Can to speak english me now finally!

Hey Mom and Dad,

I´m going to write this email in pure ENGLISH because we officially broke our 42 day english fast last night at 8!!! (that was the time when we were supposed to be in the house- the last Sunday of the change we have to be in the house early so the office can call to make changes). It was quite comical though, lol. Me, Elders Sanchez, Eaton and Ayala we were all together in the church in Salinas because Elder Sanchez had to do a baptismal interview which went late and actually ended at 8 so as we were walking out Elder Eaton was like "whoa, ¿que hora es?" and Elder Sanchez glancing at his watch just quickly replied "son las 8" then it hit, and he was like "whoa, can we, like, speak english now??" then all 3 of us were like whoa, hey, english! but it was crazy because it felt all awkward trying to form sentences and pronounce everything english, it probably would´ve been funny to see us walking down the street laughing trying to speak english again- just small sentences like "Let´s go to the house!" and "I am hungry!" This morning we´re still speaking mostly spanish but it was funny because I read a part of "our search for happiness" and usually during companion study I´d translate it into spanish when we´re studying things. But this morning I realized I could just read it in English but oh man I didn´t realize how accustomed I was to pronouncing everthing in spanish because it just felt awkward reading it out loud in english, lol. So yeah, we can now speak english again but I think we´re going to really try to speak a lot more spanish. It was a really good habit that we formed to speak so much spanish. So yeah, in case you were wondering, the spanish is still coming along good. Just now still need to really grow my vocabulary.

That´s kool Ryan got his job back at KFC, it´s funny the KFC here is always fairly popular in "shopping" but it´s funny becaues the combos don´t come with mashed potatoes but with rice, lol. We eat so much rice during the week so we usually try to avoid getting more so we don´t get it.

But anyways, first things first (so I don´t forget:), last night the office called and Elder Eaton was transfered, he will be training a new missionary AND opening a new area AND will be the District leader there. Yeah, what a crazy load but I know he´ll do great. Elder Sanchez was not transfered, so we´ll have another 6 weeks together working hard which will be really good I think. There are still so many things to do and establish that he´s great at. Elder Ayala who also lives with us (this change will be his last before going home) went to Guayaquil to pick up his new missionary because he´ll also be training. So yeah, it was an exciting night last night.

Sunday was awesome because we had the opportunity to have a Regional Conference via satellite. It was held in the Stake building and was neat because all the missionaries in the zone were there and we dressed up in suits. Two members of the Quorum of the 70 spoke and the President of the Primary and finally President Packer. It was definitely a spiritual highlight. It was kind of funny though, when President Packer got up to speak, when I first heard his words I was like "whoa, that translator sounds a lot like President Packer, they sure are good at finding people to match the voice" (for the President of Primary they just had a translater speaking.) Then I realized that it was actually President Packer!! lol He just said "no hablo español, sino deseo dar intruduccion en su idioma" Yeah, he just wanted to say a few words in spanish, then he gave his talk in english and there was a translator, but it was just nice to hear his voice for a few moments in spanish, lol.

So yeah, those are probably the high lights. Thanks for your emails! Alright... I'd better get going now, hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder David Frome

!FELIZ DÍA DEL PADRE (aún si es tarde:)¡

!!FELIZ DÍA DEL PADRE a papá¡¡ lol sounds like you had a nice fathers day and were able to go out to Grandma and Grandpa's. Did the fathers all get to sit back and relax?? I remember it was always a good time going out to Grandma and Grandpas for the evening. That´s sweet Walker got to hear about the mission again. You should ask him what areas he served in if you get the chance. And thats kool I think there´s a new bishop here since the one when Walker stayed because I´m pretty sure our bishop doesn´t have cable tv. But I can imagine that Bishop Banchón (the old bishop I think) would.

And ah ¡que triste!, you found a chicken floating in the water trough (I hope you don´t mind I actually kinda laughed when I read that, :). It seems like throughout the history of our chickens they haven´t had the easiest time, lol. But that´s too bad, I would think they could swim. Did you pluck and fry it later? lol ok nvm, that´s just the thought that comes to my mind after being here for a few months. Most people here have chickens just in their yard, but I don´t think it´s for the eggs, nor as pets :P but for a good dinner :) also an interesting thing as well as chickens people also have ducks (about halfway through my first change here me and Elder Sanchez enjoyed a good fresh lunch of duck and rice in fact:). But oh man the ducks are way uglier here. you know how chickens have the things (I don´t know how to call them) on their beak, well the ducks have that kind of thing too, only way uglier, lol. It´s hard to describe, I´ll have to take a picture and send it one of these days. And ah that´s so awesome Jordan is entering the MTC soon!! and ooh that´s so kool that they´re going to Lagoon with the Adam, Daniel and Amy the day before.

Well it has been another crazy week. We found two new families early this week which was exciting. It´s always nice to start the week with new investigadores. The first are friends of less active members but seem interested. The other are the neighbors of a strong member family. In fact it was the father- hmo Sosa who introduced us. They all seem great and receptive. We´re excited to teach them.

Also Tuesday was especially crazy in the night, because we had a ton of lessons planned so we had to have a split with the members. That was really awesome because Elder Sanchez left with Hmo Pilligua, who is a convert and is the President of the Elders Quorum (in fact he´s only been a member like a year and a half. Yeah, a member for a year and a half and already called to be president of the Elders Quorum, he´s definitely a spiritually strong member and it´s awesome having him with us:), and I left with Hmo Belez who is actually a return missionary and father of 4. I always love having splits when I go with returned missionaries because I just learn a ton. Plus it gives me the oportunity to step up and lead the lessons and everything. So Tuesday night from like 6 until 9 we had the split. It was really neat.

Thanks for your emails! This is the last week in this change so next week I may have a new companion, we´ll see!

Love, Elder Frome

Crazy Awsome Week

This picture is kind of small, but it shows the distance between La Libertad and Guayaquil.

....this last week has been crazy but awesome :). So starting Tuesday we had interviews with Presidente Gamboa in the morning. He came and inverviewed every missionary in our zone. And I guess the church in me and Elder Sanchez's area is the main church because we had it there, but that meant we had to go early to open it and get everything ready. It was a really fun morning. It was neat because Sis. Gamboa and the assistants came too. During the interviews Sis. Gamboa and one of the assistants went around to every house and did a house check (yeah, always nerve racking, lol, but luckily our house was "acceptable":). So yeah that took up all of the morning because me and Elder Sanchez had to wait till they were all through as well to close the church after they left. It was cool because they brought the pouch for our zone so we got our letters and things early. (By the way, I got the package you sent about the 22nd! It had the pedigree chart and pictures of the district meet, thank's! as well as those betty crocker brownie microwave mix which I can't wait to try, lol. It was terrible though, because we got it Tuesday- meaning we had to wait the entire week until today to open them. yeah, no me gusta :P)

Then the next day was the zone conference in Guayaquil. It was really neat. We had to get up an hour and half early so we could leave and catch the bus there (it's about a 2 hour trip to Guayaquil). It's funny because we got to put on our long sleeve shirts and suits and it seriously felt like we were dressing up for a special occasion. I mean I guess it's kool that it makes the zone conference feel like a super special occasion, just funny how a suit feels like I'm dressing up now, lol. Every day we just wear our short sleeve shirts and ties. But yeah it was really neat and fun to see two other zones. But, just like the last conference near the beginning they had the zone leaders, one at a time, stand up and ask random missionaries questions like "what is principle number 5 of lesson 2? thank you and recite for me a scripture to teach the principle." yeah I was scared, lol. Luckily they didn't ask me anything. But again it just gave me the feeling that President really does expect excelence of us and we have to know the scriptures. That's one thing I'll be working on :) Then when we went back to "Terminal" (the bus station in Guayaquil that's more like a mini airport) we couldn't help but stop and get lunch at PIZZA HUT!! lol it was expensive but definitely worth it, lol.

Saturday was awesome. Oh man we had lunch with the Bishop's family and they made us HAMBURGERS!!!!!!! ooh it was great, lol. they were burgers with cheese and tomato and I think even some balogna served with homeade french fries. ooh and after we each ate one they brought out seconds!! yeah, it was pretty much amazing. But then get this, as if the hamburgers weren't good enough, for dessert they gave us banana splits!!! the classic banana split with one scoop chocolate, one vanilla, and one strawberry, and chocolate syrup and these wafer cookies to go with it. Yeah, I could've died I was so happy. A classic American meal in the heart of Ecuador (ok not completely classic we had a bowl of soup with popcorn which is genuine Ecuador to start but still :). lol it was great.

The rest of Saturday was pretty good and then we finished the day with a baptismal service for Alex Orrala. He's 8 and the son of Carmen and sister of Michelle who were baptised last week. It was really neat. I had the honor of baptising him which was amazing. It was kool because before the baptism there was a ward primary activity at the church so many of the kids and adults stayed for the baptism after. Definitely a spiritual highlight again.....

Ecua-news :)

Mom I got your package this week! lol It had both the dinosaur cookies and the scripture marker so no worries :). I'm not sure exactly how the pouch system works because also this week I got a whole bunch of letters all dating anywhere from the beginning of May till May 20 or so. I got 3 of your letters, Dad. All dating one week after each other. lol Which was cool that I got so many to read but sad because they had been written so long ago. So I don't know if it's just the pouch system only sends once or twice a month or if they just had a hard time importing to Ecuador. I heard sometimes the Mission has a hard time importing church supplies and such. So who knows. So thanks! The cookies turned out fairly good, lol. But it was kinda sad when we opened them because when Elder Sanchez took one he found what looked like mold on one of them. yeah A1que triste! I don't think all of them are bad (i'm not even sure if it really was mold, at least I really hope not, I've eaten some and they taste really good, so I think I'll just have to check :). But yeah and the scripture marker is great! So yeah I'd love it if you could send a copy of the recipe for the cookies, I'm pretty sure I could get all the ingredients. I'm just not sure if all the houses have pots, we don't really have pots here. And haha (StorminMormonEcuadorian) sounds like a great name for a blog, thanks for setting that up. That willl be really neat for friends and especially for a record-journal for myself after the mission :).

So anyways, this week has had a lot of ups and downs, lol. We've had some days where we had a ton of lessons planned but by the end of the day like nearly all of them had failed us! (er, fallen through? lol we use the verb fallar (las citas nos fallaron, por que??! lol which is to fail). Like Wednesday especially. We had an interchange with another companionship from our district (which is one cool thing about having a district leader as a companion, we get lots of interchanges :) Elder Xec, which was kinda crazy because it was my first interchange for a whole day with a native, so if I didn't know how to say something that meant I wasn't able to, lol. But I was excited because also we had 2 other guys from the area acompany us that evening so we had a group of 4 missionary aged young men walking around (it was a kool feeling :) but like over half of our appointments fell through! Yeah annoying, plus more than all of our back up plans didn't work. So yeah, days like those are really annoying. But alas, the last appointment for the day we taught a family one whole lesson on the Atonement of Christ, and it went really well. I don't think it's possible to have a bad lesson about the Atonement, lol, so it was a nice final lift to end the day. And of course the highlight of the week was Saturday because we had 2 BAPTISMS!! It was Carmen and her daughter Michelle (in the first picture I mailed home of Julia's baptism, Michelle is in it. She's the grandaughter of Julia). We've been working with her family since I got here and they are awesome! Elder Sanchez baptised Carmen and I baptised Michelle. It was an awesome night! We weren't able to celebrate with magnums because it was fast sunday and we start our fast after lunch on Saturday and break it at lunch on Sunday. but it was still way awesome :D

To replace Elder Martineau here we have Elder Ayala who is actually from Ecuador so it's pretty kool. He was actually baptised not too long before he came out so he's pretty neat. And yeah he is the zone leader, and funny thing, Elder Eaton is the new District leader in the only other district in our zone. So yeah, we have a house full of leadership :=). And by the way I guess under Pres. Gamboa he usually only has one zone leader per zone, so for our zone, it's Elder Ayala. And our next zone conference is actually this Wednesday and it'll be in Guayaquil with 2 other zones so I'm excited :). This is gonna be a crazy week....

ENGLISH FAST DAY 15

...but anyways, this week has overall been really good. As the heading says this is Day 15 of our English fast, lol. We started it 2 weeks ago so I´ve gone 2 weeks without english (ok, not purely, there have been a few times when I would ask how do you say such-and-such and things like that, but for the most part pure spanish :). yeah it really wasn´t that hard at first, I just kind of didn´t talk as much. But now after 2 weeks it´s starting to wear on me, and I think everyone in the house. It´s starting to take some more discipline to remember not to speak english, but oh man it´s worth it. I am really starting to feel a significant difference in how comfortabe I am with spanish. I can understand people a lot better and it´s easier to speak. In fact there were a couple lessons where I like completely surprised myself with how comfortable it was teaching a principle. Like just yesterday we were teaching a grandaughter (who was just baptised on saturday! I´ll tell you more about that later:) and we taught the restoration again. When I started talking about Joseph Smith and establishing the church in the middle I realized that I almost felt like I was speaking english (now it´s probaby because she´s 8 so I only taught the basics of basics, and plus Joseph Smith and the first vision is the principle that I´ve personally taught the most since I´ve been with Elder Sanchez, but still, it was a cool feeling:). At other times I tried explaining more principles that I never had before and really tried to stretch myself (like we taught obeying and honoring the law to one family and I started talking about how it was the laws of reigious freedom that allowed the church to be estabished- definitely a stretch:). Also, on Sunday I taught the Gospel doctrine class (is that what it´s called? for investigators and new converts?) about baptism. yeah, the ward mission leader decided to have me teach it the week before. It was a little hard but I think I did a fairly good job. Definitely good for my spanish. Other than that we have a bunch of investigadors that are progressing. On Saturday we had a baptismal service for Nayeli, a 8 year-old who´s parents are non-members. It´s funny, we kind of feel like we´re cheating because she´s gone for 3 years with her grandparents but technically is a convert so we count her as ours, lol. But nonetheless it was great to be a part of a baptism. It was neat too because she chose me to baptise her. Again, I was kind of surprised that she chose me but I was honored to do it :) I kind of felt like we should´ve had her grandpa baptize her but on Sunday he did the confirmation so it was fine. It was neat because she has several friends and actually one of her friends was baptized the week before so she´s happy. It was a great service and we could feel the spirit and the rest of the day after was great. Funny how every Saturday after a baptism goes great. :P That night we stopped by the farmacia and bought two "magnums" to celebrate. It´s become sort of a tradition now after baptisms to celebrate by getting them. They´re these chocolate covered ice cream bars that are ridiculously expensive (like 1.25$!) but ridiculously good, lol. I don´t know how but the chocolate is sooo creamy and good and my favorite is the one with almonds, lol. Definitely worth it :D.....