E-mail from Hermana Gamboa

We didn't get an e-mail from David this week. I got up my nerve and sent an e-mail to the Mission President's wife. She is very understanding and sweet. Here is her reply and three pictures taken TODAY!

Here is her e-mail in Spanish. I tried to translate it with a computer program I found - it is a little rough, but I got the general idea of what she was saying.

Querida hermana Frome:
Gracias por su mail; por favor discúlpeme que no escriba en inglés.
Tranquila por su hijo el elder Frome, él está muy bien, hoy tuvimos una reunión con todos los líderes de zona y él es uno de ellos.
Los misioneros de la oficina me contaron que usted está preocupada por su hijo porque no recibió correo el lunes de él, yo le pregunté y él me dijo que sí escribió; no entiende porqué no recibió su correo.
Su hijo es maravilloso, es de los mejores misioneros que tenemos en la misión, es un buen ejemplo, es muy positivo, es un misionero feliz.
Le estoy enviando fotos que tomamos hoy, espero que esta sea la mejor prueba de que él está muy bien, pero estoy muy agradecida por la preocupación e interés por un excelente hijo.
Dígame si recibe este correo por favor.
con amor,
Hna Gamboa
Misión Guayaquil Norte
Ecuador

The translation:

Dear sister Frome:
Thanks for your mail, so please excuse me not to write in English.
Quiet by his elder son Frome, he is well, today we had a meeting with all area leaders and he is one of them.
The mission of the office told me that you are worried about her son because he received his mail on Monday, I asked and he said yes, wrote, do not understand why they did not receive their mail.
Your son is wonderful, it's the best missionaries in the mission we have is a good example, is very positive, happy is a missionary.
I am sending photos we took today, I hope this is the best proof that he is fine, but I am very grateful for the concern and interest in an excellent son.
Tell me if you receive this email please.
with love
Gamboa Sr.
Guayaquil North Mission
Ecuador

SIETE BAUTISMOS!

Hey Mom and Dad,
Thanks for your emails! Wow sounds like a pretty crazy day in church. Good thing you were there to help. Were the missionaries able to talk with her afterwards? It´s always exciting as missionaries to see people come to church who aren´t members just out of their own free will. We always jump on the opportunity to talk with them because that really shows a lot about their desires and their faith to know the true gospel.
And wow that´s crazy to think I already have my homecoming talk scheduled, lol. But that´ll be sweet to have President Corbett there. He was our “Pa” in the pioneer trek. So do you think I´ll be the concluding speaker or in the middle? For some reason I like be the concluding speaker probably just because it´s easier to watch the time because I know exactly when the meeting ends but when your in the middle it´s harder to keep your talk within the time limits. But either way is good :)
But anyways, well this week I think we´ve been greatly blessed by the Lord. On Saturday night we had the baptismal service for seven of our investigators. It was an amazing night. The only problem was yet again the size our the room with the baptismal font. I don´t understand why they make those rooms so small. We really didn´t put much effort into announcing and inviting people to come because I figured with seven we would easily have a lot of people come. Before we started the room was filled and we had so put about 4 or 5 chairs directly outside of the door for people to sit and listen, lol. At first with Elder Marroquin we were sitting in the back but then we got up to do the baptisms and then after the ordinance a few people took our seats so at the end we just stood by the door, lol. That and it would be nice to have air conditioning. It was probably about 80 degrees even in the night so you can imagine what it would be like inside the small room packed with people, lol. But ah well for all those who were baptized it was definitely an edifying experience. It was funny because a couple of the young women who were going to be baptized were way nervous and I think were a little scared of the water. I baptized one named Gisella and she was nearly shaking as she entered the water. Her family was a reference from the first counselor of the bishopbric but as we visited them we realized that her parents already knew a good amount about the church and were very friendly. I was impressed because Gisella who just turned 15 has been coming to church alone and has been reading the Book of Mormon. Her family lives in a bamboo shack in pretty humble circumstances but I think she´s found a refuge in the church. She looked pretty happy on Sunday coming to church because she´s already made some friends even though she´s fairly shy.
On Sunday it was a neat sacrament meeting because the bishop always asks the new converts to sit on the stand to be confirmed so all seven were sitting up front. Then when it was time for the confirmations Elder Marroquín, two members and I took turns confirming. It took so long confirming everyone that we didn´t start the sacrament himn until halfway through the meeting, lol. Sunday night Elder Marroquín called sister gamboa about a rash he´s getting on his back and when she called us back I answered the phone and she congratulated me for our baptisms and said that President wanted to talk to me and then he congratulated us for the baptisms. So yeah, we were feeling pretty happy that night. We celebrated making rootbeer floats :)
Alright well I´d better get going. I attached some photos of the baptism so I hope you get them. Thanks for everything! Love you!
Love,
Elder David Frome

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your email. Sounds like a semi crazy week with the weather and grandpa´s cows breaking loose, but I´d imagine that it helps keep life interesting, lol. That´s too bad Oregon lost the national championship. I´d imagine Sean must be pretty sad. But that´s sweet BYU beat Utah, that always makes life better :). I´m glad it sounds like Ryan had a good interview. Hopefully he hears soon. How long do the candidates usually have to wait to hear back?

Well life here is going good. I think the Lord is really blessing us because this Saturday we have a goal of seven baptisms. I think we´re going to call it our “mini noche blanca,” just for our ward, lol. This week we were pretty much just preparing the seven investigators for the baptismal interview that we had yesterday after church. Four of them are all brothers and sisters of a family we found about 2 months ago. The mom can´t be baptized yet even though she wants to because she hasn´t been able to come to church because of her work. But the kids are all excited. Then there is another girl from a family who lives near the second counselor of the bishopric who gave us the reference. Then two are 10 year old daughters of a woman who has recently come back to church. The father also lives there and wants to be baptized but they aren´t married so they are first planning the marriage then he´ll be baptized. So yeah this Saturday ought to be a spiritual night.

Other than that we´re also excited for a family that we´ve found about 2 weeks ago named the Baque family. They live in the farthest away part of our sector. We have to catch two buses to get to their house, lol but it´s definitely worth it. The mom is a member who was baptized when she was 10 but went less active shortly after being baptized. The dad says he´s attended a Christian church but hasn´t gone for a while. The mom apparently was invited to an activity in libertad by members who just knocked on her door and she went. So the elders there gave us the direction. They just received us and accepted everything we´ve taught. They came to church for the first time yesterday and accepted a baptismal date for the 5th of February. The only tough part about teaching them is that they only have time Saturdays and Sundays so we´re only going there twice a week. But so far they´ve been progressing great.

Well other than we´ve been good. This time of year is apparently the “hot-rainy season.” In most of Ecuador this time of year is when the rains come and when the sun is strongest. Which is funny that may sound contradictory but really what happens is at night it will start raining and rain until the morning but then around 10 the sun comes out and shines and makes everything way hot until about 5. Though here in Libertad because we´re right on the beach it hasn´t really rained very hard yet, but the sun has definitely gotten stronger so the temperature is getting up to the 90s every day. So yeah I think my body is going to go into shock when I get back to Oregon, going from a hot humid climate to a cold and dry one. But who knows we´ll see, lol. Oh and it´s kool because here all the schools are getting out and all the students are starting their summer vacation. Here the students have summer vacation in the hot weather until about april. That ought to make it a little easier to find some families together and it sounds like we´ll be having a lot more of the youth coming out with us so that ought to be good.
Other than that it was crazy because the older daughter of Josue (who was baptized on 17 of December) was accepted into the english language center in BYU and has had to fill out a ton of paperwork and things to get her visa. The crazy thing is that all the paperwork is in English so she´s asked us to help her fill it out. It was just crazy to see the byu webpage again. She received map of the campus which brought back a ton of memories when I was there, lol. I remember using that map every day for my first month there trying to find all the buildings.
Well I´d better get going. Wow that´s crazy that my flight is for Monday night and I won´t get there until Tuesday afternoon. Yeah I imagine I´ll just be trying to sleep on the plane the whole time.
Well thanks for everything. I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder David Frome

Hey Mom and Dad,
Thanks for your email! And thanks for posting all the comments from my facebook page! It was funny to hear what all my old friends said, lol. There was one thing I didn´t understand though the comments where is just says “Sofia likes this. . . “ and nothing more. I imagine there must be something more on facebook that didn´t copy. But ah well thanks!
I´m glad it sounds like you´ve had a good week. Though it´s always sad to say goodbye to everyone who leaves to go back to ordinary life. That´s exciting that Ryan is there and is going to have an interview, or wait, he already had his interview? Well either way I´m sure he does great! And that´s neat it sounds like the year is already being filled with trips to see family, I guess that´s the fun part of having a big grown-up family all across the states, lol. And that´s sweet you had the opportunity to speak on 1 Nephi 3:7. That talk by Pres. Eyring was powerful. I´m sure it was a great talk.
And that´s sweet West Albany is doing good in Swimming. That´s true Corvallis is tough to beat so that´s amazing that they won. And wow so is the national championship today or tomorrow??? It´s funny I don´t know if you´ve heard of Elder Baum but he´s from Oregon too and so whenever we see each other now that we´ve heard that Oregon is in the championship we talk about it, lol. So yeah we´re excited to hear who wins.
Well this week has probably been one of the most craziest weeks of the mission, lol. Though not really for anything big that´s happened just a bunch of little things that keep happening to us that has been keeping things interesting, lol. Though one big thing we had was on Wednesday when we had “consejo de lideres,” where all of us zone leaders went to Guayaquil for a conference. On Monday night the assistants called us and told us that they wanted us to give a presentation on extending the commitment to be baptized. They told us they´ve noticed that we´ve been having a good number of baptisms and so wanted us to share our “wisdom,” lol. So yeah I don´t know why but for me it´s always nerve racking to give presentations like that, especially because the assistants said that we´d have 30 minutes. We decided to talk about the tactic of introducing the theme of baptism from the beginning of the lesson and tying in the theme of baptism in every principle of the lesson no matter what lesson your teaching. I wasn´t sure if it was such a good idea but it turned out great. We had all the elders practice at the end and they said that it helped open their minds to new ideas. Then later on in the conference we looked over the number of baptisms from the month before in each zone and I noticed that here in Libertad we had 20, which was the most baptisms in the mission. So they asked me to stand up and tell everyone what we were doing to have so much success. Yeah, it was nerve racking but flattering that they recognized that we´ve been having success.
Other then that we´ve been working hard but enjoying the time we have. Oh and before I forget your questions for new years we went to bed at the normal time so we didn´t get to see anything special. But it was kool because we did see some fireworks. They started setting off fireworks at about 7:00 around the beach of Salinas. And yeah that´s true I have had a lot of companions from different contries. And it´s interesting because I haven´t really been able to tell the difference between the accents. Those from Colombia do have a distinct accent and those who are from Ecuador but from the sierra have a distinct accent also. Other then that I haven´t been able to notice too much. I¨m glad i´ve kept a list of all my companions and where they´re from so I´ll be able to remember after the mission.
Alright well I´d better get going. Thanks for your emails! I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder David Frome

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Hey Mom and Dad,
Thanks for your emails. I´m glad you´ve had such a great week with all the family home. Though that’s no fun that everyone got sick but I´m glad that it didn´t keep you from doing fun activities, lol. That´s the amazing part of Christmas, being able to get together as a family. We were teaching a Jehova´s witness a few weeks ago and he explained to us how there´s no biblical standing for celebrating Christmas and it´s a pagan holiday so that´s why they don´t celebrate Christmas. I though “wow, I´m so glad I´m not a Jehova´s witness,” lol we tried to explain to him all the good that comes from remember Christ´s birth but we couldn´t convince him. Ah well, maybe one day he´ll see :). Wow that´s awesome that Uncle Brad got a job back in Oregon. When are they planning on Moving?
Well here we definitely had a crazy weekend. Here in Salinas we´ve seen more tourists than people from Salinas. There is one beach here that is really famous for all the nice hotels that are along it and apparently every new years the hotels put on a fireworks show which has gotten very popular so people from all around the country (and outside the country) come to spend new years eve on the beach. There is one member named Clever who has been accompanying me a lot this week so that I could work here in Salinas instead of going between Libertad and Salinas. He was telling me how in years past this certain strip which looks maybe a mile long gets so full of people that you can barely walk straight. So yeah as you can imagine it´s been kinda fun seeing all the people but rough because all of our investigators have been hard to find because they´ve been heading out to the beach. But ah well. On New Years Eve we had a couple of appointments in the afternoon near the beach and as we were walking we saw one member family from my old ward in Quevedo so we stopped and talked with them for a bit. One of the kool things they do here for new years is make paper mache figures of TV characters and things of the year. I think I told you about them the year before. Starting in about November families start to make them and then on new years eve at midnight they burn them. It´s a pretty popular tradition here which is pretty kool. Apparantly on the beach the people bring so many they pile them high and burn them all at once like a bonfire, lol.
On Sunday it was crazy because our chapel was filled with visitors and we don´t usually get more than 70 or 80 people. But it was fun to see. There was one couple from Nebraska who was there. He had served in this mission about five years ago so he came back to visit. The only sad part was everyone only came for Sacrament meeting so the second hour nearly no one stayed, lol. I didn´t have any adult investigators there for my gospel principles class but it was funny because Karen who was baptized in October was just called to be one of the Sunday School teachers and yesterday was her first class. She was a little nervous so I decided to sit in her class.
But anyways, well you guessed right this was the week of changes. In the zone we didn´t receive the changes until last night. It was crazy because we all though that Elder Xicay was going to leave because he´s been in Libertad for six months but to our surprise Elder Parkinson was called to be Zone leader so he left and Elder Xicay stayed, lol. And now I´ve finally gotten a new companion who was actually a District Leader here. His name is Elder Marroquín from Guatemala. He has barely a year in the mission and is already a zone leader so you can tell he´s a great missionary. It´s fun because he knows a bit of English so I think I´ll have to help him practice a little bit, lol.
Well I´m going to try and attack some photos of some of the paper mache figures they make here. But now I´d better get going. Thanks for everything! Oh I got a package from Ryan and from the Lundgreens today and some cards from Grandma and Grandpa Larson. You´ll have to tell them thanks from me. They were great to get.
Well I love you and hope you have another great week and that everyone gets better soon!
Love,
Elder David Frome