Buenos Dias de Quevedo!

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your email. It´s definitely crazy being back in Quevedo but it´s sweet. Quevedo was one of my favorite areas just because of how green it is. I don´t know if I´ve ever mentioned how Ecuador is divided into three climate zones: Coastal, tropical, and mountain (er, I think that´s how you say it, lol). Basically all of this mission is classified in the coastal zone but I think here in Quevedo is a little closer to the tropical zone. And yeah it´s fun to run into the people I saw before. Apparently I lost weight in Duran because everyone says I look thinner, lol. That´s funny the Bishop joked I´m back to find my shoes. Yeah when I see anyone walking down the street in a nice pair of Rockports we´ll have to go contact him :P.

But anyways, oh and before I forget it was funny in Duran Elder Cruz found some ointment he forgot about in his baggage. It was an interesting type that I’d never heard of but it seemed to help what he had on his arms. I tried it but it didn´t seem to do much but at least I think Elder Cruz was doing better with what he had on his arms so I wouldn´t worry about sending more to him. If I see him in Zone Conference or anything I´ll ask him how it´s doing.

Well I´m afraid I don´t have too much news from this week. We´ve been working hard trying to get a program started here in the ward. It´s a lot tougher planning when you only have one or two investigators to plan for, lol. A good program usually has around 10-15 people or families to plan for and focus on. So we´ve been knocking a lot of doors and working a lot with the members to try and find investigators. One good thing about this work is the quality of the leaders. Our bishop is fresh (with only a few months as bishop, I remember when I was in Bolívar hearing about him getting called) but he has a lot of enthusiasm for the work and his wife helps us a lot. The Ward mission leader is also from off his mission but it´s neat you can see by the way he works that he was a good missionary. The Relief society president and a lot of others have helped us a ton as well. In this Ward there are many who have lived and have a lot of time in the church (like over 20 years, which isn´t very common to see here) and it´s great to have the experience as a help. We´ll have to take advantage of it here.

And yeah it´s great to work with Elder Barrientos. And yeah that was hilarious what he said when he stepped in something soft. It was funny he kept walking with his eyes closed and calmly asking if it was crap but I was laughing so hard I couldn´t answer until finally we stopped and he looked and yep, it was crap, lol. But yeah it seems time is going way fast now. It´s kool being with Elder Barrientos because we both have the same time on the mission and we both agree it´s crazy how the time is passing and we don´t like to think about how little time we have left.
Oh so we found “Correros de Ecuador” (Mail of Ecuador) the other day that was just a few blocks from the house so I´m gonna try to send a few memory cards today. In Duran I was able to have a photo store put all the photos on a disk so I have a copy of all of them in case the cards get lost. I think I´ll just send one or two at a time to be safer. They said it´s only 1-2 weeks to arrive so you´ll have to let me know when you get them. I took $20 out to send them and to find some shoes to exercise. Since I´ll really only use them to exercise every now and then or do service every now and then I´m just gonna buy some cheap shoes I can find. All the addidas or nike or any nice brand of running shoes are more expensive here than in the states.

Well other than that all is well here in Quevedo. I remember my mission prep teacher in BYU saying that in his opinion being Zone Leader is the best position in the mission because you´re the voice of the president to the missionaries but at the same time the voice of the missionaries to the president. It´s just also a bit more stressful at times, lol. But it´s neat because as zone leader we´re often calling the Assistants or the assistants call us so it´s been fun talking with Elder Sanchez every now and then. He opened a sector too so he knows what it´s like.

Alright well I´d better get going. Thanks for your email and hope you have another great week!

Love,
Elder David Frome