2013-07-01 ...my favorite week of the mission so far

I love my new companion Elder Mero.  He is from Guayacuil, Ecuador and speaks Spanish and we´ve been working well together and having a lot of success.   This Sunday we were short 5 baptismal dates to meet the goal set for each companionship in our zone.  In two hours we were able to get 3.  Then after dinner we had one more hour so we said a prayer and went to knock doors.  The first door we knocked was a family with one inactive member.  They invited us in and we taught 5 people including the member and the other 4 committed to baptism.  I feel really good about the way we are doing our work and Elder Mero is terrific companion.  I´ve been able to improve the way I teach a lot by watching what he does.  

This has been my favorite week of the mission so far.  Everything just went well.

I started the week going to a clinic with a few other new missionaries for a bunch of tests.  I think they were to get health insurance but I´m not really sure.  It was not as clean as I would have liked for a hospital but oh well.  They took a blood sample and were really bad at it.  My arm still has a massive bruise.  I was too tall for their measuring tape so they had to take me to a different room to measure my height.  It took a long time but I got to talk with the other Americans in between tests so it was a lot of fun.  After that we got some awesome salteñas and empanadas. 

 

I also baptized someone for the first time this week.  Wara is 14 and her parents are both inactive members.  Her mom is coming to church again but her dad still won´t.  Also, my favorite youth in our ward, Josue, must like her because he showed up early to help us set up for the baptism and brought her a present and card. 

 

We had another anticucho barbecue and I had my camera with me this time.  It is so good.  We literally are still getting at least one extra meal every day.  These people are only poor because they spend so much money feeding the missionaries.

We got to go up to the little towns that are way up in the mountains twice this week.  It’s a lot of fun. There aren’t any roads so it’s just hiking and it’s really pretty up there.  It takes a little over an hour to hike there.  I love how quiet it is. The houses are farther apart and there aren’t cars.  We spent almost 2 hours talking to an old man.  He told us all kinds of stories and between the 3 of us we drank 5 liters of coca cola.  We just sat in little chairs under a tree in the shade and it was awesome.  He is supposed to come to church with us this Sunday.  We have to leave way early to go up there and help him down to the church.  

We have 12 investigators with a baptismal date now and plan on having at least 10 more this week. It’s a lot more fun to work with my new companion.

While we were knocking doors this week we came across a sorta drunk who just wanted to talk.  He invited us in and served us jello. Then every time we finished the jello he just brought us another.  On my fourth cup of jello I realized I needed to leave some in my cup if I was interested in ever finishing.  He showed us all his pictures and told us all about his life.  We have an appointment with him this week for a time when he hopefully won’t be drunk.  There are a lot of interesting people here.  Everyone loves to talk with everyone.  It’s a pretty good culture for a missionary.

The 4 Vasquez kids have started coming to church again.  I love them and they are probably my favorite investigators to teach.  The 8 year old really likes me and so we always sit together at church.  Sitting with my siblings for the past decade has been good practice for keeping him entertained during sacrament meeting.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  2 Ne. 10:10-13 and 1 Ne. 13: 16-19 Happy 4th of July!

Today for p-day we went to a restaurant like T.G.I.Fridays.  It was really good and only cost like 6 dollars. That’s me and Elder Olson having a pineapple strawberry drink.  I had a teriyaki steak with a brownie ice cream thing that was huge for dessert. 

Last week p-day we made a sling shot and got a rock stuck in a cactus.  Then we went and had ice cream.  They have the richest ice cream I’ve ever tasted here.