#20 Happy Thanksgiving everyone

wow, i dont have much time, and not a whole lot to say. this week has been kind of a blur, and its hard to remember all that happened. but this week was good. we are still teaching Raquel, and she i doing awesome! we teach her almost everyday and she is always so fun to teach. and its fun to see all the christmas stuff she is selling! we also are starting to teach a new investigator named Mari, who has 2 sons. she is super awesome! most of her family are members actually, so she has some basic knowledge, but shes super interested and is keeping all our commitments which is aesome and so im excited to keep working with her! we have quite a few less active members we are working with, and were able to get to church this week! one in particular is Jimmy, who is doing really well, and is always so excited about attending church! and we've talked with his neighbor, whos not a member, and are teaching her and he wants to help us with her, which is awesome! not a better way to help build your testimony then to share it and teach others!

also, happy thanksgiving everybody!!!! its going to be interesting haveing my first thanksgiving here in ecuador, so we'll see how that goes! well i love you all! thanks for all the emails and support! the church is true!

Love,

Elder Taylor

#19 Will I Stay Or Will I Go?

so, this week was transfers. so i was really curious to see if i would be staying here in Alegria and finish training Elder Ureta, or if i would be leaving, or what. so the way it works is sunday night the Zone Leaders get a call from the AP's who gets transfered, and then the ZL's tell us. so last night, the phone rings. and me and elder Ureta both look at it. this is the moment. But it was just a txt, saying that only one missionary got transfered, and it was neitehr of us. so we are safe! atleast for another 6 weeks.

this week was solid. we have been teaching Raquel and Alison everyday. they are so awesome, and so fun to teach, i look forward to their lesson everyday. they are both progressing well, and even reading the Book of Mormon, and agreeing with all of the commitments and its great! so this week we had them commited to coming to church, and had a plan and everything laid out and ready... and then sunday morning we get a txt from Raquel saying she isnt at home and wont be able to attend. i wanted to cry. i was so sad. but we ended up passing by later that day and talked with her. apperently she was at the hospital watching someone, and didnt get back till 12:00 in the afternoon then went straight to sleep. i was still sad she couldnt attend, but im glad it was a legit reason, but we will really have to work to get her and alison to church this sunday!

Hna Silvia was able to attend again though! her and her son. her husband couldnt because he had to work, but i was so glad that she still came with her son. we are working a lot with them too, and working towards getting them married, which sometimes can be quite the hassle here in Ecuador. but we're working on it, and they do want to get married, which is halfe the battle!

Sunday also we had a Stake Counsel meeting thing with the Area 70 about ward council. it was way good and i learned a ton. one of the things i really liked that they talked about is how the church is run on counsels. there are ward counsils and stake counsils and all sorts of counsils. and how we really cant do this alone, that we have to really on the support of others, and most of all the support of the Lord. and when we counsel we can recieve revelation and know what we need to do! well thats all i got for this week. i hope all is well and you guys in northern utah arent freezing too much! but enjoy the snow!

love,

Elder Taylor

#18 Soccer Tournament "I played well"

First, I'll talk about last p day because I forgot last time. Monday morning we had a huge soccer tournament with a bunch of members. It was so fun!! We made a missionary team, and played against the other people. We did work. Us missionarys won 5 in a row. Dont mess. And then at the end when we were all leaving one of the other players came up to me and told me I played well. This is coming from a full blooded latino to a ''gringo'. So ya I guess I felt kind of cool.. haha

This week I went on another interchangem this time in Fortin. Fortin is also a huge sector. and its kind of cool becasue its right next to Monte Sinai, so it has both city but then also pueblo. So it's fun to work in both all in the same sector. We had a pretty solid day and only got lost once!  But this time it was during the day, which made it a little easier.

Sunday we were able to bring Silvia and Xavier to church! They really enjoyed it, and even their 4 year old son said he loved it and wants to go back. So the trick is make the kids want to come, and the parents will follow, right? But it was so awesome having them at church this week.  Then later on sunday, I got a call from the ofice, and the told us they had a refferal for us, that we needed to go contact immediately. so we left in search of this house, and found it luckily where members where waiting for us and we taught their brother. It was a super good lesson! Those lessons are always fun where you really have no idea who you are teaching until the moment you walk in the door. but the lesson went really well and hes really interested and wants to keep learning more which is awesome!

Well this week has been super good and has gone by super fast! I cant believe this is the last week of this transfer! crazy! Time flies. Well I love you all and thankyou for all your emails and support!

Love,

Elder Taylor

#17 Getting lost

Alright so first i guess ill talk about halloween. so they dont really celebrate it here. but they do know about it. and there were a few random kids dressed up. but its not the same. but so halloween i was actually not in my sector, i was in Monte Sinai on interchanges. and this sector is so different then mine. its about 30 minutes away by bus, and its all dirt and bamboo houses and its awesome. its a super fun sector. and its huge!!! 

So i was companions with another gringo that has the same time here in Ecuador as me, but one less transfer in his mission. so two basically new gringo walking through the dusty roads of Ecuador. we did work. well, that is until it got dark... and then we got lost. so we were looking for the house and my comp couldnt remember where it was, so we were walking around for a while, in the dark, because they arent very many street lights. so we´re walking and then he says Hey i think we need to be on that other side of the river.. soo we start walking along this river bank infested with frogs and tall grass, looking for a place to cross. and finally we find this little ´´bridge´´ of small tree branches laid accross the water. we both stopped and looked at eachother. my comp asked ´´you down?´´ and i looked back at the bridge ´´...vamos!´´ so luckily i had a little flashlight with me, so we precariously make our way across this super sketchy bridge. and we both made it without falling in, so id say it was a success! and after that we talked with a member and got really good ecuatorian chocolate so it was a prettyu solid day!

we are teaching some really awesome people. we are still teaching Raquel and now her niece too and they are super interested. mariana is still super interested, and just wants her son Fabrizio to accept the gospel too and then they both will be baptized. we found a part member family we are working with and they are progressing really well! i love the people here in alegria. they are so nice. well im literally out of time. i hope you all had a good halloween! love you all

Elder Taylor