Oct 28: Baptising Jews

This week was pretty fun, it's a little different now that I'm with another companion but we're still working hard. We didn't have much time to work, we were so focused on helping our Jewish family get baptized so we tried to visit them at least once a day. They got their interview on Wednesday, and we scheduled to have their baptism on Saturday. Everything went smoothly, and when Saturday came around the corner, we prepared all the baptismal stuff and waited for them to show up. The mother Mabel came first with her 2 sons Israel and Yoel, and instantly Mabel went into a room with a member and began talking. We called her Husband, Stalin, asking where he was and he said he got into another argument with his wife Mabel and they planned on splitting up. We settled things with him and got him to come to the church to talk with a member to get things figured out. Both of them sat in a room for over an hour talking until they finally left, changed into their baptism clothes, and were baptized. Stalin and Yoel wanted me to baptize them, my new companion, Elder Hunter baptized Israel, and a ward member baptized Mabel. Overall, I'm happy that our hard work paid off. From the start, to teaching them with their different beliefs, to them entering the water was such a miracle.

Speaking of miracles - we found the coolest dude on Friday night. His name is Jefrett. He actually approached us and asked us for a bible. We didn't have one, but we did have a Book of Mormon so we gave him and invited him to read the part where Jesus Christ comes to the Americas. A couple days later on Sunday, he came to church and loved it, he was giggling the whole time and was asking so many good questions. We visited him that night and he explained that 3 days prior he had a dream, and in his dream, he saw my companion and some other white missionaries. We testified that God had responded to his long-lasting question as to which church is true, and we put him on date for the 16 of November... 2 days, 1 visit, 1 church attendance, and he has a baptismal date. 

That's all for this week, it's starting to warm up here. 

Love Elder Rich

The baptism

the love coke

Yes it's a scorpion

Baños again today for p-day

Oct 22: Another Transfer

We got word early that Elder Stephens would be leaving this week to San Rafael and that I would be training again. New missionaries usually arrive on Tuesday, but for some reason, they got here on Sunday this time. So I took off Sunday afternoon to Quito where we stayed the night. The next morning we got ready and went to the offices and then to a meeting with President Barlow and all the other trainers. I got assigned training another Gringo, this time from Syracuse, Utah. His name is Elder Hunter. I'm excited to train again, but it was super sad saying goodbye to Elder Stephens. We had a super fun 6 weeks together and we are both super sad that our time is done. It went by so fast, but we are also excited for the next journey we are going on here in Ecuador.

This Saturday we should be baptizing a family of 4. Their family is from Jerusalem and they consider themselves Jews, and they are always teaching us new words in Hebrew. The parents have been through hard times and got to the point where they wanted to get separated so we are doing all we can to get them back on track and in the water this Saturday so we'll see.

It's also starting to get a lot warmer here in Ambato. This Saturday we had a big ward activity where we played all sorts of games and we left absolutely burned. All of the members were calling us camarón which means shrimp. Elder Stephens and I both felt dumb, and we knew our moms were going to get mad and, yes, they both did.

I'm super excited for another transfer here in Ambato and to get back to work. We are seeing so many miracles and the Lord has been helping us so much in this work. I really know that God knows his children and he loves us so much. I hope we can all find his love this week and we can look for his loving outstretched arm this week.

Love Elder Rico

Ward activity

sunburn

your average cow

Took my new companion to get a burger.
Venezuelans make the best burgers 

This morning: Goodbye Elder Stephens.
My new companion, Elder Hunter, is on the right

October 15: Lessons from the chaos

Last Monday night, we got actual notice that they were really going to shut off the water. My companion and I got prepared by washing the little dishes that we needed to wash, and by cleaning parts of the house that we needed to clean before the water shut off. We visited many people that night that continued to let their dishes sit in the sink. Even though they knew the water might get shut off, they decided to not do anything about it. The water evidently did shut off and those that didn't wash their dishes or do the necessary things ended up suffering by having a dirty house for 5 days, dirty dishes the whole week, or not having enough water to drink.

There are many lessons we can learn from this, we need to be prepared, not be slothful, but what I learned from this is that we all know that one day our Savior, Jesus Christ, will come. This is something we all know. Are we going to push it off like the many people that pushed off doing their dishes? Or are we going to do something about it? Are we going to start preparing ourselves now? We all have the opportunity to "wash our dishes and clothes" by doing the necessary things like praying, studying the scriptures and serving others. If we prepare ourselves now, one day we will be prepared to meet God.

This week we stayed in almost every day and since there was no water, we did grow a decent beard. The schools and buses were still shut down, and all the supermarkets ran out of food and people went crazy. People in our ward were good to check in on us and bring us food. This week many policemen died by the bombs or by fire. Many angry people marched around with spears, torches, and bats spearing every car tire that drove by. 

We did not have church this week, rather we stayed home and we blessed the sacrament there. On my 1 year mark on Thursday, we ordered a giant pizza from someone in our ward covered in 1/2 pound of cheese and we sat up top of our house and watched all the people walking around with torches, and bats. I was able to even burn one of my white shirts in honor of the 1 year. I feel humbled to have been a missionary this last year.

We got notice yesterday that everything is back to normal. Sunday evening the President met with the indigenous leaders and he decided to give up on the gas prices and put them back to normal prices. The area presidency asked us to stay indoors again yesterday as a precaution while things are stabilizing. So now everything should be getting back to normal and we are all safe. Thank you for all the love and prayers during this period.

Elder Rich

march right outside our house

Bagre

took a photo with the protesters

your classic photo if you're me

the pizza

one year

Oct 7: A country in chaos

As some of you may know, Ecuador is a little insane right now. The government of Ecuador has always paid half the price of the gas the people buy, but the president now decided that the people need to buy all the gas. With reason, it seems smart but also dumb because the people here are super poor and can not afford gas at $2.20 a gallon. So the whole country teamed up to overthrow the president and to get rid of this law. The first wave started on Thursday when every intersection was blocked off by taxis and buses making it impossible to leave or enter the cities. The people also made big marches chanting and causing a ton of crimes and damage to buildings. They were throwing explosives, bombs, and creating all kinds of fires. Hundreds of different businesses are left with nothing after they got robbed and the people took everything. The president shut down the airport, so pretty much everybody here is stuck and it's impossible to leave. The president also shut down all the schools here, so all the kids are stuck at home without schooling. The president also shut down all types of transportation, buses, trains, planes so if you're here, you're stuck here. On Friday half of the country's water, light, and electricity were cut off making the problem even worse. The president eventually took off to Europe, but the people here stand furious and are causing lots of problems with the police and military, beating them with clubs and killing a few with rocks. With every city being impossible to leave with the number of people and cars blocking the way.

We stayed in our house almost every day and prepared for the things to come. Although it was pretty boring, it was safer than being on the streets. We were able to snag a copy of the keys to our church and we watched general conference all alone in our stake center. The stake decided it was safer for people to watch conference in their homes, and therefore didn't broadcast it in the local church meetinghouses. But even though all this chaos was passing by, there was such a rich spirit that we felt by listening to God's prophet and apostles. The church is true.

As of this week, we are still expected to stay in all day, as well today we are not allowed to leave. We have enough food and bought a lot of water to get us through the week.

Oh, and I hit 1 year on Thursday, cool!!

Elder Rich

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49955695

City of Ambato

celebrated with some "Bang"

bought some emergency water

your average intersection

a big mob comin

conference all alone

Sept 30: The best week

This will be a quick one.

This week was so fun, my comp and I did so many fun things. We started off by eating raw eggs and kicking rats in the street. We had the baptism of Louis and Jose Saturday night. We also had a ward talent show and a dance that same night where we learned how to dance Ecuadorian style. Everybody was laughing their guts out because obviously, we don't know how to dance but decided to send it and the members loved it. We definitely gained their trust because they started giving us a ton of references, and we haven't even had time to knock doors which is awesome.

Pictures: 

1-2. The Baptism

3. Ecuadorian rats

4. ward talent show

Sept 23: 18 days and a baptism

Well, this Saturday we will be baptizing Louis and Jose, our friends from Venezuela. They fled from their country and got here the 10th of September and from Day 1, we've been hitting it hard on all the lessons. We put a super fast baptismal date because we knew they were ready, and we managed to get them ready in a super short time with all the necessary lessons and commandments. We honestly were kinda freaking out cause this week we had to teach them the 4 major commandments - the Law of Chastity, Tithing, the Sabbath day, and the Word of Wisdom in 2 lessons. Usually speaking, you teach one of these in a single lesson and they have so many doubts as to why, or they say "I can't stop drinking coffee" but these boys understood and were so prepared to drop everything and follow Jesus Christ. I've never in my whole time as a missionary had people that are so willing to give up their life to have it in better line with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes in lessons, they tell us "Please help us so we can be baptized, we really want to change." 

We went to a place called Baños today which was about a 1 1/2 hour bus ride from Ambato. Baños is known as the gateway to the Amazon and is a huge touristy area in Ecuador. We saw a ton of waterfalls and a ton of white people. It was fun and seriously amazing.

Love you all, 

Have a great week, God loves and cares for you.

pretty sunsets

caught a young dove, the grind never stops

Baños

My girlfriend

big waterfalls

jumping picture for Mom

Sept 16: Ambato is cold

So, my old companion Elder Nieto left Los Chillos to go to Ambato 12 weeks ago, and it turns out I'm in his exact same sector training the kid he was just training. When I got here on Tuesday, Elder Nieto was still here. They had 2 baptisms planned for the night, so he stayed the day here to be able to watch them. It was super fun to catch up with him and to watch the baptisms of 2 kids they were teaching. Right after the baptism, a member took us back to his house and made us giant burgers. They were so big our faces were covered in sauce.

My new comp's name is Elder Stephens from Morgan Utah. We get along super well, it's been fun to catch up on some English even though I've forgotten so much. He's a stud. Every new missionary that comes into the mission gets trained for 12 weeks, but his trainer Elder Nieto left so I will be teaching him how to work and be a missionary. Since he's new, his Spanish isn't perfect so I've been helping him a ton with that, and it's been fun taking the lead on all the lessons and basically explaining everything. I like it a lot. 

 Ambato is super pretty, and it's so cold. I'm freezing even wearing 2 coats. The ward here is super great, we did 3 family home evenings getting to know the members. They gave us a ton of references, and 2 we put on date for the 28th of September. But other than that, we don't have a ton of people to teach so we'll be doing a ton of finding. 

On Friday in the morning, we left our house to play football at our church with some other Elders and there was a guy plastered drunk outside the chapel doors, we took a picture with him don't worry. We also ate at IHOP today, the only one in all of Ecuador - man I missed hashbrowns. 

Other than that, I have loved this sector so much. I thought it would be hard leaving my last one in Los Chillos, but our sector is so cool, and the members are so awesome. 

Anyway, this week was good.

Love Elder Rich

The first baptism here

giant burgers

Elder Nieto struggling to not get the sauce on his face

Ambato is cold

Don't get drunk outside my church

IHOP