to answer the door.  The just stick their head out the 2nd story window and shout, "What do you want?" When they do that, I mumble really loud so they don’t really know what I am saying.  I figure if people can’t see that well nor hear what is going on, they are a lot more easy to manage.  So far it has worked well in getting people to come downstairs and then we can at least shake their hand and have a nice conversation about the Book of Mormon or something.

We found a new guy named Sergio.  He is really good; the only problem is that he needs to get married -- but his family lives in Guayaquil so he may have to be put on hold for a while.  We had a good lesson about how the Gospel helps us be freed from sin and that we need our whole life time to be completely purified but that we need to always have the desire to do anything the Lord asks and how that all ties in with the sacrament.

Feely
I really enjoyed what you wrote in the package.  It helped a lot.  I need to focus on being a better example for my companion.  This Sunday, we didn’t have a gospel doctrine teacher so my companion did the class. He ran out of stuff to say so he started just sharing all the wisdom Elder Ludlam has shared with me.  I thought it was pretty interesting all the stuff he was listening to.  I guess it sounds corny, but recently I have been trying my hardest to do everything in the handbook and follow the schedule.  I still have stuff I need to work on, but it does bring a lot of satisfaction knowing you are trying to do everything the Lord asks.  

I used to get angry when we’d have to drop an investigator and my companion would say, "Well, we did everything we could."  I used to think, "No. We never really explained our purpose clearly, they didn’t understand what they needed to do.  We should have taught this principle, we should have brought more members over, etc."  But now I guess I can kind of see how it would be-- to being able to feel confident that I had done my job.  I’ll have to try even harder this week.

Well, thank you so much for all the thought that you put into your letters to me.  They really are what I need to hear right when I get them.  You are almost as good as the Book of Mormon.  I learned that I can’t ask to extend.  If president wants me to extend, he’ll let me know.  I hope I won’t miss fall term by a week just so I can stay around the house for a few months.  I kind of like how you all miss me and I think if I stayed around too long all those nice feelings will somehow disappear.

Well, taytas y nanas (that was Quichua). I love you so.  Hope to hear from you soon.  

Love, Brother Gruñón

FedEx Made it Up the Mountain!

Querido Familia,

How are you all?  El paquete Fedex ha llegado! (he just got his Fedex pkg that was sent at the end of November)  I love the Mesías (Messiah) CDs even though they got here a little late.  I had the Betalehemu on another CD you had sent me so I was able to play it Christmas morning.

We found a really good investigator this week.  His name is Jorge.  About 20 years ago, he had a few lessons with sister missionaries.  They eventually went home and he stopped investigating the church, but still takes out the Book of Mormon every once in a while.  He said that he thinks it contains some "inarguable truths" and says he feels peace while reading from it.  We helped him sort out all these perceptions and he told us he thought Joseph Smith was a prophet and got excited to come to church.  The only problem is that about a year ago a pastor from another church helped him turn his life around and he is not quite ready to reject the baptism he had with them.

Our mission leader, Pedro Juela

He came to church which is really exciting.  I was a little worried because in the last year he has learned of the Bible and our Gospel Doctrine teacher was not that prepared and I think he wasn’t too impressed.  At the end of the lesson, one of the recent converts asked some questions he had been struggling with lately and the teacher was able talk about that for a while. Jorge also gave his opinion, and the teacher was able to bear his testimony about how he knew the church was true.  I don’t think I explained that very well, but that opportunity to have a close up look at how a Latter-Say Saint thinks and feels was better then any slick, well-done lesson full of doctrinal complexity for our investigator.  It is like what Elder Perry (I think) said in his talk.  We should not try and dress up our beliefs to make them seem more than they really are.  The true fruits of the gospel will always show themselves.

Well, my companion and I have been going contact-locos (crazy).  We decided that is the best way to fight off disanimos (discouragement).  Jorge was our harvest for this week. We hope to find some more good people this week.

Anyway, I just got a little reminder about how we need to control what goes up on our blogs.  No full names, addresses, occupations, or problems the investigator is going through in their personal life or in order to be baptized.  There is a letter they sent out about this about 8 months ago and I just got another one so I think someone in the office might be sending me a subtle hint?

Love you all a ton,

Nanners

Elder Marquez les dice hola.

Who would do this?

Dear Family,

Did you all go up to Leavenworth after Christmas?  It looks like fun.

Great news.  I got the camera package.  The only problem is this is how it arrived.

This envelope contained precious dollars sent from a mother to her ill-shod son. 
How could someone steal from such a worthy cause?  Maybe they just couldn't read English!

The good news is that the camera made it and Elder Castro has the same shoe size as me so he sold me a pair of his vaquero shoes.

We had a nice New Years.  Same deal as Christmas (they have to stay in their apartment all day).  I was kind of excited for New Years until I made the realization that this time around, we don’t get to call home!  We got in a few games of Monopoly and did a bunch of study assignments that I think our Zone Leaders made up for us just for fun.

Well, we talked a little bit about this on our call last week.  I was wondering if you had any parently wisdom on dealing with responsibilities.  I think I liked being a junior companion more.  It is tough being the one calling all the shots.  I feel more alone now.

Just so you know, they took all the Elders out of Monay so there is no one working there now.  Hopefully I can find the Evans family on my own (this is the family in our ward who graciously offered to bring a care package to Grant in Cuenca).  I am looking forward to the CD of my sisters.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Love, Elder Ludlam