Pancho & the Stampeding Chanchos

Hello Family!

Elder Snow

How are things back home?  Things here are great.  The new elder’s name is Elder Snow.   The ward is really excited to have four missionaries in Aurora.  This last Sunday, the Bishop said that he thought the ward was doing all the work they could in the missionary effort, but since the Lord decided to send two more missionaries, they are going to try and work even harder.  They are going to call four more male ward missionaries, two more sister missionaries, and a bunch more mamitas (sisters who feed the missionaries).  Talk about doubling the missionary effort!  Most of the ward missionaries here are young men who are preparing to leave on full-time missions soon. 

One time I was on a split with a young man named Andres.  He is the only member of the church in his family, but has been trying to get his family to join for years.  As we passed by his house, he said, “Hey, you should go tell my dad that he needs to go to church today.” His family accepted the invitation and are now all taking the discussions.  The last time we taught them everyone was there except for Andres.  Because Hernan, the father, is only home a short time on the weekends, we decided we did not want to miss the opportunity.  When Andres returned home that night and learned we had taught without him, he decided he would teach the whole lesson to his family again.  We called him during the middle of his lesson to ask about doing splits again.  At the end of our conversation he said, “Oh, wait, before you go, what’s that scripture where Phillip is talking to the eunuch and the eunuch asks what is stopping him from being baptized?”  We told him we thought it was in Acts 8 and he said, “Thanks,” hung up and ran back to go preach to his family.  I think he is excited to be a missionary.

I had my first strange Ecuadorian animal experience.  When we were helping Hermana Natividad work on her house, her daughter brought out their pet cusumbu, Pancho, to show us.  It is some kind of primate from the Sierra.  We though the cusumbu was pretty cool until the family decided to bring it to church to show all the ward members.  We had to lock up poor Pancho in a classroom during Sacrament Meeting.  We forgot about him until a class of Sunbeams found an exotic primate hanging from a bookcase in their classroom.  They all ran out screaming, followed by a very angry Pancho.  It was quite hilarious watching him waddle around the church. 

I also had another interesting experience with the Natividad’s other not-so-exotic animals.  She also has a couple of pigs.  During our first lesson, the pigs kept stampeding back and forth into the kitchen.  The room we were teaching in was really long and narrow, leading to the kitchen, so the family had to sit in two rows on either side of the kitchen door.  Every time the pigs would run through, they had to run the gauntlet because the family would enjoy taking turns kicking the squealing pigs in the side as they ran past.  Elder Gonzalez told me afterwards, “I’ve had kids argue, cats whine, dogs fight, and women breastfeed during a lesson, but never chanchos!" (pigs)

We were able to teach a man who sells newspapers in Quechua (a native Ecuadorian language).  He is very intrigued by the idea of Christ coming to visit his ancestors here in America and that they too had their own sacred record of prophecies and revelation like the Bible.  He is a very avid Bible scholar.  We are going to try and get him a Book of Mormon in Quechua.  He is very excited for our next appointment on Friday.

Goodbye at Machala bus station

I am glad Ava is really enjoying piano.  It clearly is the superior instrument.  How goes the battle against the American Girl Doll menace?  How are your voice lessons Lia?  I look forward to hearing from you all soon.  I learned that it will take a week to get the “dearelder.com” letters out in the field, so I won’t get to hear from you until next Tuesday.

Remember, Big Brother is watching…

Dancing Dinoflagellates & "Giving the Machete"

Hello Family,

Elder Maughn

Well, my bonus three weeks are up.  The rest of my travel group will be arriving on Wednesday.  A new elder, Elder Maughn, just moved in today.  He will be training one of the other newbies.  They are going to split our sector in two.  There are only four neighborhoods that we are working with right now, so the new companionship will help us cover more ground.  Our house is in Aurora, but we also have investigators from Rosita Nelly, Rayito de Luz, and Vergeles.  Rosita Nelly is probably the poorest, but it is also were we have the most people interested in our message.

I was glad to get the letters from Lia and Ava.  I am sorry all the stuff you made got lost in the mail.  Perry the Pumpkin was pretty cool.  So, did the Mortensons make this our first kitty-free Halloween? (No, but they did challenge us all to dress up as Harry Potter characters) 

Lia tells me that my English is starting to go.  After about the third day in Provo, all language became one big blur.  Communication on any level, in either language became challenging.  It has all been mixed up into one big language.  Elder Gonzalez tells me that during lessons, I like to throw in English words in the middle of my sentences to tie my ideas together.  My favorite words are: although, anyway, or, if, and sometimes. 

It seems to me that Lia does not have enough to do.  (Lia is taking 6 AP classes, clogging, playing in BYSO and teaching violin) She should take up Horticulture.  Sorry, but I don’t have any good Grandpa Ivan sibling advice (Grandpa liked to preach self-improvement to his siblings in his missionary letters), but I do have some bad advice.  Lia, I want to share my secret biology study strategy.  If you sleep on your book you really do retain the information better.  Just read a passage, take a little nap, and then reread the passage again.  Once you start having dreams about dancing dinoflagellates, you can be pretty sure you will do well on the test.  And Ava, people do get into BYU with Bs, trust me.  Sorry, Lia, if that invalidates anything I just told you.

This week we got to help a family build an addition onto their house.  We helped to put up some brick walls.  They all enjoyed watching the gringo try and use a machete. Here in Ecuador, when you lay into someone, they call it “giving them the machete.”   The family came to church this Sunday and had a good experience.   I liked what you said, Mom, about your lesson.  There were a few members who did not quite see the problem with running to the store across the street in between Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School.

This week, I did a lot of splits with members from the ward.  Working without an experienced companion made me appreciate Elder Gonzalez even more.  I have so much I can learn from him.

Well, I look forward to getting your letter tomorrow.  Talk to you next week.

Banana Capital of the World!

I am in Machala!    (Click here to find out more about Machala!)     

We got sent out here on Saturday.  We are now in the Aurora sector--which is about 70 times bigger than the sector in Guayaquil.  We are living with Elder Hickens.  It is a little strange to meet an elder and say “Hi, I’m Elder Ludlam.  My mom reads your blog.”

View from Grant's
Machala apartment

Our house is in the middle of the sector, on the fourth floor, way up in the clouds.  Just about every thing that we can see from our view is in our sector.  There is a lot bigger spectrum of economic status here.  In Guayaquil, everyone was about at the same level, living in little brick houses that are all built on top of each other.  Here in Machala, however, there are a number of members of the ward that have houses like you would see in the states while at the same time there are some members living in bamboo huts down in the mud.  It’s a pretty big range.

The ward here is fantastic.  Elder Gonzalez said he has never seen anything like it.  There are one or two young men preparing to leave in a few months on their missions who have been going on exchanges with us.  They have keys to our apartment, so they like to invite themselves over.  The ward is really supportive of the missionary effort and has given us a lot of contacts.  When they learned I could play the piano, they got real excited and said, ¨Finally, someone can play our piano.¨ I believe them when say that they have not had anyone touch it in several years because I don’t think they realized it has gone way out of tune.  After I played, I think they were all a little disappointed.  When I sat down, a ward member whispered to me, “I think the piano may be broken.”

Well, I am really excited to work with this area.  The people are a lot more open here than in Guayaquil.  We inherited a ton of investigators from the previous missionaries.  They have all said they were looking for something in their life, and they felt they found it when they met the missionaries.  It is rather remarkable how prepared some people are to receive the Gospel.  I think I will get to see more of the changes it can bring to peoples lives in this sector.

Maria Magdelena, Andres, Katty, Fabian Estacio

I enjoyed living in the office house for a little while, but it is kind of difficult to have a normal mission life, living with ten or twelve other elders, trying to coordinate who is going to meet which investigator when.  I learned that Assistant to the President only means that you are exempt from all the mission rules.  I had all the big mission home experiences: the iguana park, taxiing to all the different sectors, rat bashing, and sleeping with the air conditioning, etc., but it is nice to be able to just work with Elder Gonzalez and focus on our sector.

Well, I hope to hear from you all soon!