Christmas, Rain and Bautismo!

Hey Mom and Dad,

Wow sounds like it was a great Christmas for everyone. I´m glad it must´ve been awesome to have everyone there and enjoy the family atmosphere full of love. That’s nice Luke let you sleep in a bit later (at least a bit later for Christmas morning, lol). He must not be quite at the age to get himself up at the early hours of the day. And that´s great you spent the day at Grandpas.

Here we had a great day. Two families gave us lunch so we could barely walk after but we still felt their love, lol. Then we went around teaching as usual but most of the time just watching a video themed on Christ. We ended the day with an awesome family, Robayo. I don´t know if I told you about them but their fantastic. It´s interesting I think I´m realizing that in each area you come to find one or two families that are just your favorites to teach and be with. That´s probably not a good thing, lol, but it´s hard to help it. We always have them as the last lesson of the day because he works for a banana farm and doesn´t get home until that hour and I always know that no matter how rough the day is and how many lessons fell through this family will be there and we´ll have a good lesson, and often they offer us dinner, lol. They have three kids, the oldest is 9. They´re just an awesome family and Euclides is such an awesome guy. He works so hard to support his family every time we go he just looks exhausted, but somehow has a ton of patience with his little kids, lol. He´s one here that makes me hope that I stay here long enough to see them baptized. So yeah we were able to visit them for our last lesson on Christmas which was nice. They gave us dinner (turkey!) and watched how to find faith in Christ.

We had a baptism yesterday which was sweet! We had it with the Elders from another ward because the girls who were baptized were both nieces of a member in our ward. So it was sweet. He said he would plan everything for talks and we just needed to announce it and bring the baptism clothes. That was way nice for once not having to worry too much about the agenda. And just to be able to go, sit down and enjoy the baptism from the outside, lol. Like a breath of fresh air. The member teaches the mission prep class for the stake so he asked all of the future missionaries to give the talks and be the witnesses to prepare for their missions. It was pretty neat. And it was fun to see and remember what it was like to be a youth preparing for the mission. And yes we do have another baptism planned for this week on Saturday. It´s the daughter of Euclides that is nine.

Alright well other than that it was great to talk to you all too! It was crazy I was a little nervous since it´s been so long but it was nice to hear your voices. The delay in the phone took a little getting used to but it was worth it, lol. I´m glad to hear everyone is doing great. I´d better get going. Today we have to go to Guayaquil so I can take the last exam with the assistants to finish my maestro!!!! Hopefully it all goes well.

Love, Elder David Frome

Feliz Navidad

Hey Mom and Dad,

Man I can´t believe it´s Christmas week! Seems like just yesterday I got here (and actually it literally kind of does, the weather hasn´t changed much at all:). I´m glad it sounds like all of you are doing good. That´ll be exciting to have Robbie and Kristen there, and I bet it´s already great to have Ryan. I´m excited to be able to talk to them since I didn´t get to on Mother´s day. And wow so you got a new horse for Christmas mom?? That´s awesome! Lol I´m glad haven´t you been keeping your eye out for a while.

But anyways, so this week I got the most packages that I´ve ever gotten in one week and I´m pretty sure I will ever get in one week, lol. I´ve felt so spoiled I almost felt bad for the other missionaries. It was crazy too because we had Conference (which was AWESOME I´ll tell you about later) and so we got all our mail there and Hermana Gamboa came up to me and was like “Elder, you have been getting package after package in the office, we have counted up about seven!” lol, just because I got the 3 packages from you this week and two packages from you the week before, then Grandma sent me a package and Melissa and Aunt Janet and some other friends. So yeah thank you so much. And thanks for all the candy and stockings for the other elders, I think I´ll have to try and get up early and play Santa Claus to give them each a stocking and candy and everything. I hope it´s ok I decided to open everything today instead of Christmas, I figured I´d rather see it all and feel a bit trunky today instead of when we´ve got to teach ;P And yeah the tie is awesome and everything you sent. We listened to the tabernacle choir Christmas CD this morning when we were cleaning, lol that was fun. It was great especially getting the pictures and that picture book. It was great seeing the old and modern pictures. Just made me miss home a bit :P So yeah tell Grandma and everyone thanks for the packages.

But anyways, so everything here is going great. The best day was definitely Thursday. I don´t know if i told you but the president told us that this month we were going to be able to go to the temple!!! So finally this week we found out that we were going on Thursday! Our sessión was at 8 in the morning so we had to get up a little extra early and as a zone went to Guayaquil. It was awesome because Elder Ethridge´s zone was there as well as Sister Brown´s so I saw them and several other missionaries that I knew. It´s fun I think I´m at the point where I have enough time to have known a good number of missionaries so now zone conferences are even better because I see missionaries that I know and have worked with. It was fun seeing Sister Brown because we talked about how crazy it is how we´ve already been out in the field for so long. She is already halfway done with her mission! Then of course entering the temple was awesome. Only thing was after our sessión we had zone conference in the lobby of the hotel, so we didn´t have much time to stay in the Celestial room but that was alright. It was crazy hearing and going through it all in Spanish. I think I´m kind of glad now that I went through after having some time here so I was actually able to understand it all. Had it been my first day I wouldn´t have gotten anything, lol.

But yeah then the conference after was amazing. First the Temple president spoke to us and that was awesome. He told us about the general visión of the area presidency has a lot of focus on the temple. How getting members baptized is only the first step because it´s the temple that everything focuses on. We can only gain exaltation through temples. It was neat to hear. He also taught us a way simple but effective way of teaching the plan of salvation. It was neat. Then after of course President spoke to us about Christmas and baptism and this time of year. It was more jovial than usual. Than lastly Hermana Gamboa spoke some words and then asked if we had any gifts yet, lol then she told us of course the missión was giving us gifts! Then she had the assistants bring out a wrapped present for every missionary there! I was surprised, I couldn´t believe that they had bought a present for every missionary in the missión. But it was definitely awesome. I got a hymn book cover, tie and socks. Others got shirts and pictures. It was way neat. After we all took pictures as a group and then by the temple. I couldn´t believe it but I forgot my camera so I´ll have to get the pictures from someone else in our zone.
Then when we finally got back, believe it or not, we had a baptism!! 9-year-old Juan got baptized. His parents were less active but are now coming back. So yeah it was an amazing thing to see. I´m pretty sure a day in the life of a missionary couldn´t get much better than that, lol. Temple in the morning, Conference afternoon, seeing missionary friends from other sectors, then ending the day with a baptism. Yeah, it doesn´t get much better than that :P

Other than that everything is going well. This week should be pretty crazy. We´re getting lots of investigators telling us that we have to pass by at specific times on Wednesday, i wonder why ;) lol then Christmas should be great as well. Yeah it definitely doesn´t feel too much like Christmas yet, but yeah like you said Dad that might be better because it feels like a normal work day. If it felt too much like Christmas at home that´d probably just make it harder :P it´s sweet because we have 2 baptisms planning for the weekend after Christmas so we´re excited.
Other than that-- oh I had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday. I didn´t have as much time to prepare it so I was a little more worried but I ended up going over on time (the second counselor had to slip a piece of paper in front of me saying “TIEMPO” (time) lol so I hope it was good. I guess I need to get better at putting all my thoughts and what I wanna say in an 8 minute span better, lol.

Alright well I´d better get going. Thanks again for all the packages and letters! I love you and can´t wait to hear from you Friday!!

Love,Elder David Frome

Rain, Crickets, and news!

Hey Mom and Dad,

I told you about how I memorized everything for the Maestro, right? Well that´s only one part, I also had to take a written exam of the principles of Preach my Gospel, fill out several practice Fichas bautismales (not sure how to say that in english, the forms you fill out when someone is baptised:), and will have to teach the zone leader and he´ll evaluate my teaching to see if I´m using all the principles. Yeah it´s a pretty good amount of work, lol. But yeah this Friday morning we ran over to the Zone leaders house and I took it. I started around 10:45ish I´d say. There were 3 fichas and 12 questions and oh man, it was actually pretty intense, lol. When I was nearly done Elder Salazar came in to see how I was doing and I asked him jokingly “man how long have I been in here?” he laughed and said “oh you know about 1:00ish.” I thought he was joking. Lol when I finished I came out and looked at my watch and it was 1:30! Yeah took me over 2 hours to take it. It was just like being back in school taking finals, lol. But ah well hopefully I did well. Kool thing is Elder Arellano is an Assistent now so I bet he´ll be the one who grades it. So hopefully I pass! :P

Well other than that this week has been crazy. We´ve been working hard and finding a ton of new people. It actually rained Thursday night! Just barely, but it was still nice. Hopefully the rains will start to come now. But one fun fact that we learned is that the start of rain also means the season of cricket or grasshoppers (grillos, lol). We were talking to the bishop and he said that when it starts to rain, grasshoppers come soon by swarms. You can barely walk down the street without hundred running into you flying around. We´ve already seen hundreds, flying around in the streets and found several in our apartment, lol. It´s kinda fun to see so many but I think we´ll have to protect our apartment so they don´t ruin our clothes :P

Sunday we had stake conference! Thus, another opportunity to dress up in suits. It was neat I didn´t realize before but President and Sister Gamboa came. We were waiting outside greeting investigators and I saw them and was surprised. But it was pretty kool. When we finally went in I had a fun, though slightly nerve racking assignment. When I sat down right before the meeting started and looked at Pres. Gamboa sitting up front he motioned to me to come up to him. He asked me to have the Elders write the names of all their investigators who were there as quickly as posible, lol. So I promptly went to each elder and had them write the names and a little into the meeting I walked back up to give it to him. In his talk he later gave a formal welcome to all the investigators by name. And it was funny he said that if he mispronounced any or missed any it´s the “culpa de los Elderes” (the fault of the elders:). So it was kool to hear them speak.

Alright well other then that all is going good. Looks like I´m out of time so I´d better go. I hope all is well for you and you have another great week! Love you!

Love,

Elder David K. Frome

PS- ok sorry it´s taken so long but i´ve finally been able to figure out this card reader. All the computers have had a hard time reading my memory card, I´m not sure why. But this time I spent a little more time so I think I figured it out! lol Hope you get these pictures well, one is of me and Elder Cevallos and other of our zone!

Crazy Week!

Hey Mom and Dad,

Wow sounds like it´s been another crazy week at home. Ah good times with freezing temperatures. I´m not gonna lie, it really doesn´t feel like Christmas time here when it´s only getting hotter. It´s fun to see how here nearly everyone has already put up their artificial Christmas trees and have even put up lights. Of course they don´t really have roofs like we do to put up the lights, but do you remember when I told you every house that´s not made of cane\bambuu has bars over the windows? Well here they string Christmas lights all around the bars that are over the windows so it still gives a nice effect. Definitely different than Christmas in Oregon but it´s still good. There are lots of nativity scenes that have been put up as well so those are kool to see. Changes are next week so it´ll be crazy to see where i´ll be for Christmas, hopefully I stay here. I only have 3 months so I think I will be, but crazy thing of the mission is you never know. This morning we got a call from the Elders in Barrio Olmedo and had us run over there this morning because Elder Arellano, our zone leader, was called to be the new assistant!!! We ran over to say goodbye. But it was crazy to see, but awesome because he is such an awesome elder. Remember I was his companion for a few days while we waited to receive our trainees. So yeah it´ll be fun seeing him in zone conferences now :)

I don´t suppose you´d hear at all about the South American soccer cup but guess who won the championship! Yeah, Liga from Quito of Ecuador apparently won the championship for South America, and I´m pretty sure they played against Brazil so that was fun to hear about. Elder Cevallos was way excited (especially since he´s from Quito) he said the last time Quito won the championship he cried he was so happy, lol.

But yeah it was fun after district meeting I got the packages, and then Elder Salazar, our district leader, told me that if there´s food I can open it now for the food, lol. So I hope it´s ok I opened my birthday package early and ate some of the candy, lol. I´m pretty sure everyone agreed that those cookies were AWESOME!! :) lol. And it was perfect too because after the meeting we didn´t have anyone that was going to give us lunch so we went back to the house to cook and I decided to make those potatos and gravy and I had some frozen hamburger that I thought would go nicely with it so I made that. Then Elder Cevallos made a soup called encebollado that is delicious so we split the meal. I thought it was a pretty sweet thanksgiving meal, two different people from different countries, sharing there culture and food, that´s what´s supposed to be in the spirit of thanksgiving, right?

Well other than that it´s been an awesome week now that I´ve finally been able to leave the house!!! Lol, and yeah my knee feels great now. After two weeks of not bending my knee it was quite stiff so I spent the mornings stretching and just moving it, lol, and we walked a little slower the first few days but now it´s all good. It´s been crazy this week we´ve received quite a few references from the members over the last two weeks that we´ve finally been able to contact. There´s one family who was less active but now they´re coming back and want their 9-year old son to be baptized, then another niece of a member who´s actually been coming for a while now is telling us that she wants to be baptized (yeah, it doesn´t get much better then that when the people tell us that want to be baptized, lol=). We also have another family that is progressing great. The other night we had a lesson with just the 17-year old son and committed him to be baptized for the 26th! That would be so awesome to have a Christmas baptism! Now hopefully if the rest of the family is ready we can commit them as well. It´s been fun since we didn´t have any scheduled appointments after 2 weeks of being in the house we´ve found ourselves with extra time since it´s hard to find investigators when we randomly pass by, thusly we´ve had the opportunity to knock doors, lol (remember I told you we hardly ever do that as my trainer first told me), but it was actually pretty neat. That neighborhood of cane houses on stilts that I told you about is very receptive. It´s amazing how the humility helps people listen. Like in most neighborhoods every 5-10 houses we´ll find one that´ll invite us to hear more. But there it´s like every other house. Definitely a confidence builder :P One guy said that he´s been looking at all the different churches and says he has a lot of respect for the Mormons and of all that we would join, it would either be Mormon or Catholic. He should be good.

Then of course the Christmas devotional was great! I love those because it´s always awesome after having taught the restoration and putting enphasis on prophets to be able to afterwards invite them to hear the words of a prophet. So it was neat. Of course I´m not gonna lie it brought memories of being back there at Christmas, lol. :P

Alright, well I´ve got to get going. Thanks so much for the packages! I love you and hope everyone has a good week!

Love,

Elder David Frome