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

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

Good week in Salinas!

Hey Mom and Dad,

Wow sounds like a fun weekend with the youth roadshow and everything. I´m glad it all ended up good. And yeah I´d imagine it would be so stressful for the leaders trying to get everything ready for the opening night. I remember when we did a roadshow it didn´t seem like everyone took it seriously but finally when we performed it turned out great. The good thing is it makes for fond memories that´ll last a lifetime :). And that’s funny how they included lines for the ward missionaries, lol. That would´ve been hilarious to hear. And wow that sounds pretty interesting how they´ve completely changed the process of playoffs. So now every team enters to play??? Wow that would be crazy. I guess that´s nice to give every school a chance to get a taste of playoffs but wow, that´d be crazy with everyone traveling everywhere, lol. But ah well I guess we´ll see how far West goes.

Well as for your questions. Yeah funny thing I realized Elder Baquerizo tells everyone he´s from Guayaquil but he and his family have actually moved to Quito 8 years ago so he´s more from Quito. Though it´s funny because he has still ran into old friends when he was serving in one sector in Guayaquil. The funniest incident he told me was one Sunday here in Salinas a friend that he had dated came in to church with her new husband. Apparently they had just gotten married and went to Salinas for the honeymoon. Yeah, ouch, lol. But ah well as is life for those from Ecuador serving here. I´m sure glad that I´m serving in another continent where I´m not going to run into any of my friends, lol. And as for the name of the city I´m not actually sure, lol. Just because they don’t call Libertad or Salinas cities, they call them “Cantones” and I´m not sure what they would be in English, lol. I should probably look it up. But yeah I think the whole area of Salinas and Libertad is known as the Peninsula, which is in the province called Santa Elena. So yeah there is a separate mayor in Salinas and another mayor in Libertad so you could think of them as separate cities. But there isn´t any space between the two to separate them. So yeah, I think I´ll try and figure out more this week. The stake is called the Libertad stake and in the mission it´s the Libertad zone. So yeah I hope that makes it a little more clear, lol.

But anyways, we´ve had a great week. We´ve been getting to know more members so that´s been nice. Though we found out an incident that happened about 6 months ago that involved several families in the ward and caused many to go inactive that is kind of sad. It looks like since that happened the missionaries have had a tough time having baptisms. But other than that I feel like the Lord is blessing us a ton because we´ve been able to find several new investigators. A few have really been a miracle that we found them. Once we had a split with two members of the bishopric and we were going to meet up at the church. I got there first and so I was just waiting when out of nowhere two young men of about 18 and 16 years come up and ask us what we teach. We began talking and invited them to come into the church to talk more. They accepted and we began teaching. They looked very interested and when we invited them to pray and asked if they would be willing to be baptized if they receive and answer they said of course. It was pretty neat. Then another girl that we´ve been teaching has a baptismal date for this Thursday. We´re way excited about that. Her name is Karen and she was introduced to the church by a good friend. She´s is way excited to learn and for her baptism. Hopefully the baptism and everything goes well.

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

Love,
Elder David Frome

La Vida en Salinas!

Hey Mom and Dad,

I´m glad sounds like you´ve had another good week. But yeah it has been crazy walking around here in the peninsula again. I´ve forgotten how much I loved being here in the peninsula. I mean I´ve loved all of my sectors, especially Quevedo with the people there, but when I got here I remembered how different it is. It´s not quite as green or tropical with so many banana trees or plants like Quevedo, but the nice thing is everything is a little more spread out and just more tranquil. In Quevedo we lived more downtown where there was always noise of cars or music playing in the streets, starting from the morning when we got up until we went to bed there was always noise. Which really wasn´t that bad, I just got used to it until I didn´t even notice it anymore. But now I realize how noisy it really was because here where we live is in a nicer quiet neighborhood and in most parts of our sector it´s not as busy nor is there music playing so much. I remember Elder Sanchez telling me that the lack of music was a blessing of this zone because you can just think and reflect better. That and the sea food is pretty much amazing :) lol already twice this week we ate a famous soup called “encebollado” which is of fish with onion and tomatoes that is way good.

Also it´s been fun and almost surprising to see the members in this ward that I had already met. The first Monday when I left with Elder Baquerizo for our last appointment we passed by a family and they looked at me and a surprised look spread across their faces and they said, “Elder Frome!” which was funny because my first thought was they saw my name tag quick and were surprisingly well at pronouncing my name on the first try but still I asked “hey how´d you know my name??” then they told me I was there in their baptism and that´s when I remembered in my first change with Elder Sanchez we had a baptism together with Elder Eaton and Elder Martineau and I faintly remembered they were baptized, lol. They pulled out a photo of the four of us missionaries that we took before the baptism. It´s surprised me how many members that I knew. Several families also say that I look familiar for some reason and that´s when I tell them I was in this stake before. So yeah it´s been fun.

It´s been great teaching with Elder Baquerizo. He´s a great missionary with a great attitude. I think we´re going to have a lot of success in the next six weeks.
Alright well I´d better get going. Thanks for everything! Hope you have another great week!

Love,

Elder David Frome

Back to Libertad :)

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your email I´m glad it sounds like you´ve had a nice week. I´m glad your presentation went well. That is a good cause to try and get the politicians back on track. I remember I liked one of the points of a living prophet from general conference that said a prophet can get involved in civil affairs. Here it seems things have calmed down finally with all the politics. Thank goodness nothing happened to any missionary. That´s funny it sounds like you know just what it´s like Dad when you were in Argentina. The nice thing here is that most government officials recognize who we are and don´t bother us much so it´s a blessing. And wow that sounds like fun what they´re doing for youth conference and how they´re using the ward missionaries, lol. So wait are they making cardboard cutouts and will make dialogue for the characters of our faces? Lol well whatever they do I´m sure it´ll turn out good. Youth Conferences were always a blast.

Alright well now I´ve got some good/bad news. Last night we received the infamous phone call from the assistants with the transfers and as I suspected I was transferred. They told me I had to be in Guayaquil the following morning at 8:00 so again I had the pleasure of packing my bags all night then waking up at 3:00AM to travel to Guayaquil. But ah well it was fine :) and now I´ll bet you´ll never guess where I am. Not in Portoviejo, neither manta (though I was kinda hoping I´d get sent there, I always though that´d be an awesome zone). I´ve been sent to LIBERTAD!! You remember the peninsula? Where I arrived when I started the mission? Yep, I´ve been sent back to the same zone. I´m not in the same ward but I am in the same house. So yeah I´m quite sure I might get the chance to see some of my converts again! Yeah insane, right? It was crazy when we got to terminal I traveled with Elder Mata who also had changes and we arrived a little early so we watched as everyone arrived. When we saw Elder Beck arrive who was one of the zone leaders here in Libertad I thought “oh yeah that´s right, Elder Beck had 6 months there so it´s a good chance he´s leaving, maybe I´ll go there!” :P I asked him how he was doing and who his companion was. He told me he was with Elder Baquerizo and we chatted for a bit. A little later the assistants started telling the elders who there companions were and sending them off. Finally Elder Usseglio turned to me and said “Elder Frome, your companion will be Elder Baquerizo.” And in a second my heart jumped. But yeah I remember hearing how President does that every now and then, he sends missionaries back to where they started the mission to finish. I remember thinking that´d be awesome to come back to Libertad but I didn´t think it would actually happen. But yeah, here I am, in Libertad again, in the same shopping center where I went with Elder Sanchez every Monday over a year ago. Good times :). And yeah Elder Baquerizo is my companion. He is from Guayaquil and has just over a year in the mission. I remember meeting him in Duran and being impressed by his ability as a missionary. I´m pretty sure we´re going to have an awesome change together :)

But anyways, the last week I had with Elder Godinez was pretty sweet. I forgot to tell you but we had a baptism planned. It was for two little girls who are grandkids of a member. One was nine and the other eight. It was way awesome because they are both amazing kids so it was awesome teaching them. It was nice to end with a baptism. My camera was still packed in my luggage so I´ll have to send you the pictures next week.

Other than that we had interviews with the president on Friday so that was neat. This time they decided to have us have our district meeting at the same time so we wouldn´t lose time doing nothing. It was fun to see Elder Baum and Elder Usseglio again.

Alright well I´d better get going. Here is a picture we took with Elder Baquerizo´s camera in the house so you can see my companion. He seems like a great guy. And thanks for sending the package with rootbeer extract. And no worries one day I´m sure Elder Godinez will get to taste rootbeer :)
Well have another great week!

Love,

Elder David Frome

Protest, Politics and Prophets!

Dear Mom and Dad,

I´m glad it sounds like you´re having a good time in Arizona with Robbie and Kristen enjoying the heat. And wow over 100 degrees all week, that is pretty intense. Here we usually get around 30-32 degrees Celsius, which I think is the mid 80s, lol. But yeah we´re used to it by now. It was funny in the Conference someone mentioned the fall and changing colors of the leaves and we thought “whoa, leaves change colors in the fall?” lol then we fondly remembered the cool season of fall :P. an wow that’s neat you´re going to give a presentation on the Abigail Adams project. Who are you going to be presenting to? Members of the group or other people? Good luck! I´m sure it´ll go great. That´s sweet you bought a projector to do it. I´d imagine a projector will come in handy all the time with those presentations and just other activities. Nearly every zone conference we have the assistants use a projector as part of the presentations.

And yeah Conference was definitely amazing! It was nice our bishop set up a TV in the High Council room for us gringos to watch Conference in English, lol. So we got to enjoy conference in air conditioned comfort to ourselves :). The funny thing was there were almost the same amount of latin elders as Americans watching. We have three Americans in the zone so we were all in there, but also Elder Godinez wanted to try watching in English because he´s been studying English and has gotten fairly good. Also there are two other latin missionaries, one who is all but fluent in English and the other also knows a good amount who joined us watching in English. We had a good time watching in English. And yeah I loved how they spoke a lot of following the prophet, twice mentioning those 14 points of a living prophet. I liked how a lot was focused on the one, on the individual, one each and every member of the church and their responsibility in living this gospel. It also caught my attention who three times they mentioned that story of Christ in the Americas when the nephites prayed for what they desired most, the Holy Ghost and then it was given them. I think I´ll try to make a lesson plan out of that to teach the investigators the importance of the Holy Ghost. If the prophets and apostles like the story, so do I :)

But anyways, yeah funny thing we did have a sort of crazy political situation here this week. It´s kind of hilarious because starting Thursday morning Elder Usseglio and Elder Baum (the assistants) came by the house because they were apparently doing an interchange with the north zone the day before and then Thursday wanted to do a quick interchange with us before heading back to Guayaquil. But also they wanted to take out Censos (which is kind of like a Visa) for the new elders in the zone. They headed out to the police station of migration around 9:00 but got back pretty early. We asked them what happened and Elder Baum told me they went to the police station but for some reason all the police officers were gathered around outside with holding their guns over their heads shouting. Elder Baum walked up and asked someone if they could take out censos and they kind of yelled at him saying no it was closed and to go home. At this point Elder Baum told me he thought “oh looks like the police are all protesting, hmm, guess we can´t take out censos, ok lets go home.” Lol it was hilarious the way he told me how silly and naïve he felt just kind of walking into a hot political situation looking to take out censos, lol. But yeah when they got back the office called telling us the national police force went on strike against the president so all the missionaries have to stay inside without exceptions until further instructed. When they called Elder Usseglio, who is usually very serious and professional received the call and walked in and simply told us “well, it looks like Christ is arriving tomorrow,” lol after we laughed he told us what was going on. We found out later that in Quito the police actually kidnapped the President and kept him hostage in a hospital. The nation sent military forces to rescue him and in the struggle a gun fight broke out. A member told us it looked just like they were watching a movie, lol. Apparently the President has cut funds and a bond for the police force affecting a lot of the pay for the police officers so they decided to protest. The only real effects we saw here in Quevedo were all the stores that were closed Thursday. By Friday it looked pretty normal but we still had to stay inside both Thursday and Friday. I guess in Guayaquil and Quito and other big cities it was way worse. While the police were on strike entire city blocks of stores were robbed bare. It sounds like there have been a good number of assaults too. Yeah, good thing we stayed inside. By now everything is pretty well back to normal, but crazy, isn´t it? It was fun the first day we were stuck inside with the assistants because they couldn´t leave either so we just kind of studied but man after the first 4 hours or so we got bored. Friday morning the assistants left so it was even more boring. But ah well it was fun with Elder Godinez we studied some fun doctrinal stuff :)

So yeah the two days inside then the two days of General Conference pretty well took up the whole week. It was fun to break out of the routine. But now we´re definitely ready to get back to work :)

Ok and before I forget I got your package with the contacts! Thanks a lot! That should be good to hold me until the end of the mission because I still have 2 pairs left from the other box. And thanks too for the Plan of Salvation wood puzzle!!! Looks awesome! I´ll definitely have to put it to good use now!
I hope you have a great week! Love you!

Love,

Elder David Frome

PS- oh and here are some pictures we´ve taken at some family home evening nights we´ve done in the ward and the zone at general conference. Hope you like them!

¡Casa Abierta!

Hey Mom and Dad,

I´m glad sounds like you´ve had another great week. That´s sweet you got to talk to Kristen and Robbie. And wow that´s going to be crazy to see Luke when I get back. Is he talking up a storm? It was kind of fun in the zone this change we have a couple new gringos. One is Elder Van Wagoner (yeah, as you can imagine not one latino can pronounce his name so we call him Elder Van for short, lol :) who is actually from Wyoming, lol. This week he and his companion had a few baptisms and when we went to do the interviews we started talking and I asked him how things were back in the states (It´s pretty much standard to ask every new gringo elder how things are back in the states:) and he told me a little about how Obama is and how it sounds like his polls are down and how crazy the politics are, lol. The nice thing about the mission is definitely not having to worry about politics. We hear about them every now and then, but we don´t have to talk nor deal with them, so it´s nice.

But anyways, that´s sweet you saw Anna and Walker. Yeah we actually just found out that changes will now be one week later because all the new elders are coming from Peru instead of Colombia and so they arrive a week late. So I get one week more! It sounds like changes won´t be until the 10 of October which makes me happy because that means we have one more chance to baptize our investigators (because before I figured this would be our last week and we can´t have any baptisms because it´s general Conference.

Well as for this week we´ve been way busy. Firstly our zone had the goal of 13 baptisms (which is a way good number) but that also means 13 baptismal interviews. As zone leaders we interview all the baptisms of the district leaders so we´ve been running around interviewing a ton this week (of course no complaints here, better to be busy doing interviews than anything else!). But also we had the Open House for the newly remodeled stake center on Saturday and they asked us to put on a presentation about the Book of Mormon and the Family so we were also planning and getting everything ready for that. Most of the work was because we were making a little mini house with 8 pilars to represent a successful family. For each pilar we put on of the attributes mentioned in the Proclamation for the World. I´m not gonna lie I got a little stressed trying to get it done and coordinating with the elders from the north stake who were going to come and help too. But funny thing how you worry so much in the preparation then when it finally comes together you just feel like a huge burden just lifts, lol. At 3:00 Saturday afternoon the Open House started and we were still waiting for one of the members to bring a couple giant photographs one of the Book of Mormon and another of the Bible that shows both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. It was funny he got there about 3:45 when the groups started coming so we just had one elder hold up the photos and then we would scramble in between groups to tie fishing wire from the ceiling to hang the photos, lol. Elder Godinez drew a picture of the Book of Mormon on one of the rolling white boards and wrote a brief introduction. We put everything in the Room with the baptismal font so it turned out looking way good. The Stake president had the idea to fill the font and have it open to have a even better visual effect. It was crazy though we were still kind of getting everything together when the first group came in. There were a couple elders there but I figured as me and Elder Godinez were the zone leaders we´d have to put the example so even though it wasn´t all totally ready we quickly jumped into position and one elder held up the photo of the book of Mormon and I stepped in front and welcomed everyone in and started talking. The fun thing in the mission is how well you learn to just open your mouth even when you have no idea what to say and somehow words just come and you can make it up as you go. So yeah the presentation went way good and went well all night. There was a good number of investigators and new converts from every ward. It was neat because since I´ve been here in Quevedo for so long I´ve gotten to know a lot of members and especially the new converts whom I´ve interviewed for baptism. A lot of them came so I got to see them again. It was a nice experience. Everything went so well the Stake presidency is thinking about doing it once a year to always get the members excited about inviting their friends and relatives to see the church building.

Alright well I´m out of time so I´d better get going. Thanks for everything! Love you!

Love,

Elder David Frome

Fun Week :)

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your email! That´s awesome you got to see Aunt Janet and Adam before he leaves. Wow that is crazy to think how long we´ve all been out on missions and soon Adam will be out too! Man time sure flies. Seems like just yesterday we were all in grandma´s house for our last Christmas together before we all leave. And wow Amy wants to leave now? That´s awesome. That´s funny that Anna and Walker were asked to speak randomly in Stake Conference. That´d sure be nerve racking. But that´s kool sounds like everyone knows they´re engaged. And that´s neat to know the memory of our class may still help the youth. High school is such a crazy rollercoaster time of life and the examples of others can help so much. I guess that´s kind of the cycle of life. When we were younger we always looked up to the older generations and their valiant examples and that helped us push forward. It´s nice to know that maybe we left something to follow for the rest.

A new family moved into our ward a couple of weeks ago. It´s a young couple who were baptized about 6 years ago. Apparently the missionaries knocked on their door but they didn´t want to know anything about them so the husband lied and told them they were Jehova´s witnesses, lol. But soon enough something about how the missionaries shared the gospel caught their attention and they were baptized. Now they´re an amazing family that brought their neighbor to church so we´re teaching her. With just two weeks in the ward the husband was just called to be young men’s president and the wife teacher of the young single adults. It´s always fun to visit them because they always have hymns playing and want to give us dinner :). It´s a nice thing in the mission because you get to see so many different families and you can truly feel the difference of how the Spirit dwells in some homes so much more than others. You realize the things you should do to create that atmosphere.

Alright well, I´d better get going. Thanks for your letter. Oh I almost forgot we did move in to the new apartment and it´s amazing. Though it´s kind of fun because in front there is a Catholic school and it seems every morning before classes they have kind of an assembly right outside the building but still surrounded by the walls. This morning we saw a fun assembly honoring the Virgin Mary, lol. They carried in a mini statue of her with music playing. The kool part was they had fireworks going off at the same time :P.

Alright well I hope you have a great week! Love you!

Love,

Elder David Frome

Bautismo

Hey Mom and Dad,

I´m glad it sounds like you had a nice, safe trip to the east and everything went well. Sounds like classic Oregon weather with the rain and everything. But sounds like it´s turning to fall like weather little by little. That was always a thing I enjoyed in Oregon, having four seasons, lol. Here there aren´t really any seasons. When people ask us how the weather is at home they ask if it´s hot or cold it´s always fun to tell them how sometimes it´s hot but then sometimes it´s cold then they remember and say “oh yeah, where you live there are four seasons, right?” I imagine football season is up and going, right? How´s West looking this year?

Well this week was pretty crazy. It´s funny because we already had 3 kids who were going to be baptized this Saturday. 2 were the grandkids of a family that’s a little less active and the other is the cousin of a family of members who has moved here and is living here now named Jamileth. It was funny because I think it was Tuesday we went to teach Jamileth and her aunt and uncle and cousin when her aunt mentioned that her sister who lived just in front of them was also a member less active but has a son who´s 9 that has come to church and also is interested in baptism. We took advantage of the opportunity and invited him over. His name is Irwin so we talked to him and asked if he wanted to be baptized. He said yes and we asked if he wanted to be baptized with Jamileth or wanted to wait another week. He decided he´d rather be baptized with Jamileth so we thought, “eh, sounds good!” So each night this week we went to their house to teach him everything he needs to know to be baptized, lol. So it was fun to prepare an investigator for baptism all in one week. He was a smart kid so it wasn´t too hard. Though he was a little rambunctious but it was all right. Plus it was good for Jamileth to remember everything to help him learn as well.
Then Saturday was awesome. We had the baptism with the elders from Guayacan. They had one baptism so we had 5 in total for the service. It was way neat. After the ordinance we invited a guy to come who was a friend of the family of Jamileth who knew how to play the Guitar. So he played a solo and played “secret prayer” that sounded amazing which brought the spirit.

So yeah, all in all a great service. Afterwards with Elder Godinez we bought a couple of Magnum ice cream bars to celebrate :) lol

Alright well I´d better get going. Thanks for everything! Oh and by the way we just received a call from the office this morning telling us that we are now approved to move in to the new apartment. We´ve had to wait so long for the contract to be written, read, approved and signed before moving in but now finally we can! This afternoon we talked with a family who has a truck to help us. Finally we´ll be out of the house of cockroaches! :)

Love you!

Elder David Frome

Crazy Week :)

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your email! I´m glad it sounds like you´ve had a great time visiting Melissa and Sean. That´s sweet you were able to see where some of our great ancestors lived in the 1600s. Wow I didn´t even know we had ancestors here in the 1600s, lol. But that´s awesome. Did we have any ancestors take part in the revolutionary war? And I´m glad it sounds like Ryan is getting back into the swing of things easily.

Well this week has definitely gone by in a flash. With Elder Godinez we´ve been so busy planning everything. Firstly in our ward we´re trying to plan and coordinate better with the members. In Elder Godinez´s old ward they had a good system of calling a ton of members to be ward missionaries and getting them excited to visit the investigators and bring them to church. The bishop is a returned missionary and put a lot of emphasis in it and they´ve been having 10 to 15 investigators in church every week as a result with is awesome. We´re trying to establish the same system here. The bishop gave us permission to basically call as many members as we want to be ward missionaries and help. We just want them to visit once or twice a week and more than anything call the investigators to see how they´re doing. If all goes well we´ll be having a lot more fellowshipping and more investigators in church each week. It just requires a lot more planning. Also the Stake is having an Open house at the end of this month and we as missionary work will take part and we´ll give a presentation on mostly the family and the Book of Mormon. And it´s funny because this week we had a practice in the stake center and all the missionaries came and one of the counselors in the stake presidency told us that we will be at the end of the tour where all the visitors will end up and basically we´re there to answer all the questions that couldn´t be answered during the tour in the other presentations. Which is kind of funny. I guess that throughout the tour of the stake center if anyone asks a question that doesn´t pertain to the subject or anything they´ll simply be told “at the end there will be someone to answer your question.” So that ought to be fun. We´ll see what kind of questions we get.

But yeah with Elder Godinez we´re planning all that to make sure our presentation turns out good and we get it done on time. Then on top is the basic needs of the zone. We had “Consejo de líderes” on Friday this week in Guayaquil with all the zone leaders and the assistants with President which was awesome as normal. I´m not going to lie i´m starting to feel old in the mission. There were quite a few new zone leaders there. I think there was only 2 or 3 who had more time than me. Of course it was good to see Elder Barrientos because we have the same time. But yeah we analyzed the numbers of the mission and how each zone is doing and they asked each pair of zone leaders to give a presentation of their plan to improve and motivate the zone. It was pretty neat. So yeah we´re also trying to think of better ways to help the zone get better. As a zone we set a goal of how many investigators we want with baptismal dates and everyone agreed and sounded pretty excited. But sadly when we received the numbers this week few companionships completed the goal. But ah well we´ll keep working :)

Other than that again on Sunday it was great because this time we had TWO families in church! Alex and Elizabeth came again which was awesome but also we had another family Vinza which I think I´ve told you about. About halfway through sacrament meeting Germania came with the two kids. It was awesome. It was way neat because one sister who is in the primary presidency got up and said she felt inspired to simply testify about her calling so she gave her testimony about her calling in the primary
Well other than that we have a baptism planned for next week. We are teaching two grandkids of the Zamora family and another youth named Yamileth who is about 14. They´re all awesome and are excited to be baptized so hopefully it all goes well this Saturday.

Alright well I´d better get going. We took a picture with Alex and Elizabeth this week so I think I´ll attach it. They´re such an amazing family.
Well thanks for everything! Hope you have a safe trip back to Oregon and a good week! Love you!

Love,

Elder David Frome

PS- oh hey so I was wondering, if you happen to send a package this week maybe you could throw in a vile or two of extract of Rootbeer flavoring :P lol Elder Godinez said he´s only tried rootbeer once and thought it was great but has never had a rootbeer float. So yeah I thought it´d be neat to show him what he´s missing :P

Crazy Week

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your email! Wow sounds like a crazy week in Washington and then in Boston. That sounds like it was a crazy rally but great to help the nations politics. I´m pretty sure the politics in the US are the most important and most powerful influence around the world. At least down here everyone knows who Obama is and the influence that the US has on the world economy. If the US politics are going bad, that’s bad news for the world. So that´s neat. And lol that’s funny you accidentally walked into the Portuguese branch. But that´d be neat to go to a ward with Harvard students. Were they all, like, genius´s? Did you see what the Harvard campus was like? I´ve always wondered what it would be like to go to school there :P and that must´ve been fun for Ryan as well to get to see it all.

Oh and before I forget thanks for the package! I got it this week. It had a tie, skittles, jerky, gummy worms and a photo of Uncle Curtis´s new kids! Thanks! It was great (and I´m wearing the tie right now as I type this letter:). The beef jerky is especially a treat because it seems like outside of the united States no one has seen it. Elder Godinez said he´s only tried it once before and thought it was great. So yeah, my companion appreciates the package too, lol.

But anyways, so this week has been crazy. Or better said we´ve just been working like crazy. We have so many investigators who are so close to baptism it´s almost ridiculous.

Sunday was probably the craziest day. It´s awesome because we are now in the new, renovated Stake Center which is in the middle of our sector so it´s way close and looks amazing. It has water fountains and Air conditioning and even a baptismal font! It´s so awesome! I´m so glad I get another 6 weeks here just because I´ve been looking forward to this building for so long, lol. But yeah Sundays are always crazy just because you always come to church hoping so much that your investigators who said they´d come to church actually come. This Sunday I was way disappointed at first because we passed by the family of Margarita and her kids but she said she couldn´t because she had to go downtown to buy some things. Yeah, sad day. Then when we got to church we were waiting but none of the families we were teaching came. Yeah, I felt pretty well down in the dumps. But funny thing, near the end, when the closing hymn and last speaker was announced from behind me came Alex, asking to borrow a hymnal. I glanced back and saw his wife, Elisabeth sitting farther back with their 4-month baby! In a split second my heart jumped and with a smile I quickly pulled out a hymnal to give to him. One thing I forgot about the new chapel was that there are two entrances to the chapel. We were sitting right at the main entrance in the middle, but there was another entrance farther back that I forgot about. They are an amazing family that we´re teaching that want to be baptized but just need to get married, lol. It was sweet our ward mission leader taught the gospel principles class about the family and marriage in the temple, lol, and I think they took it well. Then before the third hour we were waiting in the hall for the last class which we were going to have together because of the fifth sunday of the month and several members came and said hi and introduced themselves so it was way good. We did have other investigators there who were kids of less active families which was sweet as well. But I don´t know there´s something special of having a family come who you work so hard for.

All right well I´d better get going. Looks like this computer actually works for viewing fotos so I think I´ll take advantage of the opportunity to send some photos. Here I´ve attached a photo of the 4 of us, Elder Aguirre, Elder Palmer, and Elder Elías in one of the zone conferences. Next is a small family Gamarra that are a less active but are awesome. Then there is the family Zamora whose granddaughter we are teaching because she´s 14 and wants to be baptized. Good times :)

Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder David Frome

!CAMBIOS!

Hey Mom and Dad,

That´s awesome Ryan´s home for at least a few days. That´s sounds like an awesome trip you´re planning to head to Washington DC to participate in a rally! lol kind of funny I never pictured our family going to any kind of rally just because I always thought they just seemed too crazy, but I suppose my perception of what is a rally is probably a little off. What exactly is a rally? So a bunch of people are gonna get together to stand outside of the Lincoln Memorial? That´s sweet I wish I could be there that´d be kool. So what message are you sending to the politicians? Is Glenn Beck going to speak? That´s cool I´m excited to see the pictures. That´s kool you get to be in contact with the candidates for the elections to work on that project.

And as for your questions. I´m glad it sounds like all is well at home…just sad to see summer go i´m sure, lol. Though here, I think I´m kind of ready to see summer go :P. and yeah that´s interesting about the time of daylight, here I´m pretty sure the time of sunrise and sunset is about the same all year round.

Last night was transfers which meant everyone got to the house early to wait anxiously for the phone call from one of the assistants. Last night I think it was around 9:45 when the phone rang. It was Elder Aguirre to tell me what changes we were going to have in the zone. In the zone only 3 left so that´s not bad. One who is finishing the mission plus another and Elder Palmer also left, which was kind of sad. He was definitely an elder with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and later the same night President called and asked to speak with Elder Palmer. As soon as President asked if Elder Palmer was there I realized why, he´s going to be zone leader! and sure enough President told Elder Palmer that he will be zone leader. Elder Palmer was pretty blown away, lol. I told him not to worry about it and he´ll do great. Elder Aguirre told me that my new companion is Elder Godinez, who was actually here in this same zone just in another sector, lol. He was probably the best District Leader we had (which explains why he´s now a zone leader:) and we also had confidence in his ability to help tough companionships. So I´m excited he´s a great guy and from Guatemala (I think?) lol. He has about 14 months or so in the mission and a great worker so I´m excited. And yeah I´m not gonna lie I´ve rather enjoyed being in a trio these last few weeks. I think it was so enjoyable just because Elder Palmer and Elder Elías are such great guys. We had fun but at the same time worked hard. Probably one of the best companionships I´ve had yet.

So yeah it´s crazy to think how fast this last change went by. Probably the craziest change of the mission, lol. 3 weeks with Elder Aguirre learning a ton then 3 in a trio working a ton. oh and by the way we are still in the same apartment but we recently found another apartment that looks very nice. We´ve already talked with the owner and when we had the conference Elder Aguirre was able to pass by and inspect it so we´re all good. We´re just waiting for the owner to make the house contract to send to Guayaquil then we´ll move! I´d guess that next Monday we´ll probably be moving if all goes well :). The new apartment has a good sized living room with three rooms, each with a shower and an extra bathroom from the living room. Yeah, pretty good if you ask me. I´ll send you pictures when we move in.

But anyways, this last week was good. We had the conference again on Wednesday and was awesome as usual. We talked about the importance of going to church, of focusing on the investigators and not the lessons, and about how to begin teaching. It was good and I´m sure will help a ton in the teaching. I already feel like it´s helped a lot. This week we´ve invited so many people to be baptized it´s amazing. One family we´re particularly excited about is the Vinza family. The father is Fernando and the mother Germania. I may have told you about them before but we found them just knocking doors and they´ve been way excited since day one. Yeah, they´re awesome.

Elder Elías is getting a new companion named Elder Salas which means no more english at home for the next six weeks, lol, but ah well I could use a boost to help my spanish :).Though Elder Godinez knows a bit of english so we´ll be practicing with him I´m sure.

Well thanks for everything! oh and thanks for that comment from Sister Martineau. That´s awesome all those elders got together. That´s crazy to think of all of them home. I´m glad it sounds like they´re doing great.

Have another great week and enjoy Washington DC!

Love,

Elder David Frome

Earthquake

Hey Mom and Dad,

Thanks for your emails. Wow that´s crazy you got the news of the earthquake all the way up there. Yeah it was kinda funny we did feel it about 7 in the morning. Though it´s kinda funny because I almost didn´t notice it. I was about to take a shower and felt a little shaking but didn´t take too much notice because there is a gym above us where people dance to work out so often we feel the building kind of shake so I figured it was just the gymnasium. But then Elder Palmer comes running shouting "Elder Frome! Elder Frome! didya feel it?!" he was quite excited, apparently it was his first earthquake, lol) and then realized it was an earthquake and not the gym and said "oh, yeah!" lol. about half an hour later Hermana Gamboa called and asked us if we felt the earthquake and if we were ok. She was calling all the missionaries to check because she said in Guayaquil they felt it and it sounds like it was even more intense. So yeah it was fun :). I´m glad sounds like another good week at home with some good classic summer weather. Those days were perfect for going to the lake and jumping into the water. That´s funny Haylie’s game with PT cruisers,
But anyways, well I´ve definitely enjoyed this last week thouroghly with Elder Palmer and Elder Elías. We are still in a trio and I´m pretty sure I won´t get another companion until at least later on this week. But it´s alright we´ve been working hard but enjoying it at the same time. We´ve got a good rythmn down now when we´re teaching so it´s going great. We´ve been trying to put in practice what we learned in the last Zone Conference.
Sunday was awesome because that family that I told you about with the amazing kids came to church with us! it was sweet because we passed by and their was a car because Melanie, the neice, was packing to go back to Quito (she was just visiting for her vacation). We came up and greeted them. I was a little disappointed because they weren´t dressed for church or anything but when Melanie left with her family I asked Margarita if she was going to come and she paused for a second, then said "yeah, let´s go. just let me go change." I thought it was a good sign that she really is interested. So she came with Kelvin and her other daughter Erica. They have a baptismal date for the 5th of September. We´re excited for next week because our stake center (where we usually attend) will finally open. It´s been being remodeled since January and its the building where usually both my ward and Bolívar attend. I remember when i got to Bolivar at the end of January hearing about it and wishing we could attend there. We´ve been attending a little ways away in another building. the ward has been kind of hurting because few people have cars and can´t afford to travel (though it´s really only like 15 minutes) so the attendance has gone down. Next sunday is stake conference in the new building then after we´ll have the building as normal. I´m way excited :). Also this week on wednesday we´re going to have another Zone conference to cover the remaining 4 topics so it should be sweet. Last time we talked about 4 of the 8 topics of how we can improve teaching so it should be sweet.

Alright well I´d better get going, thanks for everything! oh and sorry I didn´t send the pictures last week, for some reason the computer wasn´t reading them very well. this computer isn´t much better so I´ll see if I can send them now but I´m not sure. The trouble with public computers is they´re typically not all that great, lol.

Love you!

Elder David Frome

Crazy Week

Hey Mom and Dad,
oh sorry you didn´t get my email last week!! I wrote one as normal even attached photos of the baptism so I thought you would get it like usual, but today when I signed in i saw in my inbox a message that said my email is returned because it was too large! I had attached 6 photos last week so apparently it was too big to send, sorry! I didn´t even think about that, I could have sworn that I had attached several photos in my emails before. Maybe not 6 but at least 4 or 5. so yeah I´ll re-send the email I typed last week and I´ll attach just a few photos and send the rest little by little in different emails so they´ll go through. so yeah I suppose you might want to read that one first before this email because I talked about everything that happened over a week ago.
But anyways, wow sounds like a crazy thursday. That stinks that the boat ended up having a crack in the motor. who knows how many times we´ve had trouble with it, lol. and ouch that stinks that you cut your finger while trimming the bushes. Can you still work fine with stiches? and that´s neat sounds like the Abigail Adams project is going good. I´m sure that´ll help a ton for the elections.
I have some good news and some bad news this week. The bad news is that Elder Aguirre isn´t here in Quevedo anymore, but the good news is that I still am :). President called and told him he has a change so after the conference on Tuesday Elder Aguirre brought his suitcase and all his things and left with the President. We thought I was going to get a companion who would be the next zone leader but I guess he changed his mind so I am now working with Elder Palmer and Elías in Bolívar ward, which is way cool, lol. It´s kinda tough working in a trio covering two wards but we´re working good. I´m excited to be able to work in the Bolívar ward again and see everyone. It´s been way fun because Elder Palmer and Elder Elías are hilarious. Elder Palmer is very outspoken so he´s fun. Then Elder Elías, who appears to be more serious is actually even funnier. He doesn´t talk a whole lot, but when he does say something, it´s almost always something funny. I don´t know how many times this week I´ve laughed so hard I could barely control it, lol. it´s usually just little things too that you have to be there to get it, lol. Like for example for lunch we ate with the bishop and when we were talking and Elder Palmer who likes learning doctrine asked if we knew the true meaning of the number 3 and why it´s so important in the scriptures. the family starting thinking of the times three is mentioned like the Godhead, law of three witnesses and other things and we then we were almost stumped with Elder Elías started saying that also church starts at thee o´clock. . . there are three hours in church. . . avocado, tomato and onion make three. . . and the way he said it was just hilarious, lol. so yeah, it´s been a fun week.
Well other than that we´re doing great. We found an amazing family this week with some kids that remind me a lot of Shelvin and Daylin who are just so attentive and understand so much. Like this week we taught them the first part of the plan of Salvation and the son, Kelvin who´s about 12, later said he had a question and asked why it was necessary to come to the earth and leave the presence of God if we all lived there as a loving family. Then he asked why death was necesary and why couldn´t we just keep living. His cousin, Melanie who´s 10, then asked us where we go when we die. Yeah, if only all our investigators would ask us questions like that, lol.All right well I´d better get going. I hope you get these emails alright. I´m going to attach the photos and send them separately. love you!
Love,Elder David Frome