Dear Everyone, ECUADOR!! I'm in Ecuador now. The last few days in the MTC were really antsy because I really wanted to get here. It was sad saying goodbye to the friends I made in the first 6 weeks of my mission, but ALL of us were really excited to get out here. The plane trip went without much incident. The guy next to me was asking about the church, but then he moved. (I don't think it was cause I was bugging him haha he just moved to sit next to his son up front more because there was open seat). The latinos in my district in the MTC started calling me Elder Chicken-ck the last couple days because pollo in spanish means chicken. I thought it was funny, it was all in good fun and we were all friends haha. Ecuador is HOT! Colombia is not nearly as hot as Ecuador. I don't know how many degrees but yea it's like a constant sauna here. I arrived to meet some other American Elders that are about to leave in a couple months. We went to the mission home in Guayaquil and heard from the president all day. There was "cola chicken" for lunch (and of course beans and rice). It was delicious. They really do eat rice every day here for lunch and dinner. Without exception so far. Anyway that day we met our companions. My companion is Elder Ortiz. He's way awesome. We took a bus to the temple and all slept in the visitor center there. Then my companion and I started the 7 hour bus ride to our zone. It took all day. We ate Mcdonalds for breakfast and KFC for lunch (2 of the few approved restaurants to eat at haha). On the way there lots of street merchants (some 11 year old-ish kids!) would get on the bus at one stop to sell coconut juice and water in the aisle, and get off at the next stop. It's all pretty different here from the USA. The buildings are alllll made of cement. The towns seem pretty... ghetto (for lack of a better word). On the way there were banana plantations. It was ridiculous! MILES and miles of banana trees with rows going back as far as you can see on both sides of the bus!!! I don't even want to try to estimate the number of banana/plantain trees there were. Closer to my zone is a more mountainous area. It was really cool. It reminded me of Emperors new groove were there are hills fading into the distance with the sun shining on them. Muy chevre (very cool). I live in a city called Piñas.( It means pinneaples in English) It is AWESOME. I love it here! My companion has been here 5 months and already wants to live here after his mission haha. The best way to describe here is tranquil. There is little to no crime. I'm still careful about showing money and stuff but my companion insists that there is no need. Everybody is really cool here. They are all really nice and the atomsphere is just laid back here. It's actually a little bit more of a rich town too. There is tons of gold around here, so alot of people own gold mines. Even still nobody has a nice TV or car or anything like that really. It's still a humble place and everybody is happy. The members of the church make sure the missionaries are fed, which is nice. The food is pretty good too. Lots of chicken, rice, beans, and soup. My companion is the branch president here. It's interesting being the companion of branch president. There are alot of duties associated with that on top of missionary work. He's a great trainer and helps me with my spanish. I'm not sure how much English he knows. We only speak in spanish. He's from Mexico. He has visited seattle before and thinks it's awesome. We have taught some lessons to some investigators and members. We gave a blessing to a nice old lady yesterday who is sick. Nobody here speaks English. There are some who speak a little but yea I am in full spanish right now. I love my mission. I know the church is true. I know the savior loves us and the book of mormon is the word of god. I know we have prophets on the Earth today. I know god blesses us when we do the right. I love you all! Elder Pollock justyn.pollock@myldsmail.net

Dear Friends, It is my last week in the CCM (Missionary Training Center)! Sorry I haven't written emails for everybody every week! We didn't get a whole lot of time to email. I get extra time this week though. My mission started out with a very long flight to New York and then to Colombia; over 5000 miles total. I didn't meet up with any missionaries on the way. When I found the MTC drivers at the airport I was cautious to make sure they were really from the MTC and not a Colombian gang haha. They didn't speak much English at all so that took a little bit. I was worried that barely anybody at the MTC was going to speak English, but to my relief I found when I arrived that all my roomates were North Americans. My first week was spent mostly on learning Spanish and teaching fake investigators. I thought my spanish was pretty good, but almost 2 weeks now with a latino companion (you get a latino companion at the end of your MTC stay), I realized I've got awhile to go before I can understand full speed spanish. The teachers spoke slow for us when we were an all North American District. I am doing well with the language though. I've been studying hard. My 3rd day here the MTC cooks brought out granadillas (or maracullas depending on what country you're in I guess). We call them brain fruit. You just have too look them up to understand why. They are delicious. The food here is pretty good really. It's usually rice, soup, meat, potatoes, and fruit/vegetable, or some combination of that. I'm not too picky and I usually love it. There is a street merchant on a bike that comes around here multiple times day yelling "MASAMORAAAA!" Masamora is some kind of corn soup. We thought it was hilarious in our north american district because he's just on a bicycle with a big thing of soup on the back. We want to try some. We have fun showing American culture here sometimes. It was pretty hilarious telling the "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke. They didn't think it was funny (because it's not, really). They thought the chicken died. Pretty hilarious to us. We also taught some "American" culture. As in not really American. For example we had hard boiled eggs one day, and all the North Americans cracked them on their heads to convince them that's how we do it in America. We get to go to the Temple every week. The traffic here is insane! And the city is HUGE! I've heard between 12 and 15 million. Someone said there are more people in the city than are in the state of Utah. There are seriously multiple people selling merchandise and candy in the middle of the road to people stuck in traffic. We also get to do service every week which I enjoy. Usually cleaning up the streets, the CCM, etc. We have physical activity in the morning 6 days a week. We usually play basketball, run, play ping pong, volleyball, etc. As for the classroom we study preach my gospel alot. We do alot of practice missionary discussions as well. Our day is from 6:30 to 10:30, with most of that spent doing some kind of study or class. This next week I go to Ecuador for my mission! I can't wait to get there! I know the Gospel is true. I know the savior loves us. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I love this gospel. Elder Pollock

This is an e-mail I got today from the Mission Presidents wife at the CCM (MTC). I so needed this today. Brought me to tears. Tears of joy! I could just picture Justyn among these missionaries, singing as they worked. Ronda 4/9/2013 Dear Family of Elder Pollock, I often think as I look out over the missionaries, "I wish their parents could see through my eyes, what I am able to see." Since that is not possible, I would like to try to describe a little of what I saw and experienced this last Sunday morning before the first session of Conference. The President and I have the responsibility of serving breakfast on Sunday mornings when we are not fasting. That allows our kitchen staff to attend their wards. The meal is simple: cold cereal, rolls, and fruit. When we arrived at the kitchen however, we found that it was not as clean as it should have been. Tables needed to be wiped off, trays and silverware needed to be cleaned. Without any requests on our part, a group of Elders appeared offering to help. I was trying to rinse off trays and one Elder said I'm an expert at that, that is what I have been doing for two years at Cafe Rio. He quickly took over and started directing others in the project of washing and drying. Others were out front wiping off tables and sweeping the floors. After everyone was finished eating, they were back to repeat the process of washing, drying, sweeping, and wiping off. I'm not sure the kitchen has ever been so clean! The thing that touch the hearts of the President and myself the most was the fact that they had come all on their own, with a genuine desire to serve. No one had to ask them for help. Then to make the experience even more sweet, they were joyfully singing hymns and Primary songs as they worked. As they sang "We are as the Army of Helaman" we knew truer words had never been spoken or sung! Elder Pollock was a part of that heavenly army. We love him! Thank you for entrusting him to us for this short period of time. Love, Sister Lynda Dyer

3/20/13 ¡hola! I'm going to write to the whole family right now because we only have limited time to write and I have alot to tell! I already read your emails. I'll email individually if I have time. The CCM is awesome! My spanish is going great! Sorry if I freaked you out with the story about when I arrived, and that I couldn't write on Monday! Apparently Wednesday is our PDay. When I arrived after being freaked out on Tuesday Night at the airport they took me to a room of all Americans and I was like "PHEW!" haha. The CCM president is a really nice guy. I have been really surprised just at how necessary it is to be able to speak spanish. I thought that alot of people would speak English, but it's really just us gringos (we all use that name haha), the president and his wife. We talk to the latinos often in Spanish to practice and to meet them. I love speaking to them because they are way funny and super nice. They're really patient with our mediocre spanish and speak slow so that we can understand them better. The food here is great! It's not just rice and beans. It's just rice. Haha not really, but really they serve rice with like every meal but breakfast. The rice tastes awesome though'. I don't know how they do it. My favorite meal has probably been chicken. They use chicken alot. Lots of chicken soup, grilled chicken, etc. We have also had carne asada and LOTS of bread. They have some type of bread with every meal too. The Ice cream here is delicious. We had it once so far. It was like a popsicle and I think it was condensed milk flavor, which sounds gross, but is delicious. They give us Dulce de Leche (i think it's called that) with every breakfast. It's like a hot chocolate kind of drink and it's way good. They have plenty of fruit here too. They serve fried plantains sometimes. They have green mandarin oranges. The most interesting food I've had so far is the granadilla. You HAVE to find a picture of the inside of that fruit. It's so weird. It tastes like jello. To eat it you basically suck it out of the fruit. It's delicious though. Probably my favorite fruit of all now. Our district is pretty funny when it comes to interacting with the latinos. One thing we like to do is try to tell American jokes in Spanish. They've never heard "why did the chicken cross the road?" They were so confused when we said that joke. At the end of it they asked "did the chicken... die?" (because it crossed the road) Also, we sometimes do weird stuff to make them think that's what we do in America. Like when we had hard boiled eggs for breakfast: One guy cracked his egg on the side of his head and said "Se hace en America!" (that's what we do in America) So now whenever we have hard boiled eggs we'll do that. Also, some guys drank carbonated water from the soda machine when it wasn't working and convinced them it was an American thing. I'm not going to be looking forward to having to keep up that facade myself haha. As for what we do here, we do aloooot of studying. We get up at 6:30, exercise, eat breakfast, and go to class at 9:00. Then we eat lunch at 12:00, and then have personal study from 1:00 to 5:00. Then, we basically just study from 6:00 to 9:00. I work really hard and I know that's why I'm learning the language fast. This isn't going to be worth my time if I don't work as hard as I can. At this point, I can, and have, listened to an entire devotional and understand 90% of it or more if they don't speak to fast. I'm running out of time. I love you all so much! Sorry I can't answer your individual emails! I might be able to better after the MTC. Can you please get me Mark, daniel, and Kyle's mission addresses, and maybe send their parents mine? I don't know if you can but if you can try thanks! Love you all! Miss you alot! You're in my prayers! Love, Elder Pollock

3/14/2013 ¡Hola! They are giving us a little time today to email you and let you know that we got here safely. I got here safely, but had some difficulties when I arrived. I thought some people at the airport atleast would speak English, but I was wrong. I didn´t end up meeting with other elders, so I was alone when I arrived. I exited the airport to a giant crowd of taxi drivers wanting me to take their taxi to their hotel, but I couldn´t find the MTC driver! I walked around trying to find a way to call him (I had the phone number) for about 15 minutes. I could not get coins for the telephone! Nobody would give me change in coins, and they ALL couldn´t speak English! I was just barely able to communicate with anyone. It was a pretty scary 20 minutes, but finally someone approached me who knew English well. They helped me to find someone with a cellphone, and call the person who told me just to wait right there and I would be found. I tipped that person well because I don´t know what I would have done without her help. When the MTC driver arrived I was skeptical of everyone at that point (people kept approaching me talking in spanish)and tried to make sure they weren´t going to kidnap me haha. I finally did get to the MTC (CCM here). I have to go so I´ll tell you more on Monday! I am not in dire need of anything at the moment so don´t worry about me! I hope all is well at home. Love, Elder Pollock P.S. I totaled over 5000 miles of travel in one day yesterday. Crazy.