My first week on the coast

This first week in a new sector was pretty different, it feels like a different Country.  The people here are really receptive to the gospel, they just struggle with following through on things like in most places.  Something cool when I got here we already have someone getting baptized at the end of this week.  His name is Nelson and he is one of the most humble men I have ever met, he has very little and doesn't ask anyone for anything.  I am also with a Gringo so I get to speak English a ton and he has way good Spanish so he helps me with Spanish a lot too.

Sorry that is all I have time for I will write more about the area next week.

Love,
Elder Keyes

Nothin like a Coconut after a hard day of Missionary work

Transfer to Esmeraldas

Hey everyone I'm doing good, I got transferred to the Esmeraldas.  It is pretty hot and humid and I don't have much time to write but here is a picture of Middle Earth.

Last Week Before Changes...

This change flew by, I will likely be leaving this sector next week.  But something cool happened this last week, the Vizcaino's got engaged.  Sadly I was on splits with the Zone Leaders when my companion found out but the Saturday before I gave them each a CTR ring that I got in one of my packages.  Then I guess sometime between then and Tuesday he proposed to her with them.  They don't have a date yet but I'm just glad they are still moving in the right direction.

We also ate dinner at a members house on Sunday who grew up in the States but is from Venezuela and then moved here with his family because Venezuela is a lawless country right now and not exactly a safe place to raise a family.  Anyways his wife made these super good empanada's and other Venezualean food.

That's pretty much all that happened this week and we haven't gotten eggs and water balloons thrown at us yet from the crazy holiday of carnival so pray that our luck holds up. 

Love you all
-Elder Keyes

Festival in Town

The Venezualoes

Got the Hammock setup

Some Good and Bad News

Here is the bad news...

Not really that bad, but this month and the next month we have more strict rules and also have to make sacrifices. It is called the Faith of February, to see the miracles of March. (It sounds better in Spanish). But anyways, I am supposed to choose something that would be a sacrifice for myself, but also help the work. I chose to only e-mail for one hour and then watch general conference talks for the second hour...sorry. So I'll be on at the regular time to e-mail!


Good news...

This week was pretty fun. We had gotten a lot of rain. One of our challenges lately has been reaching our goal for contacting people, so to help us out, our zone leaders gave us a challenge to contact anyone who had a hat on. Turns out, the only people that had hats on that day knew the bible and want us to come to "talk" about the bible with them, so we have a bunch of great follow up lessons ahead of us, haha.

Anyways, the Gallardo's went to a lesson with us at the Vizcaino's, and it was pretty hilarious. It was a lesson about the 10 Commandments, and when we got to talking about not worshiping idols and stuff like that. Brother Vizcaino says "I told you that was bad" talking to his wife. Well his wife was catholic before and here all the Catholics worship Baby Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, and they all have these cribs with the little Baby Jesus idols in them...
She had one of these, and we started to explain why it was bad and to encourage her to get rid of it. Brother Vizcaino cuts in and says "You tell her!! She is a sinner!" It was a great lesson over all. She is still on the right path to be baptized. We had another lesson with them later that week, and we got asked if we have a communion, like the catholic church. We were not sure what that meant exactly, so we asked sister Vizcaino and she said, "Well in my church-" and brother Vizcaino cut her off and says, "You see when she says my church, she is a pharisee!" (hypocrite). We all laughed and then she explained what a communion was, and we continued the lesson. Something interesting always happens when we go over there.

Now for something pretty cool. Saturday we were supposed to have a meeting with all the other leaders of the zone, because my companion is a district leader. Him and I were waiting forever at the church. Well it turns out that the zone leaders forgot to tell us that there wasn't a meeting anymore. We went all the way to church for nothing, or so we thought. As we were about to leave, someone walked into the church looking for someone. This guy walks in where we were and says he wants to change his life and asks if we will pray with him for his family, and for his new job. We shared a scripture with him, and we prayed with him. After he asks if we could start to teach him and what time the service is on Sunday. It was pretty crazy that the actual reason we were at the church was because someone was searching for a church that could change their life.

Love you all
Elder Keyes

My Zone

Parade for Baby Jesus

Lidias Grandchildren

Lots and Lots of Meetings and Halfway Done with this Change

This week flew by because we had something almost every night at the church! Monday we went to see the bishops son get set apart to go on his mission, so that took up all night. 

Tuesday we had divisions, so I was in the zone leaders sector all day, and the best part of that was one of the members we taught gave us french toast! So that was amazing!

Wednesday we taught Lidia Mojomboy one of the recent converts. I guess she is moving to the jungle to work for her cousin. We will see how that goes. All of her daughters still live here so we will still be able to teach them. Some of her grandchildren were there when we taught her and my companion was playing with one of them before the prayer. When we bowed our heads to pray, the kid got mad and said "hey hey!" then shook my companions arm, then again said "hey hey!", and lifted up his head and opened his eye lid. This little kid is awesome. He can't say his own name yet, so he just calls himself papa. We also contacted into this really cool family in the street. The kid was about 9 that was with them, and he was very concerned that we meet with them on Saturday or Monday, because those are the days that he doesn't have karate. Then he ran off because he was late. 

Saturday we taught Dora again. We can't go over there without staying for two hours. She always gives us food and we talk about her trip to India. She studied in India for like 3 years to become a doctor of natural medicine. Oh and she also spoon fed us again. Ha Ha. 

But this week we had a meeting with the momitas (the members assigned to give us lunch) on Wednesday. A meeting with the ward mission leader the next day, the leader conference the next day (that I was splits for), and the normal leader meeting was on Saturday. We had hardly anytime to actually work this week. 

Anyways, love you all and ya...

My companion and Pepe!

This is a deacon who wanted to wear my tag!

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This change is going by super fast! Anyways, this week went well, one of Lidia's daughters has a date to be baptized, both her and her sister came to church Sunday. 

Monday we taught the Vizcaino Family, and they are doing great. They should be getting married here in a few weeks. Our ward mission leader showed us the pictures from this trip to Utah, and they had a ton of pictures of the Timpanogos Temple. It was one of their favorites. That was pretty cool. 

Wednesday we had service where we helped make a ton of concrete for these peoples houses, it was pretty fun to mix things up.

Thursday we had family night with the Vizcaino's, Trujillo's and the Gallardos, that was pretty fun! It was nice because the Vizcaino's have kids about the same age as the Trujillo's. At the end one of the Trujillo boys sprayed us with carnival foam...carnival is a holiday here where for like a week it is a massive food fight and they sell all these cans that spray a bunch of foam. This little knuckle head got us soaked with foam stuff, luckily it was our last appointment. We got to go home and change. 

Saturday we taught the Viscaino's again, about tithing and somehow no matter what we teach, they start to argue about getting married. She really wants to and he does too, but he is acting like he doesn't want to, to surprise her with a ring in a few weeks. He said to her "I don't want to get married because when we get divorced you are going to take my house and my car, and I don't want that to happen". He said that to her when she was in the other room feeding her son. Then he whispered to us "I found the ring, I am just waiting for them to size it." So we were pretty happy to find out from him that he actually wants to get married. 

And those were the highlights of my week. Love you all!

Elder Keyes, also, here is a picture with the Vizcaino's. 

Free Food! and Spiritual Stuff.

Tuesday we went to this little store to get a Popsicle because it was way hot, and the owner of the store's sister started talking to us. She was saying how she knows the missionaries. We said "cool, are you a member?" and she said no. But she was baptized last year. My companion and I did not really understand what that meant, so we kinda just laughed. She then said, "Oh this is my sisters store, go ahead and pick whatever you want". We said no thank you. She then filled a bag with 8 loafs of bread (as in huge dinner rolls). Then she gave us drinks and when we were about to leave she said, oh wait, have two cartons of milk. We were pretty stoked after that...it was a ton of free food. 

Then that night we taught sister Grace. She is Lidias daughter. She said she took a lesson from the Jehovah Witnesses the day before. We were kinda scared until she said that she took the same commitment over again that we had given her the week before. The commitment was to pray about our message. She did the same thing with the Jehovah Witnesses message and said the answer she received for the Book of Mormon and our message was distinctly different. With the Book of Mormon, she felt a warm feeling of peace. With the other, she didn't feel any of that. It was a testimony builder for her, and for us. 

Later that week, at the end of a lesson with one of our investigators, her grandpa came out and started to yell at us. He was saying we weren't Christians, and that babies do have sins so they need to be baptized. It was almost laughable, and you could tell our investigator was so embarrassed. We just smiled at him and waited for him to go back in the house. Old Catholics are the best haha. 

One cool thing that happened with the Vizcaino family is that Saturday we had a lesson about marriage with them and then committed them to pray about it. Sister Garcia (brother Vizcaino's girlfriend) the next day told us she received an answer to her prayer. She said she had a dream and in the dream her and her boyfriend were dressed in white. She felt the Holy Ghost embrace her and then two dates appeared, the 20th and the 29th. She was super excited and it looks like she will baptize as soon as they get married and hopefully, if brother Vizcaino can, he will get to baptize her. Those were the highlights from my week. Love you all!

-Elder Keyes

The Week Before Changes

So this week was "changes" and I am staying in Llano Grande and Elder Bustillo is going to Ofelia which is like twenty minutes away from me, so I will probably see him around. My new companions name is Elder Galiego, he is from Guatemala and has been in the mission for a year and a half. He seems really cool. we will see how this week goes to see if he is a hard worker or not, but I am thinking it is going to work out great. 
This week was pretty bad and good. The 6th week (the week before changes) is always pretty slow with the missionary work. Because we had a lot of appointments fall through we got to visit members to say goodbye and take pictures and such. 
We had a part member family at church, they are way cool. They just need to get married and then we can baptize his girlfriend as his wife! His "wife" is really excited about eternal families. They haven't really committed to be married yet, so we will see how that goes. We also had conference with the president this week. Then on Sunday we had crab for lunch, that was amazing, I ate like 4. They give you the whole crab here. It was pretty cool. 

Zone leaders and the Bishop

A going away cake a member made for Austin and Elder Bustillio