I just wrote Dad a good long letter and I'll try to give you one too, but we will see if I have enough to say!!
I guess mostly I have questions; How has school been for everyone? Any cool classes? Sports? How's the Subaru?How's Amber? What have you guys been up to!! Who all went to Main Event, lol that picture of Dad is pretty awesome!!! Has anyone else moved out of the ward? I probably won't recognize it when I get home.
We are having a member of the 70 come for Stake Conference the 17th and 18th. I'm super excited for that, it's always cool to have church leaders visit and teach!!
Lol, I really am not sure what else to write this week. I put everything in Dad's letter.
I love you mom and miss you a ton!! I've been doing a lot of cooking and I always want to call your name and ask you a quick question but you're not here, haha. I'm eating a lot of chicken and ground beef, and all I do to season it is salt, garlic powder and oregano and I'm not sure what else would be good to cook into it or what those spices would be called in Spanish, haha. I have developed a love for broccoli topped with salt, lol, a must at dinner, haha. I'm staring to eat more lettuce and spinach too!!I I guess it's time to fall in love with salad.
Anyways I'll take some more pictures this week and I'll let you guys know what happens with changes next week.
Love you tons mom!! Have an awesome week
Elder Gonzalez
That's cool you went down to Mexico again, its always super tranquillo. I think you would really enjoy the markets down here. Every time I'm in a market or a little square I always think "man Dad would love to just walk around and look at all this cool stuff!!" I really like the indigenous stuff they sell, its all similar to the colorful Mexican blankets, but more Ecuadorian with pictures of llamas and volcanoes. I specifically think you would really enjoy walking down the streets of downtown Latacunga where I am now. I love it too. Everything is just so cool. It's a very old town, all the streets are hand laid cobblestone and fairly narrow one way roads.
It's honestly been strange to be back in the mission again, Sometimes it just feels like a dream, and when I think about being back at home that seems like a dream too. It's a bit strange. My thoughts are very clear though, IDK, it's like life is lighter than it used to be which makes smaller things clearer.
We have had some cool things happen this past week. This single mom of two kids (8 and 4) from Guyaquil moved into our sector last week, and she was listening to the missionaries there and received all the lessons along with her baptismal interview, but had an emergency and now is living here. So we did her interview on Saturday and she is getting baptized on the 10th along with her son Tiger!! They are both super smart and understand everything. In Tiger's interview our zone leader asked him if he knew what a prophet was and he said "well Joseph Smith was the first new one but I can't remember who the second one is," haha. Then on Sunday the mother, Tatiana, got up and bore an awesome testimony!! It's pretty cool to see them and their happy faces. The coolest part is Tatiana's mom was baptized about a year ago, almost a year, but never told her daughter in what religion. She has just been praying and praying that her daughter could find the church and then a few weeks ago they were chatting on Skype and Tatiana said "mom I'm gonna get baptized". Jenny (the mom) said "oh wow, that's awesome, just make sure to pray! what church is it?" and Tatiana said "I'm not sure its name, I can't remember, but they gave me this book" (book of Mormon) and Jenny began to cry and now they are both here in Latacunga and the zone leader that baptized Jenny did Tatiana's interview this past Saturday and the zone leaders will be here for the baptism for this next Saturday! Super cool! Also a testimony of how prayer works and that Heavenly Father really works in mysterious ways.
Our ward is cool. I can't complain, we have about 115 every week in sacrament. It's rough though because our bishop is a little crazy and prideful, but there's not really anyone else that would be suitable as bishop. He took the rights away from a returned missionary and his wife because the wife visited a family without being assigned to and when confronted about in consejo she argued that it was ok to do it... haha. All just a bit silly, but she got kicked out of consejo and her rights were taken away and she got her calling taken away and she cried so the returned missionary asked the bishop to apologize for making his wife cry and bishop took his rights away too and said he's never offended anyone in 10 years... the Stake Presidency was there the following Sunday and gave them their rights back...and I guess fixed everything.. Then last week bishop kicked the missionaries out of consejo because we didn't put our weekly numbers on our paper that shows all the people we visited and what they need.... that was a little crazy too... but there's not much we can do but just take it, haha, We are still working really hard doing the best with what we've got. Most menos activos refuse to go to church because the bishop offended them in one way or another. I'm sure it's not easy to be a bishop, but he's not making our job any easier haha. Oh well, it's Ecuador and the Stake Presidency has the keys for all that. All we can do is inform our zone leaders what goes on each week and they meet with the stake president and talk to him. He's a good man and he's got a good heart, just a hard character to be around.
Our area is huge, haha. It's the biggest one in the mission, we stretch from the coats all the way to the jungle lol. It's huge but we mostly stay in Latacunga where we live trying to strengthen what is already here or what is close by.
Food is pretty good, we eat with a different members each day for lunch and the same set of members each week. The usual occasional soup followed by a plate of rice and a small piece of beef or a piece of chicken. Ecuadorians love their rice. I'll try to take some food pictures this week. I'm dedicating myself to a four meal a day diet consisting of lots of protein and lots of greens, unplanned snacks and sugary treats or junk food is getting taken out of the picture. My exercises are getting better and I'm thinning out my belly. My plan is to get really lean and then start bulking on muscle. My companion has taught me a lot and I feel like if I dedicate myself I'll learn to be dedicated at anything and to be dedicated to the end. So this is more than just getting more muscle or looking good. I really want to teach myself to be diligent and dedicated hasta el fin always adapting and becoming more efficient, in workouts and diet along with money and saving and in missionary work or studying.
I'm almost positive this is my companion's last week in Latacunga, but we will find out on Sunday, We have changes. I'm hoping I get a Latino so I can get better Spanish!! I really want to get better at Spanish. Being with a gringo is cool, but I want to speak better and gringos are not that great for getting good Spanish lol.
Anyways I've wasted almost all my time on you and grandma and mom needs a good letter to so I'll write her right now too.
I hope you guys had a great labor day and I hope you guys are enjoying life!!
lots of love
Elder Gonzalez
No comments:
Post a Comment