Week 37

Well it has been an awesome week here in Tomebamba!

The week has been a pretty crazy one, but it definitley started out on the right note! We found out that on Monday Xavier found a new job so he can go to church every Sunday now!!! It is pretty cool because we promised him that if he went to church on Sunday that he would find a new job the following week. He had permission to go he told us on Sunday but really he did not. He went to go to work on Monday and they told him that they no longer needed him. He was a little sad but, as he was walking he ran into an ex boss of his. He talked to him and offered Xavier a new job and said that there was no problem if he wants to go to church on Sunday. It was pretty cool to see the Lord acting on our promise and acting so quickly. 

We also taught Miriam a lot as well. She is doing very well. She really likes the church and is sharing it with everyone. The members have been soo good to help her out and make her feel comfortable in the church. 

We had a rough time finding people to teach this week, so we are working hard to find new people who want to listen. Some of the days were pretty long walking around just hoping we would run into somebody who would listen to us. We found some people and hopefully they will come to church this week. 

We also had some pretty good pizza this week. We bought a pizza that had 45 pieces in it. It was pretty good and all 6 of us finished the pizza! It was a struggle but we ate it all. 

Well that was my week. It was a good one but, a lot of work aswell! I hope everyone has the best week! Take care!

Love,

Elder Sorensen

Week 36

Well how was conference for everyone?  I had a very, very good week! It finished very well with two baptisms yesterday!!!

So Miriam and Xavier were both baptized yesterday, it was an awesome day!

 Xavier had to attend church on Sunday to be baptized. In the morning he did not show up and we were really worried. We received permission to go out of our sector and talk to him at his work.  He told us there was no way that he would be able to make it to the afternoon session of conference. We asked him if there was anyway he could go. He asked for permission from his manager but she said no. He said maybe he could call his boss that was away on vacation. So he did and his boss said yes!!! It was a miracle! For the last 6 weeks his boss had said there was no way he could miss any Sunday, but this week she said yes! He was super excited and we sprinted to conference so that we would not miss any of it. He was able to attend and he was baptized.

Miriam's baptism was a little bit easier and less stressful. She was able to watch conference on Saturday and Sunday and she was excited for her baptism. The two baptisms were very awesome!

The other 2 investigators were not in conference so it looks like they are not really too interested. We did run into a family of three at conference who were not members and live in our area so we will now be able to teach them.  The mom accepted a date to be baptized and the dad will soon accept one as well!  It looks like these two will be our next baptisms on the 25th of April. 

 Overall this was one of the best weeks of my mission. It was such a great way to spend an Easter Sunday at conference in the morning and afternoon and then finish the day with 2 baptisms.

I hope everyone has an awesome week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 35! 8 Months!

Hey! I hope all of you guys had a fantastic week!  We had a awesome one!

We have been working very hard this week to teach everyone who wants to be taught. We did not have a lot of time to find new investigators because we have been teaching a lot.  We had some really good lessons. We also will be preparing for 2 baptisms this week, so we are very excited for them!  Xavier and Mirium should be getting baptized.  It should be a good week for them because we are working hard to get them ready. Also, they will be baptized on Easter Sunday so it should make it a very special day! We also have 2 other people who are getting ready for their baptisms. We have been teaching Guillermo . He has been to church 1 time and needs to go 2 more times.  We are also teaching Ernest- he sells fries. He has had a rough time, but has decided to change his life and wants to be baptized. We had a ton of family night evenings as well. We had  some good times with the the members in the ward. Over all it has been a very good week and we are looking forward to General Conference and the baptisms.

  Oh and also here it is la semana santa and during this week. The people here wont be eating meat so it looks like I will be eating fish all week haha hopefully it is all shrimp!  I hope that everyone has a very good week!  I can't wait to here from you guys the next week.

Love, Elder Sorensen



Book of Mormon translated into Quichwa- the language that the natives speak



A verse from the Quichwa Book of Mormon



Painted Mural



These pigeons will literally jump into your lap



River by his house

Week 34

It has been a very good week! We have been working very hard this week to find some people to teach, and our hard work has worked out quite a bit!  We have 4 people that are all set to get baptized this month. We have 2 for April 4th and 1 for April 18l and 1 for April 25thl!  We are teaching them and they are all coming along very well.

          We are teaching Xavier who is going to be able to get baptized April 4th. He will be                able to go to watch some of General Conference. His cousin was baptized this week            and he was very excited to see that.

We are teaching Guillermo. He was at church this last week and it looked like he liked the church quite a bit. He has a wife and kids that we can hopefully teach too.

          We are teaching Ronaldo. He sells fries and we just started talking to him while we                were waiting for him to cook our fries. He said that he wants to change and he should            be able to get to church this next week.

We are still teaching Miruim. She was sick this week so we were not able to teach her much. She also was not able to go to church because she was sick. Hopefully she will be able to get to church the next week. 

It should be a good week this week. We have a family home evening for every day of the week Monday through Friday.  Hopefully the members will be able to bring some people over to them. I am doing really good and having a good time. Hopefully we will see these 4 investigators at church I hope that everyone has a great week this week!!

Love, Elder Sorensen

                                                   Elder Aliaga

Cuenca

I like to look for Rainbows, whenever there is rain...

At some point,Khristian started saving banana stickers. ( that is a lot of bananas) 

Apparently the best hot dog in the world!

Week 33

Hey guys! I hope that everyone had a great week! I had a pretty good one!

Well Elder Grafton got transferred. He really just switched bedrooms because he still lives in the same house. He is now in Monay a sector that is right by us. My new companion is Elder Aliaga. He is from Peru and has 19 months in the mission. He has been Elder Williams companion so it is pretty cool that we have had the same companion now.

 Well Osvaldo did not get baptized again. We are going to work with him, but we are not sure what is going to happen. We found Miruim this week I do not know if I said anything about her last week. She has a daughter that is 6. She and her daughter went to church this week. It was pretty cool to see them there. She is preparing for April 4th for her baptism.

This has been a slower week. We also had a training with Presidente Torres. It was a very good day and we learned a lot. It was overall a very good day. The rest of the week we spent trying to find Osvaldo. Sorry I don't have a lot to say this week I will have more to say next week! Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 32

Well another week has came and gone! It was a very good week, the only problem was Osvaldo was not able to be baptized. Here is a recap of the week. 

On Tuesday, I had interchanges so I went to the zone leaders district so that one of them could go and interview Osvaldo for his baptism. I had a really good time there.  Elder Flamenco is who I was with. He is from Boston so we talked about Boston a lot haha.  Osvaldo did not get baptized this last week, but he will be this week.  He is very excited and cannot wait for his baptism.  It actually ended up being a blessing that he was not baptized though, because we got the opportunity to talk to his parents.  His parents at first hated us and told Osvaldo if he was baptized they would kick him out of the house. We never had the opportunity to talk to them before, but after the interview they talked to his parents just a little bit. We went back the next day and invited them to church.  They said they probably would not go because they are super catholic. But surprisingly,  on Sunday when we stopped to pick up Osvaldo for church his whole family was ready and we brought his mom and dad and sister as well. They all liked it a lot.

 

We also met a menos activo family this week.  They are very cool and we got them to come back to church. Then last night we went to their house for a family night and they had some friends over too. We taught them about baptism and now they all accepted dates to be baptized.

 

We had 6 people come to church this week. It was definitely a good week for us. Xavier could not go because of work but we are still teaching him. Eddy the guy that was in the hospital is now home and he went to church. He is a member and  he is a very cool guy. His mom and sister are not members and they went to church with them Sunday as well. 

 

Well over all it has been a very good week. It was nice to end the week with 6 people at church! In all we have 9 people that should be going to church for this next week. It should be a good one!

Love, Elder Sorensen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elder Ashton is from Payson (such a small world)

Tres Leches

Week 31 Already 7 Months!!

Hey!

It has been another great week here in Tomebamba. It feels like this week has just flown on by. It did not seem like a week had passed by at all. We worked with Osvaldo and Xavier a lot this week. They are doing really good. Xavier is very excited for his baptism and wants to just get baptized this week. He is also teaching what he has learned with his family and all of his work buddies. He said that a couple of them are very interested and want to hear from us, so we will be teaching them this week. Xavier was not able to attend the church this week but he told us he definitely will be there this next one. He needs to go to church two more times to be baptized. 

Osvaldo is doing really good as well. He attended church and now only needs his interview to be ready for his baptism this Saturday! It should be a good Saturday- because when we have a baptism the week goes by extra good. We are excited for him and he is excited as well. He has a lot of faith and on Saturday we took him to another baptism and it got him even more excited. 

This next week we will be working with a lot of less active members too. We met a lot of families yesterday that are not going to church and so this week we will be visiting them. We have family home evenings scheduled for the next couple of nights with families so it should be nice. 

One thing that is really nice about this ward is there are a lot of people from Venezuela. It is awesome because they actually know about baseball- haha.  It is pretty cool to talk with them about it because there, baseball is what soccer is in Ecuador. They have a lot of cool stories about some player they met. One member even has a signature of Pablo Sandoval

.

Well everything else is really good here. We are having a great time and we are working very, very hard. The weeks are going by very fast. I have already been in this area for 3 weeks and it seems like it has been like 3 days I have been here. I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen