Power Week

Hey Mom and Dad,

That´s great it sounds like everything is going good at home! I hope you had a great Easter! And yeah I do believe the day is called Pascua (which is interesting learning because it always makes me think of the old testament holiday when they offer the Pascual lamb for Passover or something like that, is there any connection there? lol). Though usually in the Easter season here with so many Catholics they just refer to the entire week as “la semana santa” (holy week). And yeah it´s been fun learning some of the traditions. The first I think is that they don´t eat meat, lol. Once for lunch a family gave us a tuna salad with rice and had made fish soup because they weren´t eating beef or chicken for the week (it was sad because we had to turn down the fish soup because we can only eat it on the beach). And yeah I think for Good Friday the people took the day off to celebrate here as well, only thing a member told us it´s not so great because most people just use the day to drink. It´s been interesting we´ve been getting a lot of questions from people who have always lived with those traditions as to why the Church doesn´t celebrate any of it. Why is it only Easter that we celebrate. So it´s been fun, lol.

But anyways, so this week has definitely been a spiritual high. Firstly, Thursday morning we had Zone Conference and of course those are always great, lol. It was neat this time because Elder Sanchez was one of the assistants so he gave one of the presentations. It was especially neat to hear his topic of his presentation and basically the theme of the whole zone conference. He talked on personal purification. And it´s funny because when I was in Babahoyo I lived with Elder Larson who had brought from home a bunch of old papers and talks that are good for missionaries and he made several copies for me. One of the papers was on Personal Purification that really hit me deeply. When Elder Sanchez started talking it was the first thing I thought of. Then later President Gamboa read the exact paper (which they translated to Spanish). The paper talks of a missionary who had a profound experience teaching with a member. They taught an investigator the first lesson, testified, then gave the time to the member. When the member said in one sentence his testimony of Joseph Smith the Spirit filled the room immensely and the investigator began to cry. This elder was puzzled and later found out that if he wanted the Spirit in the same way he had to purify himself. Elder Sanchez made a comparison that 40 is a number used in the scriptures often as a time period of purification or preparation and that each change is 42 days, thus each change should be a time for us to purify something. President gave the example of a good elder he knew who, with his companion did a English fast for one change (hmm, who could he have been referring to? Lol). So it was neat.

Then of course General Conference was AMAZING!!! Its crazy being a missionary General Conference has taken a whole new meaning for me. It was way awesome because this time I got to see it in English! Lol yeah another companionship in my district has one latino and one American who is a little newer so we did a split with them so we could see it in English while they stayed and watched it in Spanish. The zone leaders are also Americans so it was the four of us who went to another room in the stake center and watched it in English. We watched every session in English except for Sunday morning because there were so many people they had to use the extra room when the main room was filled. But yeah, it was definitely a spiritual booster. Starting with session one with President Packer and his powerful talk on the Priesthood and fatherhood. Everything was so good. And yeah I was surprised they spoke so much to the parents and especially to mothers raising their kids. I think the family is being so brutally attacked in society these days the talks were well spoken. But man, maybe it´s because I haven´t listened to it in English for a while but I don´t remember it being so direct. But it was definitely good. I liked what Elder Andersen spoke at the end that the Lord takes each individual talk with it´s themes and principles and after the course of four sessions creates a spiritual symphony. It was sweet too because we had a good number of investigators come. I hope they all were able to feel the spirit.

But anyways, and so I did receive your two easter packages this week, thanks! I think today or tomorrow night we´ll be decorating some easter eggs :). Oh and funny thing, both me and Elder cruz have gotten a small (er, not so small in the case of Elder Cruz, lol) rash on our arms and we showed Sister Gamboa and she told us we should get hydrocortisone ointment, lol. I was surprised she knew it. Though we´ve been asking in pharmacies but no one seems to have it. So yeah thanks for sending that. Oh and some more ideas for sending: jerky is one thing I haven´t seen yet down here and so would always be good :P that and maybe sour candies (gummie worms, etc.) is another thing I don´t see much, lol. But idk anything you like is always good :).
Other than that all is well, it´s crazy to think i´ve been in Ecuador for nearly a year! We´re planning on ordering pizza tomorrow to celebrate (dominoes down here has a two for one Tuesdays deal:) so that should be fun. I heard after about a year living in a culture is the point when one has basically been adopted into the culture so I do almost consider myself ecuadoriano :P. I joke with Elder Cruz that I now have Ecuadorian blood. As for the weather I think we´re pulling out of the monsoon season. We´re back to the normal beating sun day in and day out, lol. But ah well it´s good.

Oh and before I forget Thursday we asked permission to go to the Mall Del Sol today to look for some shoes so hopefully we´ll find some. I have my debit card with me so I should be able to buy with that. Hopefully they´re not too ridiculously expensive :P

Alright and hey before I go I was wondering if you had heard about another story that is used often as a spiritual thought about the BYU Jerusalem center. How in the negotiations to start it there the Jerusalem ambassador said that we couldn´t proselyte at all. And when he was told we wouldn´t he responded “ok, but what are you going to do about the light in their eyes?” or something like that, lol. That and the train watchmen were a couple of spiritual thoughts I thought it´d be neat to have. So if you could find it in your free time that´d be kool :). And also it´s interesting since that movie 2012 has come out we´ve gotten a lot of questions about the end of the world. I was wondering what you would say when people ask what we believe about that or how it will be.

Alright well I´d better get going, thanks for everything! Next week we should have had a baptism for 2. I´m afraid to say for sure because every time I do something goes wrong, lol. Then we still do have Manuel for the next Saturday after. Should be a good two weeks :)

Love,
Elder David