Changes!!

Hey Mom and Dad,
I´m glad sounds like another good week at home. Sounds like a crazy week in sports. But that´s neat that your getting everything prepared for thanksgiving. That´ll be a nice week to see Jeff and Maryanne and everyone. And wow crazy how four of us cousins are out away on missions. And wow that´s awesome that Melissa found out she´s going to have a girl! I´m sure Josh and Nathan are excited if they were hoping to have a sister, lol. That´ll be neat to have a niece.
As for here I think I forgot to tell you that we were in the last week of changes, sorry! But yeah it was kind of funny there were so many transfers in the last change (8 of the 14 missionaries in the zone came in new to the zone) so we figured there woudn´t be too many changes this time so we weren´t really thinking about it either. But on Thursday night we got a phone call by surprise. It was Elder Usseglio one of the assistants and I talked to him. He asked how everything was going so I told him we were all doing great then he told me he had some changes for us. He told me that Elder Franco (who was living with us in the same house that was an awesome guy), another elder from the zone and Elder Baquerizo had changes. Yeah, took us completely by surprise. Poor Elder Baquerizo, only had 2 changes there and was hoping to stay for Christmas had to pack his bags. He traveled with Elder Franco so I got to stay in Libertad to wait for our new companions. Now I am with Elder Suquillo from Quito. He´s a great guy. He has 23 months in the mission so he´s about to finish. It´s sweet because he has a lot of experience as a zone leader so we have a lot of ideas of things we can do to help the zone. I remember hearing about him a lot because when I was in my first sector of Quevedo, in Bolivar they talked about him a lot because he started the mission there and had a lot of time there. So it´s been fun we´ve been talking about how it was in Quevedo. I also met him in Duran so I´ve seen him just never really gotten to know him. It´s kool because he always seemed to be more of a quiet reserved missionary but now that we´re together he´s pretty hilarious. It´s sweet teaching with him because you can tell after nearly two years in the mission he´s pretty well mastered the skills of teaching effectively. That only crazy thing is that he heard that he might go home in the middle of December which would be crazy because this change ends the first few days of January. It might be to just be able to let all the missionaries in his group go home before Christmas instead of keeping them until the week after. We´re not sure yet how it would happen. Of course I´d like to keep my companion until the end of the change but I´m sure he´d love to be able to see his family for Christmas. I´m sure we´ll find out at the beginning of December.
Other than that we´ve been working hard. It was sweet this week because in the zone we had 8 baptisms which is a good number because usually we have 3 or 4. In our sector we helped Juan and Alison set a date for the marriage for the 8th of December because it is right before the baptism for the 11th. Hopefully it all goes good. One funny thing was Sunday morning we got to church and said hi to the bishop and he told me that the third Sunday of each month they usually let one of the missionaries speak and asked me if I had anything prepared. I didn´t have a thing but told him that´d be fine I could always take advantage of an opportunity to speak to the ward. I asked him how much time I would have and he told me ten minutes so I figured that´d be perfect. It´s funny because I really didn´t feel too nervous. I was the last speaker so I had plenty of time to think of what I could say. It´s the nice thing about being a missionary you get good and coming up with things to say quick. I figured the easiest thing to do was to think of one or two stories to tell and that´d fill up the ten minutes easy. So yeah I told that story of the Train keeper and another I had heard here and tied it in with 2 Nephi 2:8 and making the story known by sharing the gospel and ended up going over about 4 minutes, lol. I hope it motivated the members to share the gospel, though I realized as I told the story by the reaction on the faces of the members how sad the story really is, maybe I won´t choose that story to tell next time, lol.
Well other than that we´re doing great. Well thanks for everything, love you!
Love,
Elder David Frome

Another Good Week!

Hey Mom and Dad,
Wow sounds like a crazy week with all the elections and everything. Is it in just two more years and we´ll have elections for the presidency, right? It´s nice to be a missionary and be called to leave behind all personal or political affairs and just concentrate on the work. Though funny thing I think I´ve still gained a greater appreciation and understanding of the importance of national leadership for the progress of a nation.
This has been an awesome week here. Well the first half of the week was kind of down because from Monday until Wednesday was national holidays. It was kind of fun because a bunch of people came here to Salinas but kind of a bummer because no one was home for our appointments because all were out to the beach. But it was sweet because on Wednesday we had another leadership conference but this time all the district leaders and trainers were invited so it was a bigger group. We had it with several zones from Guayaquil, Duran and us. It was more focused on teaching skills and basically the entire conference was made up of practices. It was neat though I´m not gonna lie it takes a lot of courage to go in front of everyone to practice teaching. But it was good nonetheless. It was fun because I saw Elder Cruz who was my companion in Duran. Now he´s district leader and training a north american from Oregon. So yeah it was sweet.
Other than that we´ve been working hard. We have several investigators who are progressing slowly but surely. One young couple that we have we are way excited about.
As for those two young men that we found, it´s kind of sad to say that we haven´t been able to find them to teach them since that day they talked to us. We´ve talked to one a couple of times but each time we´ve made an appointment it´s fallen through. Yeah, sad day. That´s the sad part of missionary work. Often you meet some families in an amazing way but it doesn´t often work out. But ah well, I´m sure they won´t soon forget the lesson we had and that it may have been one step more towards opening their heart to the gospel.
Other than that everything is going great. Today we´re emailing late because for some reason the tellers weren´t working so we couldn´t pull out money and we were broke, lol. So we left and stopped by “Planet Icecream” (remember that place that is like cold stone??) and now we came back
Well thanks for everything. Hope you have another great week!
Love,
Elder David Frome

Consejo de Líderes

Hey Mom and Dad,

Ah that´s good to hear it´s been another good Halloween weekend and the ward had the traditional fall party. Here the government has been doing all it can to discourage the celebration of Halloween. They´ve established a national holiday as a patriotic day of the shield so you don´t see too many people in costumes and there isn´t much candy. But we did see a few people dressed up in Salinas near the beach on Sunday. It´s funny because here there is also the holiday “day of the dead” on the 2nd of November so Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are all days off school and work. So for the national vacations it sounds like a ton of tourists are coming here to Salinas to enjoy the holiday. So yeah we´re getting a lot more traffic and people which make it a little more exciting but crazy.

And thanks I did get your package this week with the Halloween candy and everything. I´m excited to make some rootbeer to show the natives how it tastes. It´s funny often the people don´t like the taste of rootbeer first. But they love rootbeer floats, lol. And yeah if you want to send the classic mashed potatoes and gravy and everything like last year that´d be sweet :).

Well this week has been awesome. We did have the baptism for Karen on Thursday and it went great. Several friends came from other wards to support her including one friend that came and sang a hymn in the service. It was neat to see that she already has a lot of support. Her mom also came which was a surprise. I wasn´t sure if she would come because Karen has told us that her parents aren´t too excited about the whole baptism idea, lol. But I guess in the end she decided to come so hopefully she had a good experience.

Then on Friday we had Consejo de Líderes in Guayaquil so Elder Baquerizo and I got to get up early and put on our suits to travel to Guayaquil. It was sweet because apparently President recently had a seminar for mission presidents in Peru where Elder Gonzalez presided. It was neat because he said that the church wants to duplicate and even triple the number of baptisms we´re currently having. But in order to change the results we have to change the way we work. So we talked different ways to change the way we are working. One of the biggest topics we talked about was the new instruction that we, as missionaries, can´t be giving solutions to the investigators anymore. Often as missionaries we want to help the investigators so much that when they need to get married or even divorced in order to qualify for baptism we are willing to help them take out the paperwork and do everything to help. President said that we can´t be doing that anymore. He said the first presidency is worried that the new converts in the church are depending too much on the church to solve their problems instead of solving their own. We need to teach them the principle of auto sufficiency. So yeah that should be good to help. Other than that it was sweet to see the other zone leaders and everyone. I talked with Elder Godinez and he told me everything is going good back in Quevedo. He told me that Alex and Elizabeth had a date to get married this week and had asked if I could come back to be one of the witnesses, lol. He said they have a baptismal date soon after.

Other than that everything is going great here. Oh I forgot to tell you about the “cold weather” we´re having here, lol. It´s been cloudy and windy and the temperature has dropped down into the low 70s, so of course everyone has been throwing on jackets and catching colds, lol. Elder Baquerizo had asked his parents to send him a sweater so he´s being working in a sweater. It just kind of makes me laugh to think of how this is so cold for them here. Of course it also kind of scares me because I too am feeling a little cold when I step outside so I hate to think of what it´s going to be like to be back in Oregon in the winter, lol. But ah well I´ll live :)

Well thanks for everything! Hope you have a great week! Love you!

Love,
Elder David Frome

PS- here are some photos from the baptism