Week 19

Why, hello there!  This is Elder Sanders, reporting in for the week!  Well, first off, happy Thanksgiving!  By the photos, it looks as if you all had a stupendously joyous time together.  I´ll admit, I really want one of those indian hats now.  (The indiginous hats here are rather like fedoras...literally)  BUT! Thanks for the letters, and I always love when you guys write to me. 

And BEN IS ENGAGED? Nelly! That´s stupendous! And Amanda? ¡Doble Loco!  It sure looked like quite the joyous day, espcially those pies... 8!?  What I would´ve done for 1 slice...   and I think I do remember Emily, I´ll be sure to have confidence next time we make cookies together.  Well, anyways, I´m attaching some pics of our ecuadorian thanksgiving and some other fun ones.  As of right now, we have 1 person with a baptismal date (because all of our other ones fell because they didn´t attend church, so we´ll have to set a new one with them) and we have about 7 investigators.   I´m doing ok on health, I´m eating very well, and as for meats, I have chicken every day, I had a an entire fish deep fried (entire as in I believe they took it out of the water and put it in the pan.), and some duck, which is really good! (and to answer your question, I´ve stopped gaining weight and my body is now equalizing.)  Plus, Elder Gomez and I made some homemade raspberry syrup and salsa.  MMM!!! 

 

So, we did have a baptism planned this last Saturday, for the sister of H that we baptized last week.  We started the day out good, set up in the chapel, called members and investigators to attend, visited her in the morning, and filled the font with warm water, (no buckets this week)!  Essentially, all was going well.  A half an hour before the service, we gave her a call to see if we could pick her up.    Instead, her mom answered, and said that we was at her college giving a presentation.  Apparently, she had this huge end of the year thing at her school planned for the evening, until 10PM, and throughout the whole week was too shy to tell us!  GAH!  While this was going on, members and Investigators started arriving.  The whole evening was going to shambles!  So, essentially, we waited a half an hour to she if she could get out early, and in the mean time watched videos with all the guests that had arrived to attend.  Well, she never showed up, and the night was sort of a bust.  So, we planned to re-do the service Sunday before church, where she could attend with us and get confirmed the same day.  And in order to have the font filled in time, we had to get up at 5 to begin filling the font.  We waited until it was reasonably early to call her and see if they could make it... and the reply was no.  That after a week of interviews, visits, and meetings, she didn´t feel ready and wanted to push it until next week.  So, essentially the jist of the weekend was dissapointing, but hopefully by this Saturday, she will be a member of the Church.  :)

 

Well, everything else is good, and changes are next week!  ACK!  I hope we don´t seperate, Atahualpa & Elder Gomez and I are such a great team!  And as for Christmas... People started putting up their trees and lights at the start of november.  It´s gonna be good!  But alas...  I am robbed of those cheeky christmas songs playing in every public venue possible. *sniffle*   BUT! I can skype you guys, so start researching it now so I can do it with ya!  And they still have not told me when or where I can call you, so stay tuned!  (right now, I´m preparing a mega-letter with christmas letters for you guys, so stay tuned! I shall find a post office!) 

 

And yes Erik, I am jealous that you had Wassil.

 

-Elder Sanders

 

PS i´m attaching the other pictures in a seperate email!

 

PSS- HAVE YOU GUYS MADE THAT CEREAL I TOLD YOU ABOUT YET?  IF NOT, DO IT!

 

PSSS- Do you now if Erik and KT got my letters? I don´t know if they´ve written back yet... the suspense is immense!

 

Elder Sandes first baptism

week #17

Hello to one and all! Today is a glorious day!  Why?  Guess who helped bring in 3 new converts to the church?  HAHA! I`m attaching photos of the glorious event!  But first, I`d like to say thanks to Eli, Chantel, Mom, Dad, Patti, and Grandma & Grandpa Sanders for all of your wonderful letters, they were quite the surprise.  And: Chantel is 21?! Meghan is in the MTC?!  Tristian is a `huge ham`?   What glorious events!

 

And now, I shall recount the event that was Saturday:    First off, we had 3 people planned for baptism at 3 PM: G, T, and her neice H Gon and T were good to go, but apparently we never quite got the written permission of her mom for baptism, so we went in the morning to quite literally teach/convince her enough to let her daughter get permission. (without going into details, the mom is a crusty lady). But! It worked out, although Heidi had a huge fear of all the people watching her, so we scheduled a baptismal service at 8:00 for just her and her family.  We were over there for over 2 hours, and needed to run over to the church to start filing the font.  We got there at about 12:40, and turned on the water.  At 2:30, we returned to start setting up. And to our horror.. the water was only 1/3 full!  Frantically, we started hauling buckets of water from the underground resevoir of the church, and soon enough, people started showing up.  But, the great thing was, everyone started helping us, even the some of investigators showed up and started to help too!  Synergy! 

 

So, we were able to fill it quickly, and although it was cold, it was ready.  Everyone arrived, and we started the service.  G`s friend baptized him, and I baptized T.  YAAHH!!!   The service soon ended, and as we were closing up, we learned that while I was baptizing T, beforehand she misunderstood us and didn`t give me her full name, (which you NEED to recite in the baptismal prayer for it to be valid), so... technically... it was invalid!  ACK!!!  So, we quickly planned to re-do it later in the night when we were going to baptize H So, by the end of the night, everything worked out, we figured out how to make the water warm again, and we had 3 baptisms.  The next day at church, Elder Gomez confirmed G, I confirmed T, and our bishop confirmed H.  It was a Great Weekend. 

 

And how can you top off the perfect baptismal Sunday?  A surprise THANKSGIVING DINNER from our Mamita, that`s what!  Turkey, potatoe balls, and more rice than should ever had entered my plate. But I was SO thankful.  And yes, while carving the turkey, I did feel a pang of sorrow that my family was about a continent and a half away.  But, I shall remember you all! 

 

Well, I shall be sure to share any other Thanksgiving stories this Thursday, and wish you all a very happy Dia de gratitud. 

 

-And while I have time, question answering session!-

-our area is good, we`ve been avoiding anything potentially dangerous, our families are well, and we should have a couple more this Saturday for baptism!

- For the Christmas package, I can`t say there`s anything else that I need, just the peachios, Trafalga T, and... LEGOS!  Well, I also need to start trying to get presents for my friends, so I`ll write you next week if I need you to send anything.  (I`ll probably do something for Brandon & Erik, and see if I can do anything for the family.  I know sending packages here is UBSURDly expensive, and I still need to find a place close to my house that I can send it from) 

-OH, for light and gas, the owners of the building pay the big bills, and divide the pay out between those who live there. 

 

And:  my address:

Ecuador Quito Mission

Calle Robles 640 y Amazonas

Quito, Ecuador

 

Well, I believe that is all.  See ya later!

 

-Elder Sanders

 

PS- congrats to David Tolman on his gloriousl re-entry

Week # 17

¡Buenas Tardes!  Somos misioneros, de la Iglesia De JesuCristo, do los Santos de los Ultimos Dias. Yo Soy Elder Sanders, y esté es mi compañero.¨

 

Yup, that`s what it`s all about. 

 

Ok!  So, this week has been just peachy.  No earthquakes or other hazards to missionaries.  And before I dig into the meat of the letter, I finally recieved those `Dear Elders`!   I`m not quite sure how long it took for them to get here, but yes Ashlyne, just like water in a desert.  (And!  Thanks to Jodi, Mike, Jennifer, Julian, Alexandra, Mom, Dad, Chantel and Erik for your letters! Just like magic!)  And Ashlyne is dating?  Egads!  Plus, I hope your throat and test are ok now Chantel, life is quite exciting, is it not? And it sounds like Dad`s trip to Philadelphia went swell too.  Send my love to Meikayla and Madison too!   AND- Hooray for Sydney and Meghan!  New steps in life indeed!

 

Agite, this week has been quite focused on our investigators.  Right now, here are those who have a baptismal date: for this weekend, the Familia Q, (A Grandma and Granddaughter who were a reference and are totally loving the gospel!), Hmo. G, and for the rest of the month, the familia M, and hopefully an older couple named G y R. Plus, we may also baptize a person named Al who has been attending church for 5 or so years, but isn`t baptized yet.  We were going to, but we soon found out that there may be complications with that because we heard he used to lie to missionaries in his sector and it`s just mixed up,so we`ll have to see.                           It is just quite busy with them all!

 

AND!  I got to give 2 blessings this week, the first one was a blessing of council for one of our investigators.  For a week or so, we`ve been teaching another older couple who had a tendency to argue alot during the lessons with each other. We had a good lesson last Monday, and returned Tuesday afternoon to visit them, and found people moving out.  Quickly offering if we could help, we soon discovered they were moving stuff out of our investigators` house.  They had gotten divorced practically overnight!  The husband was quickly out of there, and the wife was left in shambles.  It was then that I got to give her a powerful blessing.  And I shall say, alot of the words I said did not come form me.  (The priesthood is power!) And the second was for the wife of Alfredo, who has cancer and will be living in a hospital for a couple months. I too was able to give here a blessing of health, (which coincidentally was the same day as the first one I gave to the divorced wife) and that one too, I felt was very strong.  Essentially, I was just on a Priesthood roll that day.      It was great.

 

So, I can`t say I have any `fun` stories to tell like the banana spiders, but this week we also had a Zone Conference with a member of the 70`s.  It was way good, and I was able to see Elder Redd again along with his new companion.  And- the familia Castillos from Carapungo, are now baptized!  YES! Although I didn`t get to do the actual baptism because I was in Carapungo, I definately was a major part in their conversion.  Then, at church, we had another member of the 70 visit! Surprise!  

 

Yeah, so all in all, a good week.  This one should be equally as busy, but we shall see.  AND!  I have one more thing I want to share with you guys, this is a recipe I got from Elder Redd, and I pretty much live off of it now.  Here it is:

 

Elder Redd Cereal  (double or triple as many times as you like, and it doesn`t need to be exact either, just general)

-4 cups instant oatmeal

-2 cups granola

-1 cup panela (I don`t know the english equavelant, it`s pretty much raw sugar cane and looks like brown sugar)

 

Mix in a container, and eat with milk.  It`s also stupendous with bananas, yougurt, or whatever else you can find.   We make a huge carton every week.. and its... so..  GOOD!

 

 

Well, that`s about all I have for now... but I do have one last thing to say:

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHANTEL!!!

 

I`ll have to draw you something or write you a poem... but may all your wildest dreams come true!

 

-Elder Sanders

 

-And yes, I do wear my shoes everywhere I go. ESPECIALLY in the shower. And I call my district leader every day, and we don`t have a phone.  If you go bearfoot, `you`re gone`!

 

Happy Halloween ! Here are some stories that are a Halloween nightmare for a mom ! :p enjoy !!!

Happy Halloween Meaties!  To one and all!  How does it fare?  Well, the world is just swell here in Atahualpa, my new sector.  All is well over here, we`re contacting, visiting, and just working hard. (And as for new experiences, I`ve finally had my first 2 bowls of Chicken-Foot soup and lamb stomach!  Yum Yum!) My comp, Elder Gomez, is just swell too.  Essentially, this sector is pretty similar to Carapungo, only it`s a little more `dangerous´at night.  So, it`s only a matter of time before I get my real first mugging, but we are being really safe about how we travel about.    And that`s not the only danger, I have 2 swell stories!  The first one is: yes, we did feel the Earthquake.  So we`re sitting, studying, and then what started out as what we thought was a normal plane passby quake turned more dramatic.  Yes, the whole city shook for a grand total of 5 seconds, but it sure got our hearts pumping!  Excitement! 

 

Ok, here`s the fun one:  over here Elder Gomez and I LOVE guinellos (fresh picked bananas), and we buy tons of them. Take a very close look at the one in the picture, looks Tasty, eh? Anyways, we were pretty much overtly excited to have just purchased this giant bunch of bananas when we noticed some leaves and webbing on the back.  Perturbed by the filthyness on our banana stash, we whipped out a lighter to easily burn away the white web.  But Lo!  The moment flame touched the web ball, simultaniously a giant banana spider lunged forth as hundreds of it`s babies spewed forth instantaniously everywhere.  We practically screamed, tossing the infected bunch into the sink as the hundreds of baby spiders spread quickly all over the bananas, the table, and the frigde. Frantically, we killed all the small ones before they could incubate in some cranny of our home, and proceeded to pour tons of boiling water on the bunch of bananas, killing all life while still preserving our beloved fruit.        Looking back at the picture, I can`t believe I was holding a whole infestation of spiders right up against my face.       Fun times, eh!?  (I`m drawing a comic about it right now, but didn`t finish it in time to send this week, but by next monday, it shall be ready!)

 

Ok, now here`s the spiritual side of what`s been happening.  So, since we`re both new to this sector, we have done tons of finding new famlies to teach, since we`re pretty much starting from scratch.  (except for one family, The Gonzalos, he`s already assisted church once and lives right across the street, yes! Automatic investigator! )  And lately, we`ve been teaching a new family we found on Tuesday, the familia Torres.  It`s 2 parents with 2 kids, and their whole family is DEEPLY rooted into the Catholic church, so it`s been a little tricky to teach them, but it`s really neat to see that as we explain the Book of Mormon, the restored church and authority, and other doctrine, you can see the understanding in their faces, but they don`t want to change because they`ve been rooted in their church their entire lives.  (and by their reactions, I think Cecilia, the mom, is afraid to know if this church really is the true church, and the changes and sacrifices she`ll have to make in order to live to the highest standard of God)    BUT,    the real thing I want to share is that yesterday, close to the end of the lesson, as we were closing and i  was bearing my testimony, I felt the spirit in a way I`ve never felt it before.  (because normally, it`s rather like an enveloping peaceful feeling) But instead, I felt it as if it were a literal burning in my bosom, enfusing my heart and feeling on the brink of shedding tears.  The spirit was testifying at that moment.  I felt it, and I truly hope they felt it too, and did not try to shove it off, but that was quite honestly the first time ever felt something like that, and thought that it was something I`d like to share with you guys at home.

 

So, read your scriptures, check your bananas before eating them, and have a happy Halloween!

 

-Elder Sanders