Unrest in Ecuador, Missionaries in Lockdown for 1 day

In case you may not have heard, Ecuadorean police in Quito shut down the airport and President Correa was tear gassed.  During this period, the larger cities had a lot of rioting and looting, including Guayaquil.  Calm seems to have returned for now.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11455665

Hello Family, 

Hermana Boza in green sweater

I had no idea about the unrest in Ecuador.  Tomorrow I will definitely have to ask my teachers what they know.  I don’t know if we will be flying in or busing up.  Some people are planning on leaving on Tuesday.  I don’t know when they are planning on sending the rest of our district off.  We are still basically the same district as Provo, only without the Bolivians and a few Hermanas added in.  I certainly am learning a lot here every day so I wouldn’t mind staying here a little longer. 

Elder Loli, Emeritus Seventy

There is an emeritus general authority that is somehow connected to the MTC here that we get the opportunity to teach every once in a while.  He has good suggestions on how to improve our teaching and is himself a very good teacher.  He also is very good at making any missionary who is trying to teach him sweat bullets.  He stretches us quite a bit.  We get a lot more teaching opportunities here.  I am getting to the point where I can understand almost everything the latino elders are saying when we teach.  What I probably am learning the most is how to direct the discussion.  Elder Hernandez and I try to always turn the investigators questions back into a gospel discussion.  Lately we have been working on how to share a message with someone if you only have a very short amount of time.  It gets better every day.

Elders Brown and Fuentes wave goodbye

I really do love the latino companions, even if they are always a little naughty.  It is strange though because the way things are set up here, we are in different districts than our companions.  The only times that we get to be with them are during meals and when we are teaching.  And futbol, of course!  The teachers told us that we could not have any more gringo vs. latino games.  It’s a good thing, too.  They all have such great senses of humor. 

Hermano Huerta, farthest right, 4th row

Well, General Conference was definitely the biggest event of the week.  I really got a lot out of it.  I think that with the greater responsibility of being a missionary, I was able to listen to the speakers on new levels.  I really liked President Monson's talk on gratitude.  That is what I want to focus on.  I like how he said that we cannot both be prideful and grateful at the same time.  I think that is what I like about teaching so much.  Once you let the spirit guide the lesson, you can step out of the way and focus on the investigator's needs.  It is always such a wonderful experience.  Elder Hernandez and I had certain topics we were working on improving that we were listening for instruction.  Many of the talks directly responded to our questions.  It truly was an answer to our prayers. 

Elder Hernandez is really happy because they announced a temple in Tijuana, which is where he is from.  I am glad because he can appreciate this blessing even more now that he has been through the temple.  It takes a while for the “dearelders” to get here.  I did not get my first one until the end of last p-day.  You should probably just start sending them up to the Guayaquil South Mission home now.  I hope I'll be up there to get them.  Well, I’ll probably write to you one more time from down here before I’m in the field.  Hope to here from you soon.  Yes, to your question, Mom.

Elder Rojas from Bolivia

Love Elder Lumlum



More Big News...only here 3 weeks!

Hello Family,

How are you all doing?  A few more days and it will be a month that I’ve been out in the field.  More big news!  I will only be here for three weeks.  This MTC is over capacity so they are kicking my district out
with the advanced districts who are scheduled to leave in two weeks.  We are the only North Americans here who can really talk to the natives.  Everyone else has gotten really good at sign language. 

Elder Giraldo, famous for his
President impersonations

The latino companions are all great.  They all like to make the gringos play on the same futbol team so they can dance around us.  When they play, they only call each other by the name of their country.  ¡Paselo aqui, Columbia!  They like doing impersonations of their companions.  One elder does a pretty good imitation of President Whetten.  Every night they quiz us on American pop culture. “Do you know what is Red Hot Chili Peppers?”  One meal, we all sang the Lion King songs and some songs from a few other Disney movies to each other in our respective languages.  It was really fun. 

Elder Ludlam Espinoza, Diaz, Westerberg, Heaps

All the meals here are fantastic.  The chefs really out-do themselves.  There is always a soup and a main dish that is usually a slab of meat with a bunch of rice and vegetables, but the entrées are always prepared by a gourmet chef is seems.  We still get ice cream every Wednesday and Sunday. 

Going through the temple with Elder Hernandez

Today was a really special day for Elder Hernandez.  He did not have the opportunity to receive his endowments before he left, so today was the first time he got to go to the Lima Temple and I got to be his escort.  He has been a great companion.  In Mexico, were he lived, the mission president had a system set up where the young men in the area could live with the missionaries for two months before they left for the field, so it is almost like he has been out on his mission for a while.  He got to wear a plaque and everything.  He has a good knowledge of the scriptures and can usually find one to apply to whatever we are teaching about. 

I am really enjoying my time here, but I still can’t wait to get out in the field.  The Peruvian members here truly make lots of sacrifices to help us prepare to be the best missionaries that we can be.  The teachers, the cooks, the maintenance workers are all really friendly and are more than willing to try to talk to you in English. 

I had my first adventure in the outside world today.  The .5 soles that it cost to ride the bus to the temple were certainly worth the rollercoaster ride. Every three weeks they have the money changer come to exchange dollars for soles (Peruvian currency), and they suggested everybody exchange $20. Since I will only be here for three weeks, I have $20 dollars of soles I need to spend.  If you think of any thing you would like, let me know. 

Look forward to hearing from you soon.  Love, Girndle

I have made it to Peru!

Hello Family,

I have made it to Peru.  I was glad I got to talk to you all yesterday.  It was a pretty exciting feeling when we flew over the city of Guayaquil on the way down!  We could see the lights from the city up in the plane.  Most of the elders on my flight are going to Ecuador.  I did not know there were so many missionaries in the MTC.  We arrived in Lima at 10:30. 

We all made it through customs fine, but waited for an hour looking for a missing elder in our travel group.  It turns out he had actually gone home from Provo two weeks earlier but the Peru MTC was not notified (We only learned this after our bus driver had made the decision to abandon him at the airport).

Thursdays will probably be our P-day.  My new companion’s name is Elder Hernandez.  He is from Mexico, which is rare for the Peru MTC.  Most of the native elders are from no further north than Guatemala.  He already speaks pretty good English, so we have had no communication problems so far.  We have not been able to talk much because they have us split up for today.  They got to start classes while all the North American elders had to do paper work and get a hair cut.  This is the second haircut this week.  They made us get a haircut when we left the Provo MTC so now I have almost no hair.

The campus here is beautiful.  There are three main buildings.  There is the administration building, the building with our classrooms and dorms, and the cafeteria.  We have a big soccer field, a basketball court, and some foosball and pingpong tables.  There is a big courtyard in the middle of the compound connecting everything.  As we wandered around the campus today, there was some sort of celebration outside with live music.  The flutes and singing certainly added a lot to our first Peruvian experience as we explored the campus.

Our dorm room, shared with 4 other elders

The meals here are good.  So far we’ve had chicken and rice.  For every meal we have different kinds of fruit juices.  Since the names are all in Spanish, I usually can't tell what kind of juice it is.  I think that a lot of them are fruits that we don't eat a lot in the USA.  They said not to send any packages to the MTC, but you still should be able to when I get to Ecuador.

Love, Elder G