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