FELIZ DIA DE LA PADRE!

Hey Mom and Dad,
Firstly before I forget, ¡¡FELÍZ DIA DEL PADRE!!(Atrasado:), lol that´s great I´m glad it sounds like you had a great Fathers day and had everyone over to the house. Yeah I couldn´t help but think about what the family must be doing on Sunday. It was neat though because our ward mission leader who just got back from his mission is one of 12 children in his family. Yeah, twelve kids! Lol I think he´s number 3 or 4, lol, but yeah his parents invited us over to there house for a barbeque lunch on Sunday so we went and it was fun to see. It was crazy it reminded me of us being all together with the cousins and everyone, but funny thing is it was only the immediate family but still the little kids were playing and the older ones were talking. After we ate we played a game similar to the game we gave called “scattergories.” Which is where you have several categories like Names, Towns, Foods, Colors, etc. then a letter is chosen like “k” then you have a minute to think of all the words you can that start with the chosen letter for each category. Yeah crazy fun game. I wasn´t doing so good at first (apparently my Spanish vocab isn´t quite up to par with theirs, lol) so then they let me put down any English words I know then I did better :P. But that´s neat i´m glad everyone had a good day. And that´s fun that Walker came with Anna. There´s one mamita here that gives us lunch every week that is pretty famous in the entire mission that I wonder if he would know. Her name is Mamita Valencia and every six weeks she feeds all the missionaries in the zone. I know Walker wasn´t in this zone but maybe you could ask him if he ever heard of Mamita Valencia, She´s been feeding the missionaries for like over 20 years.
And sounds like a good Sunday. That´s amazing how you have a girl that´s come to stay with her dad now that her mom has died. Crazy to think how it may have changed her life completely for the better. I think the church is the best place for youth to grow and learn good principles. She´ll find such a strong refuge in the church.
But anyways, so this week has been great. It was fun it started off quick when Tuesday during the last part of District meeting in walks Elder Bartolomei, one of the assistants without any warning beforehand, lol. He came to accompany me and Elder Barrientos and I guess the other assistant went with the elders from Quevedo North. Just a fun surprise and we had a great day. I never had had an interchange with the assistants so it was kool. He gave us some great ideas to improve. It was more suprising because usually in the zones here that are so far away from Guayaquil we don´t see the assistants very often because it´s just so far away. But I guess they came and the whole week they started in Quevedo, then the next day they said they were heading to Ventanas, then I´d imagine after they´d go to Babahoyo just to do interchanges with the zones farther away. So it´s neat.
So yeah nothing too crazy happened this week, just working hard as normal. Oh we found an amazing family this week that seem way prepared. When we came for the appointment they let us right in and got their two kids to quiet down to listen to us. It´s a couple and their two kids. It was neat just how the family functioned because it was the father who welcomed us then introduced each member of his family and himself as the head of the family. But you could see the love he had for all. They said how they´re a pretty tranquil family that spend most of the time inside the house together. The Father asked us a ton of questions as well as the wife. It´s funny we actually weren´t able to teach so much because they were asking us so many questions, but it still just a great lesson, lol. It was one of those lessons that just called my attention just to see a family like that. One of the things as missionaries we see so many families each day and always notice how each has a different way of functioning and you can tell pretty quick the level of love and respect that´s present. This was just the kind of family that we don´t meet every day.
Other than that we have two baptisms planned for this Saturday that we´re excited about. It´s two twins that are both awesome, lol. They´re 18 and friends of the family of our Ward mission leader. One is José Luís and the other is Luís Miguel and they look exactly alike. Yeah, talk about confusing, lol. But I already figured how to tell them apart so it´s ok :)
Oh and thanks for the comments from facebook, lol. Those were fun to see. That´s crazy to think how long it´s been since I´ve seen some of them, lol. Oh and btw how´s my hotmail account doing? Is it way overloaded with junkmail by now?
Well thanks for everything! Love you!!!
Love,
Elder David Frome
PS- oh almost forgot, that´s awesome about the Lakers!! Lol oh and have you heard the soccer world cup is going on now and the USA is in it, lol. I´ve never really paid attention to it but now everyone is watching and telling us how it´s going. I never knew it´s just like the Olympics every 4 years they play and it´s like a giant championship. Both Chile and the USA are playing so we hear updates to how they have played. I guess the US has played twice but tied both games and Chile is going to play today. Fun times :)

Bautismo!

Hey Mom and Dad,

I´m glad summer has finally arrived to Oregon! And it makes me smile to remember the times when bright sunshine from a cloudless sky was a good thing to enjoy, lol :P

And wow sounds like a lot is going on at home. That´s crazy to hear about Sierra getting married and Britanny (did you mean Bethany? Or is britanny another older sister?) that´s crazy but awesome. And thanks for sending the packages! I´ll be looking for them. Oh and I got a package from you this week with some pixy sticks and other crandy and some more hydrocortisione ointment. Thanks a lot that´ll be great to have plenty. And Elder Barrientos enjoyed trying pixy sticks for the first time, lol. Though he asked if you could do anything more with it or if it´s really just flavored sugar that you eat as it is, lol. But yeah it was fun.

But anyways, so this week has been crazy but awesome. The definite highlight was the baptism we had Thursday for Byron. It turned out really well mainly because out of nowhere came a group from the stake choir to sing (maybe Elder Barrientos knew about it because I didn´t). We had invited the counselor of the stake presidency so he invited them. They sang Más cerca Dios de tí and it was pretty much the best singing I´ve heard in Ecuador, lol. It was so angelic as soon as they started singing. They had the bass, tenor, soprano, alto and everything. It definitely brought the spirit so it was great.

Also this week we´ve been finding even more great people to teach. We found one family in particular that caught my attention. The mom is a friend of another investigator we were teaching and she is way nice and sounds very interested. When we went in and met the husband we found out they had been hearing the missionaries before and had gone to church and everything. I immediately thought what an amazing family.

Other than that everything is going good. Sorry I spent a lot of time trying to back up my pictures. Something happened to one of my memory cards because now it says that it has no format. I think I´ll send it to you to see if you can get the pictures off of it in that store you said you´ve gone to. I¨m pretty sure I backed it up but I think there were a few pictures I took that are on it that I didn´t back up. Hopefully I don´t lose them. Gotta love technology, lol.
Alright well thanks for everything, I love you!

Love,

Elder David Frome

Good Week :)

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for the email! I´m glad it sounds like it´s been another good week. Just crazy weather, lol. That´s funny because here for the last week or so the weather has actually been a little strange just because it´s been so cloudy, which is amazing! It´s been a bit cooler thus making the temperature about perfect (only for a few hours midday is it real hot:). It´s been nice and even a couple of days I felt like I hardly sweat at all (as oppose to normal days where I get home to change and just feel wet, lol). And wow that´s crazy it´s graduation already! Wow Sofia is done with high school?! That´s so awesome. What´re her plans now for college? OSU like Anna? And haha that´s crazy to think Kraig, Carter, and Michael have graduated. Yeah I remember them from Young men, Clarissa is the one I can´t quite remember. But that´s sweet. And that´s neat that the missionaries are having baptisms there. And yeah life is definitely crazy as a missionary, every day your running in between appointments and if one thing comes up unplanned or one appointment goes too long it just throws everything off. I think it´d be even harder in the states because people are even more schedule oriented then here. Here everyone is pretty lax about being on time, which is kinda nice but bad at the same time because never does a meeting or activity start on time (you´ll be lucky to start within a half hour of when you planned it, lol). And wow Jenny had twins! That´s awesome you´ll have to tell her congratulations for me. That´ll be great to see them when I get back.

Well everything here is going well. Nothing too big happened this week, lol. I´d have to say it feels like the Lord is blessing us a lot. Yesterday in church one of our investigators, Azalia, came to church again (she´s the one who has been investigating for 2 years or so and is basically a member but hasn´t been baptized yet because her parents are Jehovahs Witness so are completely against the church. Which really is tough, we talked with her Dad once and oof, it didn´t go so well, lol). But yeah we had the Gospel principles class and afterwards she said she wanted to talk to us and said she wanted to put a baptismal date to finally be baptized. She said she´s tired of how her parents are against it and she knows it´s true so just needs to do it. Yeah we were excited, lol. But yeah we put the date for the 26th of this month. That´s gonna be a good baptismal service :). Then later that same night we passed by the family with the two amazing kids (remember them, that gave profound answers and love to read while the dad is a member less active). Well we passed by but the Dad wasn´t there so we couldn´t teach, But we talked with the step-mom and she told us how her kids now are excited and want to be baptized and asked us what to do to prepare them. Yeah, talk about an amazing day. We told her we just need to teach them a little bit but really the most important is that they come to church, read the scriptures and pray. She accepted that well and it sounds like she´s gonna start coming just to get the kids ready. I´m pretty sure that thanks to the example of the kids children the entire family is going to come back into the Gospel. But yeah, it´s the life of a missionary- each investigator we have is asking us when they can be baptized. Can´t see how things can get better than that, lol. But yeah I think it´s just more tender mercies of the Lord to help us remember He´s there and wants to bless us.

Other than that we should have a baptism this week for Byron, the older brother of the two that we baptized last week. It´s neat we´ve assigned the young men to give the talks and prayers and everything so it should be good. We also have a movie night planned on Friday that should be good. Hopefully more people come.

But anyways, so in the house it´s been fun getting to know Elder Palmer and Elder Veizaga. They´re both great guys. It was kool the other night they came home way excited because they had placed 4 baptismal date with a family. I asked them which family it was and when they told me who it was I got way excited too because it was the same family that I found with Elder Vinueza! Do you remember I told you about one rainy night when all our appointments fell through but then we remembered one house that always said hi as we walked by but we thought they were dollies but felt like we should just go by and see what happens. Then when we went by they turned out to be an amazingly awesome family. Well it was the same family! I think of all the investigators you teach in the mission there´s a special connection you feel with those you find and start teaching from the beginning. I don´t know why but it´s just different somehow to introduce them into the gospel and help them understand and learn and see the gospel seed be planted and just start to grow. But yeah that´s how it was with them. So now I´m excited to be here and maybe get to see the baptism. :)

Well I´d better get going, thanks for the email! Love you!

Love,

Elder David Frome