Back to Guayaquil!

This Saturday was the baptism of Melissa, a girl we`ve been teaching who lives with her aunts that are members and hadn´t been baptized yet. The baptism was awesome! Her aunts, cousins and even her sister who isn´t a member came! The young women of the ward sang a musical number in the baptism as well. We were a little nervous as at the hour of the baptism she hadn´t gotten home yet and the aunt who she lives with didn´t know where she was at! It has happened to me before where an investigator at the last moment decides not to get baptized so that was going through my head as we waited outside the house with the aunts. To everyones relief she ended up getting home some 10 minutes after baptism was supposed to start and so we started a little late. She had gone to eat with her freinds and lost track of time! She was very happy and excited for the baptism.

   Today I was changed to back to Guayaquil, back in the Guasmo! My new companion is Elder Betanco, a missionary from Nicaragua who I met around the beginning of my mission. He has 1 or 2 months less than me in the mission. The zone I`m in is Puerto Nuevo, sector La Toma. That`s the same zone I was in with Elder Chandler in January, but in a different sector. Back to a few familiar sights and places but with new faces. I love being here in the mission. I know this is the work of the Lord, and I`m grateful to be part of it. 

Elder Justyn Pollock

PS I recieved a package at home!!!! The contents of which I am currently enjoying. It`s definitely a booster to get that beef jerky, candy, church music and other things i love. Thanks family!!! Love you!

 

 

PS This week we had the baptism of Paola, a ten year old girl who is here for a few months from Italy. Her Mom didn`t want her to get baptized there because she wanted the grandpa of the girl to baptize her, and he lives here! Sorry missionaries in Italy! haha. Her grandpa is a convert who has baptized his whole family, kids, grandkids, and everyone. The baptism was awesome with the whole big family, cake, a musical number by the grandpa and his grandsons, and it was the grandpas birthday the day of the baptism as well!

Leadership Council

Highlight: Today we had a mision leadership council, which we have every month. I always love the mission leadership councils, as I always leave with much revelation on what I need to do to improve and better serve others: the missionaries, investigators, and members. I also have grown to like traveling in the mission (I can´t complain about a 4 hour bus ride to guayaquil every once in a while in an airconditioned bus with comfortable seats). The temple hotel is also airconditioned, which translates to sleeping like a rock which is very enjoyable. Also, the council takes place in an airconditioned building. I´m very grateful for airconditioning. Haha but the real blessing is to hear from our mission president, who always has topics and teachings very inspired for what we need to hear.
    In terms of proselyting, we didn´t have as much success as we did last week, but I am always grateful to God for any blessing he gives us. Our Branch changed schedule from 9:00 to 3:00PM. It´s a change that we have to get used to, as never in my life have I had a church schedule so late! A few couldn´t come because they went to the city and didn´t come back in time to go to church (those preparing for baptism specifically: a single Mom, Rosa, with her 2 kids, and another family of 4, Carlos, Carlos, Mercedes y Anita ). Some that are preparing for baptism did come however and for that I am grateful: a cousin of a family of church members, Melisa, and two teenagers Raul and Gabriel who came with their freinds and whos parents commited to coming next week.
    I love the mission. I learn and improve myself everyday. I love the opportunity to serve others in their lives to be happier and to trust in God. I know this is the Church of Jesus Christ. I love you all and wish you all the best.
Love,
Elder Justyn Pollock
Santa Rosa 1st Branch
7 July 2014

My companion is Elder Gomez from Nicaragua

Transfers!

This week we had transfers! I am now with Elder Gomez from Nicaragua (I´m still in Santa Rosa) who I met before when i was in Guayaquil. This week we`ve been working in a small town we noticed near outside of the city we`re in. I believe missionaries have never visited there as no one there says the had talked with missionaries. I`m gonna do the email a little differently this week so you can see the successes and dissapointments of being a missionary:

   Success: We`ve had the opportunity to teach alot of lessons this week which was awesome! Many familes have been very receptive and at first meeting us they tell us to come in! We´re being very blessed in our sector! 

  Dissapointment: We went to the house of one of our investigators, June who was going to come with all his family but he wasn´t able to come because of work!

   Success: He sent his sons and daughters, also invited his brothers, and nephews who ALL came to church!

   Dissapointment: One of our investigators, Melissa, that was preparing for baptism soon was not able to come to church because of work as well. 

    Success: Another investigators, Jimmy, who is preparing for baptism came to church right after the sacrament (we thought he wasn`t going to come!) 

    Success: He also brought a nonmember friend!

    Dissapointment: Another family, Daniel and Diana, we were teaching was not able to come to church, ALSO for work.

   Success: A teenager, Raul, came to church, accepted to be baptized, and through him we were able to teach his whole family who are now all investigating and very willing to come to church!

   Success: The same as above happened with ANOTHER teenager, Angel, that came.

   Dissapointment: The sun has been HOT this week!! (normal haha, but more than usual this week)

    Success: Between a baptism in the zone, a missionary celebrating his birhtday, and a missionary who ends her mission this week, we ate cake 3 times this week!

   I love being a missionary. I know that this is the work of the Lord and where I need to be right now. The missionary life is a great experience and I love it here. I know that those who live, and share the gospel recieve happiness and joy that is worth the effort.

Love

Elder Justyn Pollock

Baptism!

This week we had the baptism of Anthony, the 16 year old brother of our convert from last week. There was a ward activity during the day that ended right before the baptism, so there was pretty good attendance to the baptism. Plus there was food! Everything has been going great here as usual. I love being here in the mission and know this is where I should be.

   Right now we are preparing a 10 year old girl who grew up in Italy for baptism. She recently moved here last week and we started teaching her right away. Her Mom is an active member and her grandpa is first counsler of the district here(stake). It`s interesting teaching her because spanish isn`t her native tongue, and sometimes she doesn`t understand. We`re teaching another 18 year old, jeferson, that we found contacting who comes to church with his mom who we are also teaching. The others we are teaching are melisa, who lives with her grandma and comes to church with her aunts and cousins, and Jimmy a 15 year old who came to church with a friend. 

   I know this is the church of Jesus Christ and that those who live the gospel find hapiness. Love you all!

Elder Pollock

 

 

                                         Baptism of Anthony

Great Week!

This week we had the baptism of one of our investigators! It was an awesome baptism, and the next day when a member went by her house to bring her to church, she was already at the church! One of the first one`s there as well. I`m super excited for this baptism as she understands the lessons very quickly, reads the Book of Mormon daily, and asks good questions. She wanted to go to the temple this Saturday when the District here went, which is awesome as a convert that goes to the temple very likely perserves to the end. Her brother will be baptised this Saturday if all goes well!

   On Monday we had a family night with the Vicente Family and another family of the ward, which was also the birthday of one of the daugthers of the viecente family. The whole family, 2 of which are my converts, all went to the temple this Saturday! At church they bore their testimony of the temple, which was an incredibly happy moment for me. They are counting the months until they can get sealed!

   It was the birthday of one of the missionaries that lives with us, so we ordered pizza (much preferred over cake). We`ve been working really hard and been seeing the success that comes with that. With the World Cup it is a little different preaching, including Ecuador played this Sunday right during church! With lots of prayer and diligence it hasn`t affected our success.

   I love this gospel and I love this work! These are some of the best times I`ve had in the mission. I`m very happy to be here. I know God blesses as we live his gospel and keep the commandments. The Temple is the house of the Lord, and the place where every convert, and all members, should end up getting to and continue visiting. Hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Pollock                            
                                         
                                           Iguana was listening in on one of our lessons
                                                

That family I talked about about a month ago that got baptized last week. I went to do their interviews and took a photo there

 Baptism of our investigator

 

 

Training!

This week we had the opportunity to have another leadership council meeting with all of the zone leaders and sister leaders. It is definitely one of the perks of being a leader. I definitely can´t complain about staying in the hotel next to the temple with air conditioning. I love recieving training from the president as well. The evening after the council meeting we went and worked in some of the sectors in Guayaquil, where I had been for 8 months, so we were able to visit a few of my converts to invite them to a special stake conference. I was very happy to find them active! Including one single mother I had taught has already entered the temple and 2 of her friends were also baptized after I had left that sector! The next day there was another training meeting (another night in the hotel with air conditioning!) by a seventy, Elder Wadell for the 3 missions in Guayaquil. His talk was inspired and I learned a ton of things very specific for our mission.

   We are teaching some awesome investigators. One investigator that will be baptized this Saturday already wants to go to the temple this Saturday! All of the invesigators we have right now are reading the Book of Mormon, going to church weekly and praying daily. Those are the three indicators we can use to see if they are really being converted to the gospel. 

   I`m very excited and grateful to be a missionary in this time. I really love it here and try very hard to help others come unto Christ and recieve the hapiness that comes from that. 

Have a good week all!

Elder Pollock

Hey All!

 Not much to update on this week. We`re teaching a few investigators that are way awesome. I`ve definitely been blessed in having the chance to teach some excellent investigators. One investigator we have now is an 18 year old girl, Britany. She was a reference that we had recieved that we weren`t able to contact during the week. On Sunday morning last week we were going to the investigators houses we had to make sure everything would go well when I felt the impression that we should go to that reference`s house. When we got there it was less than an hour until church was going to start. The reference was already up and pretty much all ready, but wasn`t going anywhere! We told her that her friend had told us we should come teach her and invite her to church, and told her we have church in less than an hour, she went and finished getting ready and came to church with her brother! They came back to church yesterday again as well. She used to study with theJehovas Witnesses for a while, and has lots of questions. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted, her 16 year old brother folowing. She is now reading the Book of Mormon every day, understands and remembers everything we teach, and has already had the opportunity to defend her new faith, not even being baptized yet! The second lesson we had with her she said early and enthusiasticaly ¨Who`s going to say the opening prayer?!¨

   The family of recent converts came to church as well, the Dad with a white shirt and tie! He is now in page 70 of the Book of Mormon even with alot of work to do. 

   I love being her as a missionary. I know it is the best thing for me to do in this time of my life. This is the work of the Lord. Be bold and happy to share this gospel to others. I know it brings much hapiness to share the gospel, to those who share along with those who hear it. The Lord has many promises to those who share the gospel (D&C 84:85-88). I love this work and i`m very happy to be here.

   Until next week!

-Elder Pollock

(I guess I should start putting my first name along with that, as there will soon be 2 Elder Pollocks in the mission!)

Santa Rosa

This week we had the baptism of a 17 year old teenager we`ve been teaching. He has 3 uncles that are members in the ward, one of who is the 1st counsler in the branch presidency. It was a special baptism; Many of his family members who are members of the branch attended, including his 3 uncles and many cousins! He studys, and works with his Dad selling Ceviche (a South American dish with shrimp, onion, tomato, lemon juice, etc.) Way excited that he got baptized.

   We are teaching a few other investigators, including a guy who works in the mines, a lady that has a cool parakeet or whatever you call that, and a few others.

   I was way happy that this Sunday the two men of the family we recently baptized recieved the priesthood, the same day my brother recieved the priesthood as well! They came with white shirt and tie which was awesome. I`m loving being here in the mission! I love this gospel and know the hapiness it brings. 

Just keep swimming,

Elder Pollock

Family Complete

This week we had transfers! I am still here in Santa Rosa North but I have a new companion, Elder Roa. He is from the Dominican Republic and has 18 months in the mission. The big highlight from this week was that we had the baptism of Mayner! That completes the family we`ve been teaching here since I got here (They are all members now!) We have set a goal with them to go to the temple all together the 14th of June which they are now saving up for, as the trip is 4 hours to Guayaquil. They are excited to go and are excited to be able to be sealed as a family in a year! I´m super grateful that I can be here and to be a part of their conversion as an awesome family like them is like the Holy Grail of missionary work.

   In other news, I found a Subway today in Ecuador! I didn`t buy from it though as we cant eat the raw vegetables here in Ecuador (lettuce, tomato, etc) which is necessary for a good subway sandwhich. Plus if I did buy it, a footlong without a drink or anything was $9.25! I guess I`m getting really used to Ecuador prices (like $2.50 for a good lunch).

   The investigators we are mostly teaching right now are a 17 year old teenager who will be baptized soon and a 30 year old guy who works in gold mines. 

  Loving the missionary work! It`s awesome to be here and see the progress of the people I get to teach. I sent a photo of this weeks baptism in another email!

Love,

Elder Pollock

Importance of Family

 First off, Happy Mothers Day! This has been an excellent weekend! We have been teaching a very humble and kind family for the last month I have been here. It is a family of 5, a son and 2 daughters. The Mom and 2 daughters were baptized not long before I got here a month ago. They are a very inspiring family and I get excited to go teach them when we go there. On Sundays without fail they are always halfway to the church when we arrive at their house to take them there. That is so awesome to see as a missionary, as sometimes we are giving the investigators a little push and encouragement to get them to church, while this whole family gets there very 20 minutes before it starts. This Saturday, the husband of the family was baptized! It was a great baptismal service with much support from his family and the branch. His 9 year old recent convert daughter even offered the opening prayer in front of everyone! The Dad works Monday to Saturday in banana crops (usual for Santa Rosa/El Oro, probably the biggest source of bananas in the world). The Mom quit her work which was on Sundays in order to obey the sabbath day when she was taught it.

   Earlier in the week, we did a 1 day companion interexchange with a companionship in my zone. We do that constantly in order to help the other Elders and provide a little training. In this instance there had been 2 young teenage investigators of the other Elders´ that had gone to church on Sunday and we were going to help the Elders in putting a baptismal date and getting permission from the parents. When we got there, instead of teaching the teenagers quickly and getting baptismal permission, we called all of the family and insisted to the Dad of the family to come listen. When the family of 7 were all gathered outside, I felt strongly not to teach lesson 3  (which is the lesson the includes baptism) to but Baptismal dates for the teenagers, and instead teach sabbath day (Sunday, going to church). 

    I started off showing a picture of my family and the importance of the family. They were in grand economic need and felt the need to work all day on Sundays. It took until the whole lesson, but at the end when it was getting late and we had to get going home, the Dad finally accepted not to work and come to church on Sunday. The family then accepted to as well. We set up another visit for the next day, did some practices with the Elders of lesson 3 in the morning, and the Elders in that sector put baptismal dates to the whole family of 7! Yesterday, the whole family went to the church together and are very excited! I`m very grateful for that opportunity to help the other Elders and that family, and for the guidance of The Spirit in that moment, as it was all thanks to that.

   Yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to skype my family I haven`t seen in about 5 months. I don`t remember much what we talked about but it was a very happy moment. I got to see my brother before he heads out for the mission as well in a month! 

   I love being a missioanry and the hapiness that comes from teaching other the restored gospel. The families are central in the plan of God, and I saw evidence of that very much this week. I hope all had a good Mother`s Day! 

Love

Elder Pollock

To All

Hey everyone!

    Well this email will be a little short as I´m currently in Guayaquil and we have to take a 4 hour bus ride back to Santa Rosa soon. We´re here for a council of leaders again. We were able to learn many things that will be of use as missionaries! Yesterday we had a good day. We were able to bring many investigators to church who are progressing well. Inlcuding we brought an awesome part-member family! I believe I talked about them last week. The father will be baptized this Saturday! Then his son is the next week, and the whole family will be baptized.

    They are an awesome family and way fun to teach! They invited to dinner on Saturday night and we had chicken, rice and plantains (The best example of Ecuatorian food I can think of) We have already taught them all of the lessons and they are very excited to be part of the church!

  I love being a missionary in this work! Keep up everything you do! and Happy Mother´s Day (to come) to all Mom´s reading this!

Love

Elder Pollock

28 Abril 2014

Hey Everyone!

    This week was very interesting! We were lucky enough to have a visit from a General Authority, Our Area President, Elder Ulceda and his wife(Over a Big Chunk of South America). On Wednesday we had an all day mutli zone training meeting in Machala with the missionaries, and another meeting right after with all ward council members invited (including us). Yesterday we had a leadership meeting wth him with all of the zone leaders and sister leaders in the mission. I paid very close attention and took good notes, as he recieves direct and specific revelation for our area, especially concerning how we should work as missionaries. 

  One thing he said that really stood out to me is that ¨The obedience is a principle of the perfection.¨ As we become obedient with more exactness, we our gradually improving ourselves towards perfection.

   Another thing he talked about are some simple important that people should always do. I liked this part because I`ve always thought that the improvement in the simple things brings the most progress, as the simple things are many times the most important. Elder Ulceda talked about 3 ways to help someone develop faith In Christ: Conversing with God (prayer), Reading the scriptures (especially the Book of Mormon), and Church Attendance.

   Similar to how we use sunblock in this Ecuador sun, we can apply these 3 actions liberally. If we can see that our investigators are reading the Book of Mormon, Praying, and attending church, we know they are developing faith in Christ, which is the first part of our purpose as missionaries as stated in Preach My Gospel. We as members can apply this as we must all do those 3 things, and improve the manner that we do them constantly. 

   As for investigators, we are teaching an awesome family of 5! 2 in the family are recent converts, the Mom and Sister, and the other 2 have baptismal dates, the Dad and brother (the youngest sister is not of baptismal age). We are also teaching a 17 year old guy who is a nephew of some active members. There are many more but I am most excited for them.

   I´m loving being a missionary! Hope you are all doing great! Love you all!

Elder Pollock

 

 

 

Blast to the Past!

 This week I had a few back to the future moments.

    Number 1: I had transfers this last week and I`m back in the city of Santa Rosa! When I first started my mission I was in a city nearby, Piñas, which pertains to the Santa Rosa Zone. I`m remembering some of the past moments I had almost a year ago going to Santa Rosa for zone meetings, incluiding my favorite bread bakery! I buy bread there every time I go past it now. 

    Number 2: Stake conference! The last time I was in Piñas we had a stake conference, and this Sunday was a stake conference again! I got to see alot of the members a year later and see how they are doing. Inlcuding I got to see the sister, Janet, of one of my converts, Cesibel! Cesibel wasn`t able to make it as it is almost 2 hours away and she needed to help her mom, but it was awesome to see some old faces there in the stake conference! The stake conference was actually a Sattelite broadcast for all of Ecuador. The speakers by sattelite were Elder Holland, Elder Scott, and the General President of Primary. The mission President, President Torres, was present in our stake for it. I got to play piano for the Santa Rosa Stake as well as there wasn´t someone that knew how. They spoke about how to strengthen the families and our testimonies of the gospel. Elder Holland began to speak in Spanish, but stopped saying more or less ¨Ahora, no voy a seguir hablando en mi horrible español.¨ That was extremely funny. Elder Scott knows Spanish well. 

    Number 3: I`m back with Elder Saenz! He`s from Nicaragua and now has 21 months in the mission. I was with him 6 months ago in Huan Cavilca and Los Rios. We are the zone leaders now here in Santa Rosa North zone. I`m super excited to be back with him as he is a very good friend of mine. 

   We have some awesome investigators that we are teaching and I`m loving the mission. The sun is coming down on us still but I`m loving it here! I know this is the Church of Jesus Christ himself. Keep the commandments and do a good turn daily, the recompense will come in this life or the next! 

Love you all!

Elder Pollock

Just follow the map to a baptism!

Hey all!

   I`ll explain the title at the end, hold your horses. 

    Well I`ve had some super busy weeks and haven`t gotten to write much at all, but this week I have a little more calm PDay, so I´ll send some photos. We had changes last week. I stayed here in our current zone, and am now companions with Elder Lemich (who was my zone leader in my last zone!) He`s an awesome guy from Utah. We were apparently living one building away at BYU but we never meet eachother. 

    This week we had the opportunity to listen to General Conference. Always an awesome part of the mission, as we are always preaching about Prophets and the restored church, and listening to the modern day prophet is like seeing what I`m teaching everyone over again. We brought many investigators to the conference and I just felt the urge during the conference to tell them ¨This is what I was telling you about! He`s a prophet and they are apostles!!!¨

    As much as I loved conference, I never get tired of the feelingof having a baptism, and that was the most exciting thing that happened this week. This week we had the baptism of Monica. She`s the Mom of Koraima, Kleiner and Raul, three of my converts. She finally decided to be baptized! She came to conference Sunday Morning, and here baptism was planned for that night. After the conference we lost sight of her and she must have left before we could find her. We were a bit worried, as she has a small memory problem, and we wanted to remind her after the conference of the baptism at night. 

   We went to lunch at the mamita, and got the rest of the investigators and went to the afternoon conference session. Directly after we went to Monicas house, about 2 hours before the baptism, and we were sad to find that she hadn`t come home yet! We tried calling her and found her phone was there in the house. We decided she might come home before the baptism and so we went to the fill the font. 

  When we came back an hour later she was still not there. At that point we realized she must have forgotten or backed out of it. We tried thinking of everything we could just to get ahold of her. We saw if she was at a cousins house nearby. Koraima the daughter was in her house and told us Monica might be at a freinds house a little far away helping her move out. We asked for Monica´s phone she had left, and found the number of her friend. That was our last hope, and the phone was dead. At that point it was already 7:20PM and the baptism was scheduled for 7:00PM. We decided all we could do was pray in our hearts and wait there hoping God would get her to show up.

   It was already 7:30PM when Koraima told us that she knows how to get to her friends house if she might be there. We really wanted to get in contact with Monica, but obviously we weren`t going to take an 11 year old girl with us in a taxi. So, on the last sliver of hope that she might be on her friends house, we tried to get directions from an 11 year old girl to another part of the city.

-_-

   She explained and explained, but I was not picking up on the directions at all. The best we would be able to do was get to the bus stop, and she knew atleast what bus stop it was. She went and got a notebook and decided to draw a map. As she drew the map and tried to explain it I literally laughed saying to myself ¨There is no way!¨

   She finished the map and explained it me best she could, which was basically after the bus stop you gotta go to the tree, look straight, walk toward the benches, go to the right and straight until you get to a wall, go through a fence that`s either green or black to the right, go to the left, tell a dog ¨tico¨ or he`ll keep barking, go to a green house and ring 5 times or they won`t come out. 

    I looked at my companion and told him ¨This is crazy. What do you think, do we go? We might as well at this point, let`s go!¨ So we got a taxi and went to the bus station on the other side of the city . With map in hand feeling like little kids on a treasure hunt and saying a couple punny jokes we tried to go find this house. We took a giant pause at the first step, go to a big tree, as there were like 50 trees. We laughed and kept going. I can`t really explain how we got to the house. But as we came around one corner we saw a truck full of furniture. Without knowing how to explain I simply asked some guy in the truck ¨Hola, está Monica?¨He said, yep she`s inside.

    She was a little confused about how we got there and we asked if she remembered what was supposed to happen right now. She said ¨What time is it?!¨ It was already 8:00 and she explained she had just completely forgotten! We told her there was still time and so we got in a taxi, went to the church to a patient bishop waiting for us and she got baptized.

   Know that there is always a way. As the classic scripture in 1 Nephi 3:7, the Lord will always provide a way for us to do his will. This is the work of the Lord and his Church.

Love you all!

Elder Pollock

PS I`ll send a picture of the map next Pday

                                    Monica

       Abraham, who got baptized the other week!

 

 From the tall guy in the red shirt in back, in front of him is Monica who got baptized yesterday, to the views left of Monica is the head peeking out of her daughter Koraima, who drew the map.

   The kid making the heart on the left is a son of Monica

Hey!

   Well I`m already out of time in 2 minutes but just a short update. I`m doing great! Still in the same place and everything! I`ve been loving the mission and learning a ton! This week we didn`t have any baptisms but we do have plenty of investigators to teach!  An inspiring story we taught in a lesson this week was about Job (Read Job 1 in the Bible) 

Love you all!

Elder Pollock

Hola Buenas Tardes all!

    This week we had a great week. We had 3 more baptisms this week. One of whom is Abraham, who has been investigating the church for 5 years! 5 years ago one elder got him and his wife married in preparation for baptism, but the elder left and they didn`t get baptized. We have been teaching that family and the husband finally decided to get baptized! He has one 8 year old daughter. We are now hoping that his wife will soon get baptized. It was an awesome moment in the mission.  We also had the baptisms of the grandson of a member and the brother of 2 of the investigators we baptized last week. 

   We had a council of leaders today, which means i`m a little short on time to write haha. We learned alot from President Torres about how we need to be the examples for the other missionaries, and many other things on how we can help the zones we serve in. Some authorities from Peru came and talked about family history work, which is something we will be incoporating more in the mission now. 

   I`m grateful to be in this mission and be able to help others come unto Christ. I invite all to do temple work for their own ancestors, and share the spirit of Elías with others. It is a great way to share the gospel. I know this is the work of the Lord. I love being on my mission and enjoy a great happiness here spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Have a good week everyone!

Elder Pollock

Hard work pays off!

Hola!

    This week I passed the 1 year mark in the mission! As I reflect back on this last year I`ve learned alot and grown alot more than I imagined I would have. Being here in the mission and dedicating my life to the Lord has helped me put my life in a different perspective. I`ve grown much closer to The Savior and to our Heavenly Father. Plus I learned spanish! It is an experience in which you learn to put behind your own needs to help the needs of others, and there is an incredible amount of people in need. 

   This week in particular we`ve been working very hard and putting everything we have. I came home tired in every sense: physically, spiritually, etc. But it has all been worth it, and all our hard work paid off! This saturday we baptized 13 of our investigators! We couldn`t get a photo all in white in, but I sent some pictures and everyone in the pictures got baptized on Saturday except for the older ladies, one of the teenagers who is member, and the littlest kids. I`m grateful to the Lord that I was able to be the means to bring that blessing to all of them. 

    After 1 year here asking my self if it has been worth it, there is no way I could deny that this experience was worth it. I`m grateful I have this opportunity. I know this is the work of the Lord and we are all instruments in his hands. I know this is the church of Jesus  Christ. All who come closer to the Lord recieve peace and comfort. 

   I glad I have a year more to continue serving the Lord! I encourage all to do what you can to advance the work of the Lord and serve him. 

I love you all!

Elder Pollock

 

Transfers!

Buenos Tardes familia y everybody!

   This week we had transfers, as a group of missionaries reached their 2 years and left for home.In the mission when you start someone´s in-field training, he is called your ¨son¨. So I had to say goodbye to my ¨son¨ Elder Chandler. I was transfered really nearby in the same city of Guayaquil to El Guasmo. I am now a zone leader with Elder Castro helping 12 other missionaries in encouraging them and setting the example as best as I can. I am really trying to push myself to magnify this assignment I´ve been given. I can say I´ve worked harder in this week than I have in probably my entire mission. I´m learning alot from Elder Castro from Peru, who 6 months ago was my zone leader, and has alot of experience. 

   We had 2 baptisms this week of Lady and Sandy (yes. like in spongebob). They are two girls that live next to a bunch of members. The baptism went smoothly and it was a good experience. We brought many investigators to their baptism to see how it was and that helps encourage them to be baptized alot! I have gotten home, I´ll admit, super tired every day! I was very grateful to have a baptism though, which makes it all worth it for me and is the fruit of our labor.

    I know this is the church of Jesus Christ and this is his work. The savior went through everything we´ve been through and will help us in times of need. As we are more obedient, we can come to know God more, as we see the blessings we recieve in exchange. As said in a great disney movie, Keep on swimming everyone!

Love,

Elder Pollock

 

There aren`t any ferris wheels in this Carnaval

Hey!

    We are currently in some national holiday they have here in Ecuador they call Carnaval. It`s three days of playing with water, and basically anything else you can throw. It started this Sunday in the morning, so as we went out to bring investigators to church it felt like a military operation, dodging around corners, blow up pools and changing direction wherever we saw someone with a painted face. I didn`t want one of my white shirts and my slacks to get stained! Luckily the people here don`t wake up on days like this until like 10:00 so we didn`t have too much trouble in the morning actually. It was super sketch on the way back home from church though; at church we planned out the streets we would use to avoid pools and little kids with paint. We got home without getting wet, and stayed inside all day, as our president told us to do until Wednesday. We left just to go to the internet cafe today (in our proselyting clothes). So far we haven`t gotten wet or painted at all, but right outside this cyber (the only one open around) are like 3 blow up pools and a bunch of kids, so we`re gonna sprint back home.

   We started our carnaval on Saturday with a little pool in the church, as we had a baptism! Angelino decided to follow his older brother`s (our recent convert`s) footsteps. He got baptized and was super happy to do so. The next day he brought 2 deacon aged freinds to church as well for the confirmation! We`ll see if we can get the families of his 2 freinds to church this week. He`s a cool, good kid, and I`m glad he can be part of the church with his brother, which will help him stay away from the many temptations there are at his age. 

   I love being here as a missionary. This is the Church of Jesus Christ. I feel the hand of the Lord in this work. As we put our trust in him he guides us, protects us, and provides for us when we need help. Wish me luck. Time to go get soaked!

Elder Pollock

 

PS one of our investigators, an old lady, did pour a cup of water on us actually haha that was pretty funny.

Other PS Shout out to my brother who is going on a mission to Chile in June!!! He`s gonna be an awesome missionary!

                                                      Baptism of Angelino