10-10-2011 Naranjito, Ecuador

Family,

My P day is Monday now.  The stamp situation is just that no one in South America knows where you can buy stamps.  And I don’t have a white companion who knows anything about mail.  So I have to figure something out.  Otherwise I will just stick to emailing.

SO... Super long week!!!!!!!   We arrived in Ecuador and went to a temple session.  It was great.  We had a long meeting with the president, met our companions, and stayed the night in a hotel across from the temple.  The next morning we had our interviews and left.  It was sad to see all my friends leave one by one to different parts of the country.  Anyway, my companion is from Chile but knows a ton of English.  He is a great missionary and helps me a lot.  My apartment is the smallest one in the mission.  We are in the city of Naranjito.  It is about 1.5 hours from Guayaquil. 

We have about 20 investigators right now.  My companion has already been here for 6 weeks.  Saturday I had my first baptism!  Her name is Isabel.  Even though I only taught her one lesson it was still so neat to see her get baptized.  We have another baptism this week.  Things are a little stressful with getting settled in and constantly traveling for meetings and things like that.  But it is true that this is where I was called to serve.  I have a lot of room to grow but I know this is where the Lord called me. 

Be thankful for what you have.  We have nothing here… no clean water, no hot shower, no air conditioning.  Be thankful for your ward.  It’s the best ward in the whole world.  This was my first Sunday in a real ward and it just did not feel the same.  But I will get used to it.  I am always the happiest when I am tracting.  I love hearing about the experiences at home. 

Here is a picture from the baptism.  Next week’s letter will have a lot more information in it.  I didn’t get that much time to write today because of meetings.  I saw the Ecuador Venezuela game though on Thursday.  Everyone was out in the streets watching it as we contacted.  It was so fun.  Ecuador won 2-0.  This place is so fun during games.  One of the other Elders today tried to tell me US plays Ecuador sometime this week but I don’t know if I believe him because I haven’t heard anything about it.  But maybe.  I may have to hide in the apartment during this game since we all know US would massacre Ecuador... ;) Anyways my P day is now over.  I will try and talk more about the culture and stuff in my next letter on Monday.

Love you all. 

Elder,

McRae