Good Times, New Sector

Drawbridge to the "Castle"

Ballroom

Bedroom to accomodate two guests

Master Bedroom

Inactive Volcano behind new sector

From left to right:  Elder Cruz, Elder Kingsford, Elder Miranda, Elder Black!

Guinea pigs getting ready to be cooked, Blah!

Guinea pig and potatoes, What a meal!  ugh!

Elder Black eating guinea pig.  The drink is squash with corn! He says the guinea pig is better than you think, but the drink is GROSS!

First off I'll respond to the previous emails. Umm....last week I didn't have a different P-Day. Why did you think that? Yes I'm still a DL but I'm not training. So, how did they decide which missionaries would be in which mission. Just like anything else, revelation. I never check email on any day other that P-Day and it would be best if you could email me on sunday. That way it's always available to read on monday =). I can't look at pictures on Dropbox because I found out that it's against mission rules. So it would be better if you can send me the pictures by email. Yes I got my package. Thanks =). I thouroughly enjoyed the salt and vinegar chips. Our new mission president is awesome. He's about 55 years old and he brought 2 kids with him to Ecuador. Both of them are adopted. Their adopted their 13 year old daughter from Guatemala and their 19 year old son from Venezuela. Neither of them know spanish, but President Richardson and his wife both do. Their cool and pretty funny. 

As for right now we don't have anybody with baptismal date. The work here in San Roque isn't hard per say. The difficulties are that a lot of the people here are poor and don't even have phone numbers, so we can't call and set up an appointment with them, we just have to go to their house and hope that they're there. Then when they're not there we just have to wander around trying to find someone to teach. Kind of frustrating. Also, I don't know our sector very well, so I'm relying on my companion to tell me who we can visit.

As far as our investigators we're improving. We're starting to find investigators, mostly through references from the members. I think we have a total of 6 investigators. When I got here we only had 4. We're making progress.

So that's pretty much all for now. We'll be working really hard to be able to have more lessons this week. Especially with the less actives because there are a lot of families where not all the family is baptized. So that's our plan for this week.

A bit more information on my new sector. In a few things it kind of reminds me of my first sector in Yaruquí. Lots of dust and fields. Also I think there's more farm animals than people lol. The people here live more humbly. Most of them don't have phones or TV's. Almost all of them here speak spanish but between themselves they speak in Kichwa. It's nothing like spanish but after years of "pollution" from the spanish speaking latinos, the language isn't perfect and they throw in a spanish word every now and then when they are talking. It's kind of weird. I don't understand anything lol.

We also do lots of service projects here. This week we did 3. The coolest one was with a tree. So, during our weekly planning this week some members called us up and said that they needed help pulling down a tree. I guess the wind had broken it off at the base but it got stuck when it tipped over on top of another tree. They tried pulling it down but it just wasn't enough. So they called us up to go over and help them. We got there and pulled and pulled, nothing. Then we called some nearby missionaries to come and help us. They got here and we all pulled (11 in total), and nothing. Well we had given up on the tree and headed back to our house. As we were walking back a member of our ward passed by on a tractor and said hi to us. We stopped him and asked if he could help us with the tree by pulling it down with his tractor. So we rode back to where the tree was on the tractor and hooked it up to the tree. He pulled it down in about 30 seconds lol. It was pretty satisfying when it fell down =).

One last request. Can you send me (in an email) a talk. It's called the Trilogy of Skousen. It was written by a member of the church, but you can't find it on the church's website. Supposedly it's awesome.

Funny thing of the week: Well...I had typed up my email on one computer and then went to do some other things. When I went and opened up this email that I was writing, it had translated everything into spanish on its own. It even translated the names of the people who would recieve the email. For example. Janette Negro, Preston Negro. And it translated "Elder Black" as Viejo Black lol. Which means old or elderly. Me and my companion got a good laugh out of that =)

Pics: Let me take you on an adventure of our castle. First off, the drawbrige in front. As you enter you are greeted by a magnificant hallway garnished with the most exquisite of modern comforts. As we turn the corner we find the ballroom. Built to accomodate up to 2 guests. And finally the master bedroom where I am sleeping. I hope you have enjoyed todays tour of Black Castle. Come again soon =)

Elder Black