Week 22

Hey! How is everyone doing? Did you guys have a good Christmas?

I am doing good! It was another good week here in Piñas. We taught and invited a lot of people! Every single day we focused on inviting 8 or more people to be baptized. Not very many said yes, but we found a couple of people that we can teach. One is a pretty good family that hopefully will decide to be baptized. We continue to work hard if we could only get a little help from the members we could have some baptisms! 

Christmas was good. We talked to our families without any problems and then had to be inside by 7 so the day went by fast. We will have to be in early on New Years eve as well so we will probably have another week go by pretty fast. There is not a lot of things to write about for this week.  

Yesterday we got a call in the night and Elder Margos got transferred, so this morning we went to Guayaquil to go drop him off and pick up my new companion. We had like a 10 hour bus ride so it has been quite a long day. My companion is now Elder Polloc he is from Washington. We now have a house of 4 gringos. I don't know if that has ever happened before so it should be pretty fun! Well I hope everyone has a great New Years! 

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 21 Merry Christmas!

Hey! 

It has been a very very good week here in Ecuador! Not really very successful but definitely one of the best weeks here on the mission. 

The reason it was so good this week is because President Torres gave us a pretty great Christmas present. On Tuesday Morning we got a phone call that we needed to pack up an extra pair of clothes and get to Guayaquil because we were going through the Temple on Wednesday. So we got our stuff all packed hopped on a 6 hour bus and made our way to Guayaquil. Not only was the temple super super cool but I saw a lot of the people from my district and it was nice to catch up with them. We had like 4 zones that went through so there was quite a bit of us. The temple has like its own hotel right outside of it so we slept there on Tuesday night.  In the morning we went through the temple than hopped back on the bus to get back to Piñas. It was quite a journey, but a lot of fun. Wednesday night was also the Barcelona Emmelec game. It ended in a tie, but it was 1 to 0 for Emmelec in the last few minutes I guess that Barcelona scored, and the city erupted in cheers. It was at like 945 so we were getting ready for bed, and it was pretty crazy to hear the screams. On Sunday they played again for the Championship. Emmelec ended up winning. We were in our Consejo de Rama while the game was going on but you could tell when it ended because for the next 60 minutes we heard nothing but car horns. It was pretty crazy. 

The rest of the week was kind of a tough one though. We invited 8 people to be baptized everyday and a lot of them said yes. But on Sunday the day where you find out if they are serious or not, they did not show up. The family we are teaching went on a trip and so they could not show up either. It was kind of a bummer, but at the same time we ended the week feeling pretty good. This week we did everything possible to get people and investigators to church, but they always have their agency to choose whether or not they will go. 

Sunday was a good day in church though. The 4 missionaries  here had the talks, so we all gave talks on Christ. There is not very many members here so the missionaries I guess usually have a talk once a month. It went pretty well and I hope that most of them got my message. 

Well That is about all for this week. It has been a week of hard work. We are doing all we can and thats all we can do. Looking forward to a great Christmas week and I hope that everyone has the best Christmas yet!

Love, Elder Sorensen

  Temple Trip - Back with some Elders from the MTC.  They look so Happy!

Sunrise in Ecuador

Week 20

Hey! How is everybody doing? It has been another great week here in Piñas! We have been working hard and found a couple more people to teach! Hopefully we can bring them all to church this Sunday!

 

Last Tuesday we found a family to start teaching.  They  have 2 kids. Their daughter is 12 years old and she is very smart. She has read the entire Bible. I don't think there are many 12 year olds that have done that! They also have a 5 year old boy that loves to play soccer. We taught them a little on Tuesday, but then had a lesson with them on Friday. It was a really good lesson. It was really the first time that I have a had a lesson where a whole family has just sat down and listened. It was really cool to finally be teaching a complete family. They were not able to go to church this Sunday, but we are hoping that they will be able to make it this next Sunday. We have plans to go teach them tomorrow with the Branch President, so it should be a very good lesson. 

We also have been teaching like a 23 year old guy named Avanto . He is one of the members best friends. He was not able to make it to church this week because he went to the Barcelona game in Quito, but hopefully we can get him this next week. He is reading the Book of Mormon and has a lot of questions, so that is always good! 

 

The is also a pretty cool thing going on in Ecuador this Wednesday. If you guys all want to be doing the same thing as every Ecuadorian will be doing this Wednesday night you can watch the Barcelona and Emmelec  Soccer game. It is the championship of the Ecuadorian League and not very often the 2 teams meet up for the Championship. When they play in the regular season it is pretty crazy so it will be super crazy when they are playing in the finals! They play this Wednesday and Saturday. Whenever one of the teams scores the entire city erupts with roars. It is pretty cool to see how passionate they are for these 2 teams!

 

Not really much going on other than these things. We had a lot of lessons with Antonio too. I had a good conversation with him for about 45 minutes just him and I. It was pretty cool to be able to talk with somebody in a different language, and actually understand it for the most part. I can't wait to see how my Spanish will be in another couple of months!

Well that is all for this week everyone have a good week! Christmas is close!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Khristian sent  these pictures but didn't say what kind of fruit it was.  So of course I googled it-  I think it is called a Granadilla.  It was from one of the member's tree. 

 

Week 19

Hey guys!

I hope that everyone has had a great week! I sure have! We capped it all off with a great baptism for Antonio and a branch activity!

Through the first part of the week we worked very hard to find new investigators.  It is  hard to find people here in Piñas. We walk from one members house to the next trying to find new investigators, but with no luck. This week the members kind of took the week off, so we did not have much success,  but we did find a couple of new people to teach. Hopefully they will agree to a baptismal date soon. They all said that they want to hear more before they will agree to a date. We worked our tails off from Monday to Friday. I have never walked up and down so many hills. My calves will be pretty strong after I am done here!

On Saturday we had the baptism for Antonio. It was a pretty crazy day because one hour before the baptism it started to pour rain. We were all the way down at one end of our zone and had to keep walking just to make it back to the church for Antonio's baptism at 7. We kept walking and walking in the rain and it kept raining and raining. By the time we got to the church we were soaking wet. You would have thought that we had already baptized somebody! The baptism went great! Everything went good. I got all of the words right and then he was confirmed yesterday. He shared his testimony after he was baptized and it was really cool to hear how much he has grown since the first lesson he had with us. Elder Margos and I learned how hard work and diligence pays off. Our first visit with him he tried to give us back his Book of Mormon because he said he did not want the book and he wanted to be Jehovah's Witness. But we told him just to read the Book Of Mormon and ask which he should join. Our next visit with him 3 days later he was super happy and he agreed to his baptismal date. It was really a good lesson to learn and to see how hard work can pay off.

There is not really much more to talk about. The Ward activity was really good we just played a whole bunch of games. The members were supposed to bring their friends but they kind of slacked off on that so it was only the members but they had a pretty good time. The missionaries were the judges for the different games. It was pretty fun! Well I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

4 Months!

Hey Everyone! 

How is everyone doing? I am doing great here in Piñas. It has been another great week and a fast one as well. We taught a lot of people, walked up and down a lot of stairs, and ate some good food. 

 

First off, our investigators are all doing pretty good. Antonio  will be having his baptism this Saturday and we are all super excited for it, and he is as well! It is very nice to see how happy he is for it. At church yesterday he went to all three hours and after church some of the members were going to a fireside in Machala, he was asking everyone if he could go with them because he wanted to listen to more talks. Saturday will be a really cool baptism. Our other baptism for Saturday fell through a bit, but hopefully we can get him baptized another day. We are teaching some other investigators but they don't have any dates down for baptisms yet. 

 

Last night we had a family home evening with Antonio, since none of his family lives near him. We just talked to him shared some messages, and went through the baptismal interview questions, so he would know what to expect tomorrow. He made us these things that are smashed up verdes (like a green banana) with some Mani (kind of like peanut butter but not as good) You mix them up then put them into big huge balls that are the size of softballs. I could not eat all of mine because it was sooo big! We had some kind of chocolate drink that tasted pretty weird. I drank it really fast just to get it down, but than he saw that I had no more so he made me more. The people here are so kind to make sure that we have food always! 

 

The weather here was pretty rainy, but really the rain is like walking through misters so it feels really nice. They all think it is freezing cold when it rains, but I think it is perfect. I wish it would feel that way all the time .We also had some good food this week. For Thanksgiving we bought a Pizza, so that was our Thanksgiving meal!  I think we had Pizza like 3 times this week. It is 2.50 for all of us so it is the same price as the restaurants and a lot better. It is our one break from rice. For every other meal we have rice. Luckily it is not too bad. 

 

That is about it for this week. It has been very nice to see how the Lord has prepared Antonio for us and how accepting he is to our message. We have really been blessed to be able to teach such a great guy. I hope every one has a great week and I will have some pictures of his baptism next week! 

Love,

Elder Sorensen

 

Giant Snail

Week 17

Hey everyone!

How is everyone doing? It has been a pretty good week for me. I hope it has been equally good for all of you guys!  We have got a lot done and continue to keep working. It has been a pretty quick week. When we are really busy, time seems to go by faster and faster.

Our investigator Antonio continues to progress. He has now gone church  2 times so if he go this next Sunday everything should be good for his baptism that will be on the 6th of December.  He is a very cool guy. He is 70 years old, but he is a hard worker and you could never tell that he is that old. He looks forward to every lesson that we have with him, and it is nice to see how happy he always is. He is really the perfect investigator to have. He will read the scriptures we leave him 2 or 3 times and really study them and has a great testimony as well.

 

We also have another investigator that could also be baptized on the 6th.  He has gone to church a lot of times, and Elder Margos and I thought he was already a member. We asked him and he said no he had never been baptized, but he has been attending church for the last couple of months.  Tonight we are going to talk to him to see if everything is good for his baptism on the 6th!  Those are the two we have been teaching that came to church this week.  We have a couple other investigators than we are teaching but they did not go to church this week. Hopefully next week we can get them to go. We are going to try to get a member to take us to all his friends this week. His name is Pancho and he is super famous around here in Piñas. Everyone seems to know who he is. When we are with him,  he stops to talk to everyone. So hopefully he can be our  key to success here in Piñas.  

Everything else is going good! Elder Riffel is the new companion of Elder Smith and he is a pretty cool guy. Everyone thinks him and I are related somehow because he is a little taller than me, with blonder hair and blue eyes as well. It is rare for them to see one gringo like us, with two they are probably pretty shocked! 

That is about it for this week.I hope everyone has a pretty good Thanksgiving!  Eat a lot of turkey and mashed potatoes and have an excellent week! I Can't wait to here about it next week! 

Love, Elder Sorensen

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEEK 16

Hey Everyone!

Its has been another great week! We have been working hard to find some new people to teach. We have one investigator now that has a baptismal date for the 20th of December! His name is Anotonio and he is a little bit older, but he is a very cool guy. He really wants to do what is right all the time. He could not go to church this week because he had to go to Quito, but this next week he should be there. Hopefully this next week we can find even more people to commit to being baptized. 

First off, I think I will talk about church on Sunday. It was a pretty interesting day.  First of all,  all of the Elders had to give talks. It was my first time giving a talk in Spanish and it was pretty stressful, but I think it went pretty well. After 2 of us talked we had a special musical number by the 4 of us! Then in our class for investigators, we had a couple show up that we weren't expecting, and they had some pretty strong opinions.   I think they ended up sharing their opinion more than the teacher got to teach. I felt so bad for the guy. I was glad that he was very patient. It was the last day on the mission for Elder Atwell,  so we went to a members house and had a little devotional  that was very cool. For lunch that day we also had some fried shrimp that was very good. The best shrimp I have had since I have been in Ecuador! 

It has been very nice to live with 2 Elders who are finishing up their missions.  First Elder Thomson and now Elder Atwell.  Just to hear all their stories about the mission, and what we need to prepare for is very cool. I only lived with Elder Atwell for a little bit but I can tell he was a very good missionary. 

It has just been a lot of work here in Piñas. There are lot of hills and stair cases, so by the end of the day we are tired, but it is awesome to be here.  The branch here is not that big. It is pretty much one family that makes up the whole branch. If that family does not come to church, I think there would be 15 people in the branch.  When they all come to church we have 70.  It just means there is a lot of people here to teach! I hope every has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 15 New Area...

Hey everyone!

How is everyone doing? I am doing great! It has been a quick week. I am now in a new area called Piñas. It is a city 6 hours outside of Guayaquil, it's up in the mountains. It is awesome! Everyday there is something new that we see that is very cool. Most of our area is inside the town but then we can also go 1 hour each way by bus outside of the city. So really, our area is huge! For our zone and district meetings we have to go an hour and a half in a bus to Santa Rosa, so we are really out in the middle of nowhere. I really like the new area and it is easy to wake up and go to work everyday! Oh and the weather is a lot better! It is never super hot like it is in Guayaquil!

My new companion is Elder Margos from Guatemala. He has 20 months on the mission so only 4 more for him then he is done. Our whole zone is full of Elders that have very little time left in their mission.  Then there is me and Elder Smith- who is newer than me. Elder Smith and Elder Atwell live with us. Elder Atwell is in his final week and then he will be going home. 

The food here is a lot like the food in Guayaquil. Rice, beans and meat! But I am not sick of it yet so hopefully I never get sick of it! They also have a lot of pretty cool restaurants here so it should be fun to try them out on P- days. Oh and bananas here are super cheap! Today we bought 38 for one dollar. A lot different than back at home. 

Today for P-day we went for a hike.  There is a giant cross on top of a giant mountain that has a trail you can hike up, so that is what we did today. It was a pretty tough hike but it was worth it to see the end result. It was very awesome up there.  

My Birthday was just pretty much a regular day. We had some cake that night but nothing out of the usual for the work day.  Thanks for all the Birthday Wishes!

Well there is not a lot more to write about. My new area is very cool. It is a branch up here- It's not a ward, but the members are pretty cool. During church yesterday a lady brought her dog- so there was a dog in the church - that was pretty cool. Well I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 14 Transfer...

Well another week has come and gone! It has been a pretty good one!

The weather is still hot, but I am starting to get used to it. It is very hard to teach people during the middle of the day because they just finished eating and then they all want to nap because it is so hot. From six to nine is the best time to teach everyone.

Elder Herrera and I have had a pretty good week we thought. We taught a lot of people and thought we were going to have a great showing in Church, but then everyone had some things come up on Sunday so they could not go. 

The food is as good as ever. On Friday we had a shrimp ceviche that was soooo good! I never thought I would like anything with shrimp in it, but surprisingly I liked it a lot. We also had a mountain of rice and beans with it and another kind of soup. They like to eat so much food for lunch! All the other days it was the usual rice and beans and some kind of meat. But it is not too bad so I can`t complain. 

Well it is hard for me to write about my investigators for this week because this morning I found out that I have a transfer.  I leave to find out where I will be at 5 today. I don`t really have a lot more about this last week it was a good one and look forward to see where my new area is! I will let you guys know next week!

Have a great week and hope everyone is doing good!

Elder Sorensen

I guess we all will find out next week which area he got transfered to!

Three families that took such good care of Khristian. 

Remember Diego?  He is the little boy that loved Khristian's blue eyes.  
I love this picture! 

Week 13 Squid and Aliens!!

Hey everyone! I hope you guys all had a great week!

I have had a pretty good week this week! We got a lot of lessons taught and have some investigators, now we just have to get them to attend church! 

 

The first part of the week we got 2 new Elders who moved into our house. Elder Huayamacari from Peru has 20 months on the mission and is very cool. The other is Elder Grafton from California. He is in the group just after me, so now I am not the newest missionary in the mission! There are now some missionaries newer than us! It has been nice to have some more people in the house to talk to since Elder Thomlinson and Elder Thomson left. 

 

The food has been pretty regular this week. A lot of beans, rice and meat! On Saturday we had some kind of soup that had Squid in it, so that is probably the oddest thing I have had here. It really was pretty good though so I can`t complain about it. Yesterday I also had a new kind of drink that is verdes crushed with milk, but it was not too bad either.

 

 

We met this guy on the street the other day that called us over to talk to him. He had been drinking a lot and said some pretty funny stuff to us.  He asked me what I though about aliens. I replied with I don`t know and then he said, "I have seen 2 aliens here in Ecuador and they looked exactly like you! You are an alien!"  He then started to laugh and walked away. It was a pretty funny experience.

 We have six investigators that we are all teaching right now, but every single one of them has one problem or another that makes it so we can`t baptize them. The most common is that they are not married, but live with their girlfriend or boyfriend. It is really common here, and it stinks because it makes it hard to get baptized!  Others need permission from their parents, but their parents won`t give them permission and stuff like that. They are all super good people, and they want to be baptized!  We also have one other guy we are teaching that is named Vincinte. He is a very cool guy, his son just got baptized and he wants to know about the church.  7 years ago he got in a car crash and he his paralyzed from the chest down, but he is so happy all the time and he is definitely motivating.  Even though we have some hard times, there are definitely people that have it a lot harder!

 

That is really all for this week! I hope everyone has an awesome week!

Elder Sorensen

Week 12

Hey!

I hope everyone is doing good! I am doing great!

This week has been a pretty good one! It went by very fast and we had a lot of work to get done. 

First thing is the other Elders in our house were transferred, so now it's only Elder Herrera and me in the house. It is definitely a lot quieter because I can only speak Spanish with him, but it has been good for me to learn Spanish. It is transfers today too, but I am pretty sure that I will be staying here with my companion. 

On Friday we had a missionary training with our zone and one other zone. For the training, they had 3 missionaries who will be leaving this week teach us some of the stuff they have learned throughout their time here in Ecuador. I learned a lot from it and it definitely helped me become a better missionary. I also got to see a couple of my old pals from the CCM, so that was nice. 

Saturday we  had a kind of food that was not that good. Up until Saturday I had loved all the food we have eaten, even though I can barely eat all of it everyday, because they feed us mountains of rice. On Saturday we had some kind of fish soup that I did not really like. I think on weekends the fish is cheaper or something, because we always have fish on Saturday and Sunday. We also had some kind of beet salad with mayo. I did not really love that too much either. The texture was different.  I had some more McDonalds on Tuesday, so they cancel themselves out! 

Today, my companion needed to print some pictures out from his past 4 months, so we went to the mall to print them out. The mall is very big and it was cool to see that they have things here that are similar to the US. In my area it is all small houses and small little stores. There is nothing else, so it is nice to see some other parts of Ecuador every once and a while!

We keep finding people to teach, but it is very hard to get them to church. There is always a ton of parties every Saturday night and they spend the whole night at parties and don't want to go to church in the morning. That is probably the hardest right now. If we can get more people to church we can baptize more!!! Last night we had a pretty good lesson with a member though. She has been deciding if she should go on a mission or not, and so she wanted to talk to us. When we talked to her at first she said , there was no way she was going, but by the end of our lesson she said she wants to go! She was not an investigator, but it was definitely a good lesson!

That is really all for this week! It has been a quick one, but a good one! I hope everyone has a good week!! 

Elder Sorensen

**Hey guys,  Khristian's birthday is Nov 8th.  I am sure he would love an e-mail from you all!  

Last day together before transfers

Week 11

Hey guys! I hope everyone is doing good!

I have had a great week! We are starting to find some people who want to be baptized and listen to our message. We have one guy that said he wanted to be baptized and the date was on Nov. 8th, so he could be baptized on my birthday!!! I can`t think of a better Birthday present! We have worked very hard this week and it has been nice to see the hard work paying off. 

We cooked a lot of food this week, and it has been nice to eat the things that I want to. I think I have made every kind of dish you could possibly make with eggs, but I am still loving them so hopefully I never get sick of them! We made some pretty good  breakfast burritos the other day with hotdogs and scrambled eggs. It is nice to eat an  American dish every now and then. 

 

There was not a transfer this last week, so it is still us 4 in the house. We are thinking that maybe this next week will be the transfer, but then again we may still be together for this next week. To say goodbye to us, a family got us a cake and said goodbye to the best 4 missionaries they have ever had. One of the members of the family is inactive, and has not been to church in 10 + years, but because of us she has gone the last two weeks and plans on going to church every week for now on. It is very cool to see the work we are doing paying off, and to see how much happier they are because of this gospel!
 
 

There has been a constant pattern with the weather here that is kind of unusual. During the week it is super hot during mid-day, and pretty hot in the night, but on weekends it always seems to be overcast.  The people here think it is super chilly, but it is really the perfect temperature. They think that 70 degrees is cold haha!

That is really all for this week! I hope everyone has a fantastic week and can`t wait to here from you guys next week!

Elder Sorensen

 

I love the ketchup smiley face :)

Week 10

Hey! Another week has come and gone!!! It has been a very good one and conference the last two days capped off the week!

First off, we have been teaching a lot of people, but they are not getting anywhere. We had 4 people this last week say they wanted to be baptized and we taught a couple of lessons, but when it came time for them to attend church they did not, so they probably will not be making it far. The people all want to be baptized, but they are not willing to do anything, but listen to our messages.

The food this week was all pretty good. We had the usual everyday. Rice and some beans, and of course a little bit of meat as well. I've have had rice every day for lunch for about a month now, but it is still pretty good and I have not gotten sick of it. We did stop at McDonalds on Tuesday for lunch because our Mamita could not cook for us. It was nice to have some American food!

It was also Elder Thomlinson`s birthday this week. He is one of the other Elders that lives with us. They are in the same area as us, so we threw a birthday party for him at a members house. It was a lot of fun and they have  a crazy tradition here that you get whipped once for every year you are old, so in a month I will be getting whipped 19 times I guess!  (Khristian's birthday is Nov 8th!)

Conference was really good! It is a cool experience to watch it differently way than how I usually watch it. It was all in Spanish, so it was very difficult for me to understand everything,  but I could get the message of their talks. On Saturday we watched the sessions at a members house because if we don`t have investigators we can`t go to the church & watch it. It was a lot harder to focus and listen to the talks. It was cool though because Elder Martinez-that spoke in Spanish in the 2nd session on Sunday, had came and talked to us at the MTC. It was cool to see him during Conference because we had just listened to him a couple weeks earlier in person. On Sunday we had some investigators come with us and so we watched Conference at the church. It was a lot easier to focus on the talks. Overall Conference was very good! I loved Elder Bednar`s talk because it was perfect for us missionaries especially with our investigators there listening!

This next week Ecuador plays the US in soccer - that is what one of the members told us, so it should be fun to hear how it goes. In the ward there are 3 gringos and then my companion who is from Columbia, so we have a little wager that if US wins then he owes us pizza, and if Ecuador wins then we buy pizza for him. It should be fun!

I hope everyone has a good week! 

Elder Sorensen

Verdes-they are like Plantains, they are squished and fried, and some scrambled.  A member saw them walking by and had them come in and eat.

Birthday party for Elder Thomlinson 

Cooking at a members house. They made Arepas- they are tortillas with meat inside 

A bus that tried to pass a truck and ended up on the divider! It got impatient and went to the wrong side of the road and it was just a mess

This is how much the 4 of them drink in a week.

Week 9

Hey!

I don`t have a whole lot of stuff to say this week because we spent most of it  knocking on doors trying to find people without much luck,  but here are some of the highlights from this week.

 

The food is still tasting good to me so that is always a plus!  Every single day we have eaten something that I liked.  For breakfast I have had cereal every day and it is still probably my favorite meal to eat because it is the same as it is back home.  We also have a lot of clementines  because you can get 25 of them for a dollar, so they are super cheap and all the people give us a couple when we go to their house.  Bananas are also cheap you can get 20 of them for a dollar, but more people have clementines so that's what we eat more of. The bakeries here are also awesome!  Their fresh rolls are the best.  Whenever we walk by one and they have hot ones they are awesome.  I also had some sugar cane. It was kind of weird because you just bite the cane and suck on it and you get a sugary water kind of stuff - I didn`t like it that much.
 

 We knocked on a ton of different doors. Every single house we went to said that they were Catholic and did not want to hear from us. They were long exhausting days. There is one guy that wants to be baptized, but he did not come to church and it is hard to teach him because he is never home.
 

On Saturday we had our first English class where we taught the members some English. It is only an hour long so it is hard to teach them. We more or less just taught them how to say hello and stuff, to introduce themselves. 
 

Last night we ate some hamburgers at a members house. We had a family home evening at their house, it was definitely nice to have!
 

There is not much more to talk about. This week flew by and most of it was spent knocking on doors! I hope everyone has a good week!

 

Love,   Elder Sorensen

Week 8

Hey guys another week has gone by! It has been a good week! We got a lot done and I keep on learning more and more Spanish! It seems like just yesterday I was writing you guys and it is here again!

This week we baptized two more people. Xiamara  (Ariel`s sister) and Yannina. Yannina`s was very cool because her family has been members for a while, but she never did get baptized. She has met with the missionaries for the last year but, would never commit to getting baptized. Then on Tuesday, our district leader decided to just do the baptismal interview with her, because she has received all of the lessons and goes to church every week. After he did, she agreed to getting baptized, but she did not tell anyone in her family. We all kept it a secret too. Then on Saturday she just walked in with her baptismal clothes on and to see the face of all of her family was very cool! It is definitely the coolest experience so far!

The food is pretty good. I have not gotten sick of rice and beans yet so hopefully I can make it for 2 years! We had KFC last P-day for lunch and then on Tuesday night we had some Pizza Hut because it is buy one get one free. Other than that though I have lived off  of cereal and eggs, and the lunch that we get every day. The meals that they give us are huge so it is tough to get it all down and it leaves us stuffed for the rest of the day. We also drink so much soda here! Every house we go to they run and get us coca cola at the store and so I have had more of that in the last two weeks then ever before! Then the fresh juices they give us are all really good as well!  Yesterday we had some Dorado which is a kind of fish that I like.  (Dorado is like Mahi Mahi)

I also got to do a guys English homework the other day. It was a big 120 problem assignment so I pretty much did it for him. It was all the English we would do in first grade so it was pretty easy!

We get around by walking a lot.   If it is kind of far away then we take the bus, it is a quarter and if it's farther away we take a taxi- it's about a dollar.

The weather has been super hot. It is hard to find a way to cool off. You go inside houses and it is even hotter inside. On Friday and Saturday it was unbearably hot everywhere. Then yesterday it got shady and started to rain so that was nice. The rain here so far is kind of weak. It is so humid that you really don`t feel it. It is more like walking through misters as it rains.

Khristian's Zone

Everyone that attended the baptisms this week

Lunch at a sweet members house.

GOOD = All the fresh juices we have for lunches

BETTER= The Family Pena's lunch.  She is such a good cook!

BEST=  The baptisms!

Well that is about all for this week! ! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Sorensen

Week 7 Off To A Great Start!

Hey guys!

Well I am now in Ecuador! How is everything going back at home?
 

My companion and trainer is Elder Herrera. He is from Columbia and speaks very little English! But it is all good because it makes me learn Spanish even more!  He is very cool. He helps me a lot and he has been in the area for a month already so he knows everything. I am doing good here.  It is very hot in the day, but during the night it can get pretty cold. It is perfect when I try to sleep. 
 

The food is very good here! Everything that we have eaten I have liked a lot. It is usually rice and beans with some kind of meat, and it really fills you up! On Thursday they gave us so much food that we could not even eat it!  Yesterday we had some ceviche or something like that. It had shrimp in it. It was pretty good definitely a different taste then what I am used to. Overall the food is really good. For breakfast and dinner I just make some eggs and toast real fast because the members make us so much food for lunch. 
 

My area is Venticinco de Julio. It is in the city of Guayaquil and I really like the people and members in the ward. So far everyone that I have met is awesome! There is one little kid named Diego that is like my best friend. He has never seen somebody with blue eyes before and so whenever he sees me he runs up just to look into my eyes. On Friday we had a talent show night where we had to sing and everyone else sang and it was a lot of fun. We have 4 total missionaries in our ward because is it growing so much.
 

On Friday I had my first 2 baptisms.  I really had nothing to do with teaching them, but my companion had me baptize them, so that was pretty cool. The little boy is only eight years old and he has already read the Book of Mormon. We also are baptizing his sister this next week!

 

Our apartment is pretty big in one way, but also narrow. We have to fit 4 beds in it,so it is pretty difficult to get everyone to fit there but we managed. Elder Tomlinson that was in the CCM with me is one of the other 2 missionaries in our area so it is nice. We both are learning everything around here together, and  it gives me somebody to speak English with. The showers are very cold, so since the ice bucket challenge is going on back at home, really everyday I am doing it when I take a shower.

We had church yesterday and it was ward conference and I really did not understand much at all. We then had the ward council meeting and it was great. It went on for quite a while, but it was good. 

 

Last thing was there was the big rivalry game between Barcelona and Emmulek last night. It is probably bigger than Red Sox and Yankees because how fanatical all of the fans are. The whole city was either in Blue or Yellow jerseys. Barcelona won 1 to 0 and you could sure tell when they scored their goal. The City erupted with a roar. It was pretty fun to see how passionate everyone is. 

Well that is all for my first week in Ecuador. I like it a lot and I will definitely make it for 2 years! Hope everyone has a good week and hear from you guys next week!

 

Love, Elder Sorensen

**I updated Khristian's address**  (over on the right hand side)
      Email is the same  :)

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday, 32 new missionaries arrived in in Guayaquil South Mission.  From the airport, they went over to the Guayaquil Temple for a picture. 

First Baptisms

Elder Sorensen and Elder Herrera

First Apartment