Rain

It has been raining like crazy here in Ecuador! 10 months of a hot sun of everday made me get caught off gaurd when it finally rained here. We walk around with umbrellas all day now in case of rain. I keep all my scriptures in a plastic bag in my backpack!

   We had a good week this week. We´ve been teaching some awesome people lately. One´s name is William. We´ve been teaching him for like 3 weeks and he has come to church a few times. Baptism soon! We´ve also been teaching Sandra, who is the wife of a member. She´ll be baptised soon as well. She´s pregnant so double baptism woohoo! haha ok fine it only counts as one. This sunday Marco´s younger sister came to church which was awesome! We´re gonna teach her now and see if she decides to be baptized as well. 

   I love being here as a missionary! I know this is the Lord´s work and that it is progressing very rapidl! I know this gospel will bring many blessings and much happiness to all those who listen to it and apply it to their lives. Any who have not had that opportunity should search for it! 

Elder Pollock

Hola from Ecuador,

    This week was a pretty good week for us. Elder Chandler and I have been looking for more people to teach and we`ve found some that are really awesome. We are teaching Sandra right now, who is the wife of a member that is investigating the church. We had a way awesome spiritual lesson on Saturday where we could feel the spirit very strongly and she accepted to be baptized, which will be coming soon! I`m loving it here in my sector! We are teaching our recent converts to the church and answering any questions they have. Through them we are always able to find more investigators to teach as well which is awesome. Another guy we are teaching is William. He`s way funny and loves the message of the gospel. I love being a missionary of the Lord and I know this is the church of Jesus Christ. I hope everyone is doing awesome over there in Washington!

-Elder Pollock

PS. GO SEAHAWKS!!

I am in Guayaquil in Guasmo Sur, Barrio Calderon

 We had an awesome week this week! This week we had the baptism of Dora and Faboricio. We are super happy that they took this decision to be baptized. The day of the baptism was a very awesome experience for us. We got their in the morning to make sure everything is all good for the baptism, and Dora answered the door. She explained to us that Faboricio had a fight with his siblings the night before, and before closing himself in his room, he said that he didn`t want to be baptized anymore. He wouldn`t leave his room for anything! We called him and did all we could. We decided to call our zone leaders and ask for advice.

   We went and met them at the chapel so they could come help us. On the way back to Dora and Faboricio`s house, this 13 year old kid that I had seen at the church before was outside and started following us. He asked us where we were going and I told him Dora`s house, and he said ¨vamos!¨ He followed us over there while we thought of what we were gonna do. We got there and tried to get faboricio to come out some more, calling him and what not for a while, but nothing was working.
    We were just about to leave when as a last resort we decided to send in the kid that followed us. As a last resort we decided to send in the kid who followed us, who responded ¨he has to come out for me, I`m his friend¨ We waited a little bit pondering how that kid just happening to be in the path there and following us was so obviously heaven sent. In a couple minutes Faboricio came out and explained that he felt he shouldn`t be baptized because he had yelled at his siblings and felt bad and felt his character will never change. We tried to calm his doubts but he felt the same and didn`t want to do it anymore. He went back inside and we were about to leave when the kid told us to wait. The other missionaries had to leave, but we waited there for another 20 minutes or so until the kid came out and said ¨job done¨.
    I don`t really know what he said or how he did it, but that night after the baptism I just had to thank the Lord so much for sending that kid to help Faboricio that day.  I am way happy that he can recieve all of the blessings that come from being baptized and being a part of the Church of Jesus Christ. I recieved a strong testimony this week that this is the work of the Lord, and we are just instruments in his hands. He knows what needs to be done, we just need to put our confidence in him. I love being a missionary and know the gospel brings many blessings to those that live it.

- Elder Pollock                       
 Elder Chandler
                                                                                             Faboricio and Dora

 

 

Happy New Year! I`ve had an awesome new year! I got a taste of the craziness that is Ecuador on New Years Eve. Our New Years Eve celebrations in the United States are like reading a phone book in comparison to what they do here. Here basically every single household has one of those paper mache mannequins. The fireworks started at around 9 or 10 I believe, and it was basically fireworks all across the sky until 1:00 in the morning (no way I could sleep with that haha). It was way awesome though. At like 11:50 they bring out the "Monigotes" which are those paper mannequins that are supposed to represent the old year, and if they didn`t like the old year they beat up their monigote before putting it in a pile of them. (I was pretty confused about why they were beating up their paper dolls at the moment though) Then they poured gasoline over them and at 12:00 burned them, then started throwing their fireworks into the monigotes!! From my window looking down the street, their were fires ALL down the streets, and the sky was full of fireworks! They would throw the fireworks in the fire and try run away which was super funny to watch. Outside of my window they had paper dolls of the flinstones in their car. This little kid tackled and beat up a 5 foot doll of the flinstones dog which was hilarious. The 28th Marco got baptized (one of those teenagers we`ve been teaching). Now we`re working on helping him get the priesthood. This week we had another baptism, of Jordy. He`s 16 and was super excited to get baptized. His baptism was actually scheduled for the 11th, but we shared a scripture in the bible about one guy who gets taught and baptized within less then a day in The Acts, and he asked if he could get baptized sooner! So the next day the zone leaders came to interview him and he was baptized! He`ll be the third priest in the ward right now! All the priests in the ward are recent converts within the last month. Pictures soon to follow! We`re now trying to help his older brother to accept to be baptized soon. This week if everything goes well, we will have the baptism of Dora and Favoricio. Two other teenagers we`ve been teaching. they`re 14 and 12 respectively. We were planning on the baptism of only Favoricio, but God answered our prayers yesterday! The other week Dora expressed to us she didn`t feel she should get baptized anymore. We did what we could to resolve her doubt but at the end we had to leave it to God and told her to ask him if she should get baptized. We prayed hard that she would do se and recieve an answer. She did so, and yesterday recieved the answer! She dreamed of being baptized and felt good about it and she felt very strongly it was her response from God. We`ve been teaching them for a little while and they`re awesome. Their parents support them alot. This week we also had transfers like I said last week. My new companion came from the MTC in Mexico. (Brand new to the mission!) He`s from Idaho and his name is Elder Chandler. He`s doing way awesome here and loves it. We get along way well. He performed the baptism of Jordy this saturday which I hope was an awesome impression of the mission. I`m doing my best here to be the best missionary I can be and help others as much as I can. I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ and I loving being a missionary for him. - Elder Pollock