Phone Problemas

We tried all Mother's Day to reach Grant on his cell phone, but were not able to get through.  We received this message the following morning.  We had a wonderful visit with Grant on the phone Monday evening.  We were even able to Sykpe Daddy B in from New Jersey.

Dear Family,

I am sorry about the call.  Our phone sometimes has some problems. Would it be easier for me to just call you from a phone booth?  I don't have permission to do Skype.  I don't even know how to get in.  I could write later if they tell me I can do it. I was thinking of just calling you at 5-6 pm.  Is there anyway Dad could do a conference call? 

Love, Grant

Grant Why Writes Again!

Dear Family,

They still haven’t told us anything about Mother’s Day.  Here’s my number: 084470638.  Is there some way you can do a three-way call with Bup on the line?  That’s a lot of international calling.  EEUU to Italy to Ecuador.  I forgot to set up a calling schedule with the other three missionaries.  I was thinking you could call at 9:30 pm at my time.  That way it wouldn’t interfere with missionary time.  I still have the old pink pictures camera.  Hello Livi!

Everything is going well here.  We had a ward council meeting last week.  That’s a big deal.  Elder Velasquez and I are still looking for new people.  We found one lady that really likes the church and the Book of Mormon, but is being stubborn about baptism.  We are trying to discern what is holding her up.  Alma 12:7.  That’s the scripture they always have us study about spiritually discerning needs.  We had another lady we thought was doing great until she disappeared Sunday morning.

Good news to hear about the birthday package!  Did you know that Elder Velasquez and I have the same birthday? (wish I would have known!)

Well, family I love you all.  I am guessing they’ll let us write again if there are any developments with calling arrangements.  I’m excited to hear from you …

Dear Levi and Holt,

How are you guys doing?  My mom sent me some photos of your trip to the beach.  It looked like you had some fun.  Sorry there were only sisters.  My family is short on guys.  I heard you've all been pretty big into school sports.  Is there some pretty good competition up there?  Here there are only two sports.  Soccer and volleyball.  Here they don't play by the normal rules.  They have their own version called Ecua-volley, which is a girlier version of regular volleyball.  They like to block off the entire street to play.  Have you ever liked soccer that much?  We aren't allowed to do sports in this mission. 

Anyway, I was wondering what you two were thinking about doing a mission.  I guess it still seems like a long time off, but you can start getting ready right now.  Do they have seminary up there?  Going on a mission could be the best decision of your life.  What are we going to do about my family moving to NJ?  I don´t know what I´ll do when I get back to see the whole Oregon gang.  When I go to school at BYU, I guess I´ll be a little closer.  Well, I thought I'd just send you a quick note.  Hope you write back.  Remember to take good care of your mom.

Love,
Elder Leaky-Boots

Mucho cariño,

Grant Why the Science Guy

Grant's "trunky papers" came to us this week from the travel office.  He will be flying to Newark via Miami on September 4th! 

Great Stake Conference

Dear Family,

The stake conference was really great.  Elders Marcus B. Nash, D. Todd Christofferson, and Richard G. Scott all talked.  I liked how it was so directed specifically to Ecuador. 

Elder Nash talked about how the members of Ecuador need to remember they are an important part of the Lord’s covenant people and have been promised all the blessing that go with that.  He talked about the importance of living the first principles and ordinances of the gospel.  He shared a story about a Guayaquil family he met.  One evening, the father was sitting in a chair outside of his house, offering a silent prayer for help in overcoming his Word of Wisdom problems that were destroying his family.  Two elders appeared walking down the street and began talking with the man.  They taught the message of the Restoration, left him a Book of Mormon and continued on their way.  Even though the man’s wife did not want anything to do with the Book of Mormon or the missionaries when he told her about them, he decided to read that night.  When the missionaries came back for their second visit, he was ready with questions.  Shortly afterwards, the whole family was converted except for one son, who waited a few months before he, too, decided to leave behind his previous religion (playing soccer in the street on Sundays). 

I just loved that story because I realized it just seems so real.  It made me grateful for the similar experiences I’ve had on my mission and it made want to go out and start contacting.  Elder Scott gave a talk parecido a su discurso de Abril 2011 (similar to his April 2011 talk) about his wife and family.  That was everybody’s favorite talk.  Everyone talked about the young men needing to serve missions.  This was a great topic because there were quite a few future elders there.

Well, Elder Velasquez and I will be here for another change (transfer).  We may be moving to a newer, nicer house this week that is in our proselyting area.  I am hoping that for my last few transfers they will send me out into the country to finish.  I would like to get to know that part of Ecuador.

Feely
Recently I've been working thought detention with Elder Packard.  That's identifying thoughts or feelings that make you sad and then replacing them with healthy true thoughts.  Bad thoughts are thinking I've wasted all my time on my mission and haven't changed enough and healthy thoughts are realizing the ways that I have changed for the better.  Well, my time is up.  It took me awhile to write this.  I am not sure what you want to do about Mother's day.  I am guessing it'll just be easier to do it by phone.  We can't use members' computers.  I know this will make you mad, but I also wanted to keep to the 45-minutes rule.  I'd like to at least obey it one time in my mission.

Love,

Elder G

GA's Make Me Giddy

Well, somehow I just deleted my whole email.  I will try and rewrite it at light speed.  Please forgive the spelling.  When is Sophie’s departure date?  She’ll be right there for the second coming.

This next week we are having a special satellite conference for just Ecuador.  They are treating it as a Stake Conference, but it will be conducted from SLC.  Also, we are hoping Elder Piños will come in June to visit the mission.  Lots of GAs (General Authorities) in such a short time makes me giddy.

These past few weeks we have been teaching a guy named Jorge.  We have been teaching him with the Zone Leaders because he lives on the border of our area and we are not sure which ward he belongs in.  (Actually we are sure.  He belongs in our ward, but the zone leaders get to talk with the Stake President every week so they took him.)  Every time he has had problems with keeping the commitments, the have said to us, "I think he really does belong to your ward," and then hand us his teaching record.  Later, when they would hear that he was reading and praying again, they’d make us surrender the teaching record and take over his enseñanza (teachings). 

Last week he got baptized.  We got to talk with him the other day.  When people receive a remission of their sins, it really opens up a whole new world for them.  I like just listening to him talk about his plans for his new life (Mosiah 5:3).  He comes from a part-member family and they always say that they thought he’d be the last person in the family to get baptized.  From being pretty anti-Mormon, now all he wants in life is for his son to go on a mission and for his family to go together to the temple so they can get sealed to his hijo fallecido (deceased son).  He can be happy now that he can see so many opportunities to enjoy life that he couldn’t see in his previous lifestyle.  The gospel changes people.

(abbreviated) Feely
This past week I've been pretty angry with some ward member for several separate incidents that happened last Sunday.  I spent the week kind of bitter and just hoping Id get transferred next week.  One of the people I was mad at was the Bishop.  I had been struggling to try and get rid of my bad feelings but I just couldn't let it go.  (Having sympathetic whining sessions with our Elders who had had problems with him in the past did not do much to help)  Yesterday, he went out to visit with us.  As we finished one of our lessons, I looked down to find my bag to put away my scriptures when I found the Bishop packing up my bag for me.  He bent down, picked up my umbrella on the floor, gave me a wink, and handed me my things.  I was really surprised how effectively that small service helped dissipate any negative feelings I was experiencing.  I might have gone through another whole week of just being angry, but that one small act of kindness just made life so much easier for everyone.  It made everything a little brighter.
 
Well, I was going to try and write to Holt and Levi, but I think I’ll have to wait until next week.

Love, Elder Nu Nu

The Perplexities of Grant's Mind

Dear Family,

Fabricio Jara and his abuelo, hermano Angel "Trompeta"

I liked the beach pictures.  How did you get so many ding-bats up in the air at once?  I am going through Holt envy right now.  Tell Levi he's a stud.  So did Dad just make it through his first NJ transmuting adventure?  I need to talk about something that hurts Nan's heart a lot.  I think I need to go through all your letters and clean out because my suitcases are pretty full.  Did you say that you had been saving all my dear elders on your computer?  I think I am just going to save all the homemade pieces of love.  I only get to take home one suitcase and one carry-on.

Well, this was a crazy week.  This was the first time I had problems with a kid getting scared of the water in the font.  We got Karen to church. She's the girl I told you about last week.  After it was all over, we asked her how she liked it and she said she wasn't too impressed, but then we got the ward missionaries (all the young people in our ward are ward missionaries) to go over and visit her and then they went to an institute activity.  After they had visited, we asked again how she liked church and she said it was great and couldn't wait for next week.  I guess something changed.  We are going to try and teach her friend today.  I think she was impressed after seeing Karen so excited.  We've been trying to gear ourselves back up into" finding mode."  Last night we got a bunch of good references from different member families.  We´ll have to see how the week goes.

Cristhian Vitores, Jeramiah, Yamilet, Jixxsya

Hey, llamada número 4 ya viene (the 4th phone call is coming up!).  And guess what.  We get to use Skype.  I am not sure how to set it all up, but I am guessing we'll just do it Monday and I can go to an internet cafe.

Feely
I was thinking the other day about how as Elders we get to be buddies with just about everyone.  We can just go up to people and start talking about them without making a big deal who they are or what they've done.  Our message is for everyone.  After getting back home from your mission, Mom, how did you feel that that missionary ability changed?  Did you go back to seeing people like you did before the mission, or did you change?  Just something I've been thinking about lately.

I've also been thinking about getting ready in the morning.  For some reason I can't seem to find enough time to get ready in time.  I think I had that problem in getting all my lacrosse gear ready.  I've been trying to figure out why I have the tendency to get kind of spacey and stare off for a while and then lose track of time thinking about something and then be late.  Well, those are the perplejedades de Nan's mente (perplexities of Grant's mind).  Anyway, I love you all.

I sent José's picture with his family.  He's doing great.

A Book Saturated in the Spirit

Hello Family,

How are you all? Things are going well here. Everything went well with José (he was baptized on Sunday). He is very happy. We got to ride a big school bus home from the service.

The magic school bus

Everyone is excited for the baptism!

Jean Carlos, Jose, Jose Jose, Glenda

We found some new people this week. There is one named Karen. She is a friend of another friend we are teaching. When we first started talking with her, she told us not even to bring up baptism because she has been asked "a hundred times" by different churches to get baptized and that the decision to get baptized takes lots of time. So, we just gave her a Book of Mormon and focused in on the other investigadora for the rest of the lesson. The next time we passed by the first thing she said was, "Hey, guess what! I read the book and now I want to get baptized." It was rather surprising. I love it when they read the Book of Mormon.

I think it was Elder Gonzalez that said it is a book saturated in the spirit of the Lord. I’ve been thinking about that phrase a lot, recently. Combined with the spirit, it really is a missionary’s greatest tool. We invited her to see another baptism and she said, "What? Why do they get to get baptized this Saturday and I have to wait a couple of weeks." That is not a usual response.

Jose with his brother, Dario, sister,
Maria, and mother

Ward after the baptism

Things are going really well with Elder Velasquez. He’s a great guy. He’s easy to talk to. I don’t like feeling old. It seems so short till its all over. I am not really sure how I feel about it. Sometimes when I’m trying to get someone excited about coming to church or to keep one of their commitments after they change their mind for the fourth time, I think to myself, "I’m getting too old for this." But then later I think I don’t ever want this to stop.

Mom, how was trying to be obedient on your mission? One of the things I’ve been working on is understanding that I don’t have to do everything perfectly. I can take time to learn to do things right and with prayer and planning I can decide how to use my time best.. Every once I a while I’ve been feeling frustrated in the mornings when I haven’t gotten everything ready for the day and then I feel like things won’t go right or that I won’t have the spirit or something. How did you learn to follow the rules without going rule crazy?

Brian and Patricio with Alain and his mother

Feel-y  I don't like feeling old.  It seems so short till it's all over.  I am not really sure how I feel about it.  Sometimes when I'm trying to get someone excited about coming to church or to keep one of their commitments after they change their mind for the fourth time, I think to my self, "I´m getting too old for this." but then later I think I don't ever want this to stop.  That's how Elder Castro Colombiano was.  He'd wake up one morning and want to extend his mission and then the next day he would say he just wanted to go home.

Well, that’s what has been going on in Solana. I am looking forward to talking to you soon. I got the Easter and Saint Valentine's packages this week. The chocolate pretzels were a hit.

Mucho amor,
Mr. V

Todo Tranquilo

Dear Fambly,

How are you all?  I hope you all enjoyed the conference.  I’m downloading the talks right now.

I would like another camera.  I am guessing mailing one would be the best option.  I just don’t know when it will get here.  I read something that worried me in one of your letters.  You said that you had to give back Bup’s laptop.  Were you able to save my music on there?  It is a personal treasure.  I am worried since we will no longer be in the King County Library System some of the songs may be nearly irreplaceable.  That’s a Spanish-looking English word. 

I am not sure about going home in October.  My trunky papers came in blank.  I did talk to an assistant about extending, though.

We had a pretty good week.  Todo tranquilo con Élder Velasquez. (all is well with Elder Velasquez)

Feely
In my talks with Elder Packard, we have talked about how the real path to being happy is by receiving and following promptings from the Holy Ghost.  Revelation really does make us happy.  I'm thinking back over past companionship problems and dealing with difficult people, even when everything seemed to be stretched to the limit, I found (looking back) that when I was really in contact with Heavenly Father and trying to find and do His will, everything seemed to be under control and I was able to find great peace. 

Recently, I have been trying to record little impressions to do something nice, or how to do something right, or a prompting to be more obediente.  I've been writing them on these little pink post-its that stick out of the bottom of my agenda.  It makes it easier to see how I am doing with my communication with heaven.  The little revelation dead-spots, where I've gone a few days without anything to write, have been the times where I later on have felt lonely or sad.  They have been the times when, even if I was trying to work hard, things just didn't seem to work out or I would just get tired and slow down.  The spots with lots of little pink notes have been when I have been able to have success even in difficult circumstances. 

I liked Élder Scott's talk about revelation.  I liked how he talked about having our bodies, minds, and spirits ready and in tune to receive revelation.  It gave me a desire to be obedient with more exactness.    Not that I am breaking any big rules, but sometimes when I'm not careful, it is easy to slip up on something like the missionary schedule a little bit.  I want to do better. I think when it all comes down to it, that is really the reason we have a strict schedule and diet, because that way we can give our whole body and mind to the work.  Anyways, that's Nan's little pensamiento espiritual.  Sed, pues, obediente.  What talks did you all like?

BTW, I did the beard by sticking my hair onto my face with a glue stick.  It was a plan Élder Castro and I had had for a while.

Oh yeah, José was able to come to the Priesthood session.  I think the talks were really good for him.  His wife has been wanting him to take more responsibility in disciplining his children in both the religious and non-religious aspects.  They gave a lot of talks about men being leaders in their homes.  I think he liked them a lot.  His wife commented afterward that he came home really content.  It is pretty amazing what hearing the words of a prophet can do.  He is very excited about his baptism this week.

Well, love you a ton.  Take care. 

 Love, Elder Ludlam