Elder Soarez came

So this was pretty busy week we were able to have a multi mission conference with elder Soarez and also elder Urceda. so it was pretty cool to be with that many missionary's. Also Elder Soarez's wife spoke to us in portugués with a translator but we could almost understand every thing portugues is practically like Spanish pig latin its really similar it just sounds a little more frenchy. but she spoke on conversion and her husband basically tried to tackle every missionary subject there is in 2 hours so it was a lot to learn about. it was cool it basically all boiled down to diligence as being the most important thing as a missionary and also planing. but this meeting we super special because there hasnt been a general authority to visit us in almost a year and a half.

The volcano luckily hasnt gone off yet BUT it has been dumping out a ton of ash so im just glad we live far enough away that the ash doesn't affect us. the ward is also still freaking out about to have a food storage. I like being in this ward a lot though all the members are really cool and are church doesnt start super early like some in country. we got a new relief society president so we will see how our momitas change up now. 

 Sadly our baptism fell through but the girl that was going to get Baptized (jazmin) she now has approval from her dad so this week is definitely gunna be the week!! We also are going to have an activity for one of our families so that they can get married so that they can baptized. the members are really starting to help us out so the work is really going faster. 

Ya so that's about it for this week love you all 

Elder Keyes  

July 27th & Aug 3rd

The Garcia’s got married and baptized

This week was pretty crazy trying to prepare everything for the baptism and for the Garcia’s wedding. the Garcia’s were supposed to be baptized with their cousins the Adrandes but the night before their baptism Sister Andrade informed us that she forgot she had to work and that we would have to reschedule. luckily the Garcia’s were super pumped up for their baptism so they still pulled through.

The marriage was really cool Elder Bustillo (my Trainer) was able to go to the court house and see it as well because he is the person who found the Garcia family. That day we were also able to go to a bbq because our comp had a leader meeting with president and the elder who came with us is about to finish his mission. And was in this sector before so a family wanted to do something nice for him, it was awesome they made a ton of food.

The baptism went really well, president showed up to see the Andrade’s baptism it was kind of a bummer that they didn’t show up but he was happy to see the baptism. Also Elder Bustillo was able to baptize them. This family is awesome though Sunday night after they got confirmed they had already invited one of our investigators to have family night with them and to come eat at their house. 

But that was the highlight of our week love you all

-Elder Keyes

Old Friends

This week my comp had a pretty cool experience with finding a family. we also had a birthday party for one of our investigators. and we were able to help out  one of our investigators alot this week. we also ate pizza with the bishop.

Elder jaurez my comp from Honduras started his mission in Peru but Peru booted out all of the missionaries from Central America so about a year ago our mission received like 16 missionaries from Peru. And in Elder Jaurez´s first sector they found a family from the coast but after teaching them for a month the family moved to comite del pueblo (where we are now). so Elder Jaurez was super excited when he got moved to this sector  because he hoping to teach them or at least so them while he was here. And up until this week he had not seen them, we found them walking down the street. They were super excited to see him as well, we set up an appointment and we are now teaching them they are way cool they are from the coast. They just aren’t married so we are going to have to help them out with that.

Brother Andrande had his birthday this week and  it didn’t go so well mainly because everyone forgot but once we were reminded we were able to throw him a little party. the Bishop was able to come and talk to them after to try and strengthen their testimony a bit. 

We were visiting with one of our investigators this  week and the wife said that we needed to come back so that just her husband could talk to us. We did and with the problem that he presented to us for me we have to represent something special for a 45 year old man to ask 2 19 year old kids to help him solve this problem. Its crazy we are practically strangers to this family and after 3 short visits they trust with their biggest problems. We were able to set goals with them and assign a bunch a scripture for him to read. all I know is that the light of Christ exists in this church and people really can feel and see the difference this church brings.

Love Elder Keyes 

July 13th & 20th

July 13, 2015

Zone Conference

This was a pretty busy week but it was pretty cool as well, we had divisions, zone conference, and president accompanied us to an appointment.

The divisions were pretty cool Elder Barnes who is from my group came with me and elder Juarez in our sector. Elder Juarez also went on a division with a member that day so that we could cover more ground and we were lucky enough that it rained for the first time sense ive been back to Quito. And i did not have my umbrella so we sprinted back through the flooded streets to our house, it kind of killed our day. 

This week was zone conference so that was pretty cool it helped us out a ton. Also after the zone conference we invited president to go to a lesson with us to help one of our struggling investigators. It was pretty cool teaching with president he really just invites the spirit into the lessons. The Andrade family was also able to get rid of their doubts and they set their baptismal date for the 25th so we are pretty pumped for that.

Sunday we had two really cool lessons, the Garcia who are the ones that are trying to clear up their debts so that they can get baptized, gave us a reference that was pretty cool it was sister Garcia’s mom. the lesson went really well and brother Garcia is super awesome he basically taught the lesson. i was able to hear his conversion story for the first time. He said he had a lot of doubts when first heard about the church but he decided to pray, he prayed and didnt feel any different. until the next day when his disabled mother got into to town. as he was helping her into the house he noticed something on his moms wheelchair that he hadn’t before. the back of her wheelchair had the churches logo on it. it turns out the church helped his family out when she had her acident and after all these years of having that wheelchair he hadn’t noticed until then. He then felt the spirit super strong and now he stronger the most members. 

We were also able to teach the Sanchez family they are awesome we didn’t have enough time to visit them throughout the week so we went Sunday to see how they were doing. they were actually a little mad we hadn’t come sooner they told us that if we wanted them to be ready soon enough for their baptism then you guys better come every if it’s possible to help prepare us. it was really cool to see how eager they were to listen to the gospel.

love Elder Keyes 

July 20, 2015

Jurassic World

this week not much happened but we had some pretty cool experiences. 

The first happened Monday night, it was going to be a really packed night but what usually tends to happen when we have a ton of appointments happened and they all fell through. It was weird though I wasn’t mad I just couldn’t get an investigator off of my mind so because we didn’t have anything else to do we decided to go visit him.  He was with his girlfriend (who is a member) was sick with a really bad cold so we gave her a blessing ya it was all pretty normal. We asked to share something and just like a split second think we decided to share the family proclamation. after sharing a bit of it Jefferson (the investigator) stopped and said I don’t know if my girlfriend called you or if someone sent you but I have been praying all day that I could receive something to help me guide this family better and help my girlfriend out with her kids. the spirit was super strong we told him what happened to all of our appointments and how we somehow knew we had to visit him. He is awesome and is starting to gain a testimony of the spirit little by little.

Also this week the ward did something really cool and had a activity to raise money so that two of our investigators could get married so that they could be baptized this week. they sold empanadas and morocho which is like milk with rice and raisons for one dollar and they also showed Jurassic world. They were able to raise the money and brother Garcia almost started crying when he was told what the money was for it was super awesome to see a ward come together like that.

But that’s all that pretty much happened this week the Garcia’s are getting married Friday and baptized Saturday with their cousins the Andrade family.

Love elder Keyes

here is the Garcia’s a few pig heads and we made a post card for the pope (it’s funny because potato and pope are the same word in Spanish)

Working Two Sectors

July 6th

This week we were super busy. also we now have one of the biggest zones in the mission with 25 missionaries. We also were blessed to have 16 people attend church this week, we were also able to do a bunch of divisions with members to help cover our sector.

we were able to have a lesson with the familia Mendoza and their nephew and his family the Andrade family who are going to get baptized this weekend. sister Mendoza was having some doubts and we explained endure to the end really well to her and then she was talk about wanting to listen to other churches, then sister Andrade pulled out a really humbling scripture which is in 1 nephi 14, which talks about how every other church that isn’t the one true church is the church of the devil. So it was pretty awesome to see a investigator pull that out on another investigator haha. We felt like we really helped sister Mendoza that night.

Something funny that happened this week we were teaching this little old lady and we were trying to explain what the book of Mormon is we tried to have her read one verse and well I guess she thought it was pretty interesting because she went on to read 2 chapters out loud to us and it didn’t matter how many times we said "until there" or "okay". in the end we didn’t get to much of a lesson in, but we came out of the lesson knowing that she will definitely read so that was good.

But we also found a super good chicken place that’s a huge piece of fried chicken breast and mountain of fries for 1.50 so. I was also able to eat chicken feet again and I only gagged twice this time it was pretty cool. The thing I love about Ecuador though is we always get fresh juice like tree tomato or good passion fruit or naranjilla its awesome. We also have a family that recently went to the states and they have ranch it was super awesome to have a salad with some good ole ranch sauce 

Here is me and my comp repping our new welcome pope Francisco shirts in our house and in middle earth. also are the jungle people look in the jungle. a real shrunken head the middle earth monument. me with a otavalanian hat on that is so hard that the natives used them as a second use as weapons. also this is our church

love you all -Elder Keyes