Feliz Navidad

We were able to talk to Austin on Christmas day. He is doing really good. Here is his Christmas letter...

Hey, so I don't have much time to type everything that happened this week, but here are some of them:
The first Friday we had the ward Christmas party and it was super late into the night. We did the skit and ran out the door. A lot of people laughed. The skit was about saving angels, like Abraham being told to kill his son and then being stopped or the angel saving Sam and Nephi from their brothers. They also gave us turkey, that was a plus. (You have to special order turkey).
Saturday we went caroling with the youth to all the less actives, and to the recent converts. We gave them cinnamon bread too, it is called pan de vida (bread of life) and I guess they do this every year. It was great, and after they bought us pizza. It was actually really good. This activity worked too, almost every person we visited was at church Sunday.
Yesterday we had lunch with our President, and our zone. It was a really good dinner, we had gravy and a really good pie. It sorta felt like an American meal.

Anyways, those were the highlights of my week. Love you all!!
Sorry, no pictures this week. This computer is sketchy and I don't want to lose my pictures.

Here are a couple pictures from our Skype call on Christmas Day. 

Little late...but here they are!! More Letters

Sorry everyone, it is that time of year for finals, so naturally I got a little behind. Here is last weeks and this weeks letter! Enjoy!

December 8th

Wednesday we went to the offices because my companion had to renew his visa. I got to hang out with some other elders while he did it. Once of them was Elder Valverde and he was Elder Call's padre (or trainer). It was pretty cool to talk to him. 
Thursday I got the opportunity to give a blessing in Spanish. It was pretty cool how much I was able to say. It's weird in lessons and stuff like that. I'm starting to be able to say stuff that I have no idea how to say after, it is kind of crazy the way you can express yourself with the spirit helping you. Saturday we had a lot of appointments that fell through because of the festivals of Quito. They are kind of like American Fork Steel days. They had a parade and a carnival thing. We met a really cool family though, the Borrero family. They are from the coast. We had a really powerful lesson with them. We also found a single mom, Nancy Caldron, who was really receptive to our message. Sunday we got to watch the Christmas Devotional and Lidia is all set for her baptism this next Saturday, now that she has had her interview. I will get to have my first baptism!!
Today we went to the offices and saw my companions last companion before me. He goes home on Wednesday. We took him somewhere nice for his going away party. I never thought a Big Mac could taste so good!!


December 15

This week was pretty busy. Tuesday we had the third companion from the zone leaders with us because the zone leaders were at a leadership meeting all day. It's amazing how easy it is to teach with three missionaries.
We taught a family, and something kinda stunned me and my companion. We always extend the invitation to read a little bit of the Book of Mormon, and then pray to know if it is true. When we asked him if he would like to read part of it, he responded "No, I intend to read all of it", that got me and my companion pretty excited!!
We had exchanges, so I was able to go on splits with both of our zone leaders, Elder Garcia and Elder Anderton, it was awesome! I really like teaching with them. We taught the Ortiz Family, the mom and her son were baptized Saturday, and the dad is next week. They are awesome. They got married this week so that she could get baptized. They also invited me, my companion and the zone leaders to lunch on this last Saturday before the baptism. 
We had the baptism and that's all we really had time for because the lunch took like 3 hours, because we were talking so much and they gave us a ton of food. At the baptism we baptized 3 people, Lucia Ortiz and her son, and then Lidia (our investigator). It was pretty funny at the baptism. First I slipped into the font, and it made a big splash and a loud noise. Then my companion said, "through baptism we are clean from our fish" when he was speaking at the end.. (in Spanish sin is pecado, and fish is pescado). But it was awesome, they all got confirmed the following day. 
Today we went to the Teleferiqo, this big gondola that takes you to the top of this volcano. It was way awesome. We couldn't go to the volcano because it's like a 3-4 hour hike from where you get off the gondola. But it was way cool and there were also a ton of Americans up there, so it was kinda weird to hear English again. 

.

Transfers are over.

Okay, so this week we had a ton of events. First we had interviews and a little zone conference, so that took up pretty much the whole day. We also found Hermana Dora (the grandma that spoon fed me and my companion). We had Thanksgiving with our zone and it was delicious It actually felt pretty American.We had verification's in Quito, so all of the trainers and their companions went to Quito. I got to see my old district again, we also went to Panecillo which is this huge statue at the top of Quito.We took Dora to an activity at the church, then hurried back to our  sector and took three of our investigators, the Villegas family, to the baptism the was going on at the church. We had 4 people at church, Hna Dora, Hna Lidia, and Hna Maite and Terre Villegas. All of them have baptismal dates. This was a pretty good week for being week 6 (the last week before transfers is always bad). We had a lot of really good lessons and I got to see my friends from the CCM. 

So ya everything here is going great!! Love you all 

He finally got his packages! Stockings for him and his companion!

Their Thanksgiving. It is chicken, not turkey. They don't have turkey. 

A view of Ecuador

El Panecillo

His companion, and the three miles farther they ventured. 

Dora

He is getting a hair cut! So responsible!