Soles are a little thin!

Puttin' on the miles!

Hello family,

Thank you for the picture.  Did you go there as a family?  I really have no idea what you have been up to for the last month or so.

Well, this makes Week Two back with the Guayacos.  It sure is a lot easier to get lessons here.  Elder Sanchez is a big fan of the door approach.  The only investigators that we have right now that we are making progress with are the ones left over from the hermanas (sister missionaries).  One family, the familia Rodriguez, was close to being baptized with the sister missionaries, but now are not sure they want to get married any more.  She has a big testimony and loves the sisters but told us the other day that she realized her partner is not quite the man of dreams.  He has a drinking problem, too. 

Delicious Cerviche de Concha Negra.  My first cerviche ever!

We had a lot more success with the familia Brown.  They are a brother and sister who live together.  We have mostly worked with the sister, Shirley.  Her brother is a little harder to get a hold of since he owns his own business outside of Guayaquil.  We had a really good lesson with the bishop, though.  He did a really good job of explaining his calling in the church and also talked about the church in the community.  He wasn’t ever a full-time missionary, but he is able to teach and still make it feel like a conversation.  He was able to get Hermana Shirley to open up a lot more than we had been able to in the past.  She talked about experiences in her life which lead her to hold her current beliefs, many of which agreed with ours, making an excellent opportunity for us to testify that she could know the truth of the other things we were teaching her by the same spirit that lead her to believe the other things she already believes and holds dear.  We knew that Hermano Brown likes karaoke so when we passed by their house and heard him singing, before our appointment, we said, "We have come to sing with Hermano Brown."  They invited us in and we had a good time playing with their karaoke equipment.  Hopefully this will have strengthened our relationship with them and they will give more attention to the commitments we leave them.

Anyways, Elder Sánchez and I have been getting along pretty good.  We have little rough times now and then, pero el ha dejado de ser tan machetero.  His new thing is beginning each idea by saying, "I think I am receiving revelation."  I am afraid pretty soon he will begin a sentence "Thus sayest the Lord".  Oh well.  I think he got it from Elder Nash during our conference.  The conference was really good.  We are going to have another Seventy, Elder Cabrera, come for our stake conference this 15 de Mayo.  I am looking forward to it.

Well, we have the call home Number Two coming up.  I think we can do it the same.  We can just do the pre-call so I can give you the number and what time they want us to make the call.  I look forward to hearing from you all soon.  Much love,

Elder Ludlam