Week 2

Hello

 This week started out really tough..I felt really homesick ..I felt discouraged about the language. So basically every morning for me was a struggle.  Then I remembered a letter that my dad wrote me before I left.  There was a lot of great advice in there and to me the most helpful was to forget myself and go to work..that had been a recurrent theme in the mtc devos too and it all started to come back to me. So I've taken that phrase as my motto in these times. 

Well after that all, it turns out I'm still not great at spanish and really don't understand what is going on when we teach but that will come.. javier was a bust, and gave back the BoM the next day...  so that was pretty weird, but hey we now have 5 new investigators with baptismal dates.. angela perez and her daughter dayhana campoverde and marcia and her daughter jocelyn.. also an old lady named maria.. they're all street venders soooo were double lucky cause we get free food every lesson.. hahaha.. no it's been pretty great, but they still have a lot to learn and overcome before baptism.. please keep them in your prayers.. 

Cayambe is the field area of Ecuador..but where we are is city..  but it turns out we haven't been to like most of our sector cause we do actually go out into the fields of cayambe..  its also pretty cold here, we have one of the few mountains with snow on it which is pretty cool, but I haven't gotten a picture yet cause the clouds are usually covering it since its soo high up..  

Was able to get this picture of the mountain from my companion

 

 

I'll be sure to send it.. we usually walk everywhere but occasionally we take a bus to the other side or when we go to otavalo obviously..  we actually did go to that massive stake conference that you probably saw from pre murphy..  Two stakes gathered there and we are part of the otavalo stake soo that was crazy.. all the missionaries in the three zones that touch otavalo went so I saw elder dougherty and a lot of new elders (english speaking elders too which was nice)  a lot of the people that spoke spoke in quichua which was really interesting..  

 

Stake Conference in Otavolo.  Elder Carlos A. Godoy, Area President and Elder Nelson Ardila, of the Seventys.
Created three stakes of the two. 

 

 

 

our district in this zone is made up of 4 elders.. Elder aliaga and I are Cayambe 1 and elder sejas and molina are cayambe 2..  Sejas and aliaga are both from bolivia and were actually comps for 2 changes before this.. molina is from peru and was here the last transfer so he knows a lot about the area..  then there's me the only gringo in cayambe..  the food has been pretty good but its all rice and chicken..  and usually a soup..  not much to complain about there except that it is repetitive..  we shopped today so hoping for some variety in the nights now.. members only feed lunch here and we have to do dinner for ourselves..  

don't know much about the boating stuff on saturdays.. only that it is a better day for us to have pday so this is only a trial for the first 6 weeks..   if it turns out that we are getting better numbers in these 3 zones, we will keep it, if not we will go to mondays..  

aliaga is 22 and went to 3 years of college.. he wants to be a pediatrician and is the youngest of 6..  his mother passed away like 5 yrs ago i think and now none of his sibs are members except for one sister who went on a mission in bolivia i think but came home later..  our house is actually not that bad but its not great.. its just super dirty from the old elders and 6 weeks of no use..  the shower this week has been like boiling hot and neither of us can stand in it so that kinda sucks but other than that its not that bad..

well thats basically it for this week, just hoping ot make it through the next..

keep me in your prayers as well as our investigators.  I didn't take many pics this week soo I'll try to take a lot next week to send..

Love Elder Jensen

 

More photos of the Stake Conference in Otavolo found on the Ecuador Quito North Mission Facebook Page