11.21.11 Independencia, Guayaquil

Este es una foto de Elder Curtis y Yo. El es de Utah, y estabamos compañeros en el CCM en Peru.  ¡Vivimos juntos en Indenpendecia  y desfrutamos la misíon juntos!

11.21.11 Independencia, Guayaquil

Family,

This week felt so long!  Monday night I found out I was getting changed.  Tuesday morning I was on a bus to Guayaquil.  I got changed to the sector, Independencia.  It is here in the city of Guayaquil.  I live in the same house as ELDER CURTIS from the MTC.  It is fun to catch up on how our missions have gone thus far.  Independencia, a.k.a Ghana by day, Compton by night, is crazy.  It is the most ghetto city I have ever seen.  Pretty much all of the people are black.  

My companion is Elder Sulla.  He is from Peru.  He is super shy.  He has six months in the mission and this is his first change as a senior companion.  So he does not have a lot of leadership experience.  Because he is so shy, he is hard to understand and sometimes a little awkward when talking to people.  This has put a lot of pressure on me this week.  The pressure is good though.  I have learned I am pretty good under pressure.  I feel like I am becoming a much better missionary because of the pressure I am under.  I am expected to start the conversations and keep them going.  It has been fun because I can finally really communicate with the people.  My companion has been in this same sector for 6 months.  He has not had a baptism for 3 months.  He said he rarely talked to anyone the last six weeks.  Everyone just shut the door in his face.  But we managed to put 2 solid dates for baptisms this week.  This refueled his desire and we are hoping to bring back some success into this area.

All the missionaries from my group had a meeting this Tuesday which was awesome!! The meeting was good and I got to see all my friends from the MTC again.  It was great to share all our experiences and stories from our first 6 weeks in the mission.

I have learned a lot about this mission this week.  The sad truth is that there have been a lot of really bad missionaries in this mission...  For example, in my area, almost every single kid between the ages of 8 to 14 is baptized.  30 members attend the sacrament meetings.  Missionaries would baptize 10 or 15 kids a month to boost their baptism stats.  All those baptisms are completely inactive.  Most never went to church after their baptism.  This, to me, was so sad to find out.  And what is sadder is all the kids here know it.  When we talk to them they say, “oh yeah… Elder So and So just baptized me for their numbers.”  It makes it so hard to do missionary work.  The adults are not very receptive either.

But, Elder Sulla and I are going to work hard to be diligent, true missionaries.  The numbers are not important.  We want true converts.  So far we have 2 who are truly interested and want to be baptized.  With faith, we hope to gain more this week… and slowly, but surely, we can turn this sector around.  

It’s fun to hear about life back at home.  Thanksgiving is this week.  It’s funny that holidays do not mean anything to us as missionaries.  We just try and forget about them. Anyway let me know how that goes.

So what I learned about sending packages…  I guess you need to send packages with a green sticker.  I do not know what that means, but I guess there has to be a special green sticker on the box otherwise we will not get the package.  So that is all I know.  Maybe there are more instructions in my mission packet.  

Anyways, all is good here.  We are working hard and having fun.   Love you guys.

Love,

Elder McRae

11/14/11 Naranjito, Ecuador

Family,

Okay.  I really do not know what to talk about in this email.  But, here is the thing.  This week I have just caught fire with the work.  My companion and I are being as obedient as we know how to be, and making sure we turn Naranjito and the whole zone of Milagro right side up because it is upside down.  This is the zone with the most baptisms in the whole mission.  And this past week the whole zone, 3 districts, had zero baptisms.  So Elder Church and I made some goals to jump start our district and hopefully our zone.  We worked like animals this week.  Looking back on the week I don’t know how many miles we walked but I know it was a ridiculous amount.  We taught great lessons to tons of investigators and we are working with them every day to prepare them for baptism.  Since my first 2 weeks, I have not had a baptism.  No one had even accepted a date really to be baptized.  This week we have 8 dates with people.  In the next four weeks we should have at least 4 baptisms starting this coming weekend.  Our hard work is totally paying off.  We have great investigators who are preparing and excited for baptism!

The work is really becoming addicting.  When we see our efforts paying off, it makes me want to just keep going.  It is just a ton of fun.  I don´t even have any crazy experiences to tell about this week.  It has just been filled with us making sure we see every investigator every day so they can be prepared. 

The one gospel principle I have learned more of this week though, is agency.  Agency is everything in this work.  It’s everything in the plan of God.  We chose to come here, and it’s the choices we make that determine if we make it back or not.  But I can’t imagine how God feels when we know something is right and we don`t do it.  We have a couple investigators who we know for a fact have felt the spirit testify of the truthfulness of what we have taught and they still won’t accept it.  This is when Elder Church and I think about how good Satan`s plan sounds.  We want to just make them do the right because we want it for them so bad.  But we have to give them their agency.  And the thing is, when our investigators show up to church (when we never went to pick them up), nothing makes us happier.  Seeing them choose the right on their own gives us a great feeling.  I imagine it is how our Heavenly Father feels when we obey his commands with our own free will. 

The mission teaches so many things.  I can already see why this is such a crucial time in my life.  This is the best decision I have ever made. 

As far as a Christmas present, I don’t know.  And I never got a package yet.  So I don’t know what you’re talking about.  For Christmas I want just a cheap, cool looking tie, a long sleeve white shirt, and crazy amounts of candy.  Oh and SUPER IMPORTANT.  I know I said I didn’t want this stuff but I found out it would help a lot.  I want PICTURES.  Pictures of the family, DANTRELL, KYLE, JARED, Sarah and her family, and maybe a couple of me.  That would be perfect.  But especially pictures of MY BOYS! Dantrell, kyle, and jared. 

Love,
Elder McRae

11-7-11 Naranjito, Ecuador

Family,

I don´t really have a whole lot to talk about.  Tuesday we were walking home when my companion turned around and started yelling at a man in his front yard.  He was asking him what his problem was.  I was really confused.  The man and my companion argued for the next 20 minutes and I didn’t really know what they were saying.  Afterwards Elder Silva told me the man was saying things about Gringos behind our back.  Elder Silva is from Chile, so he turned around and basically told him to explain himself.  The man talked about how if he wanted to go to our country he would get shot by boarder control but we get to walk freely in his country.  Elder Silva said, ¨I am from Chile, so I don’t know what you’re talking about, talk to my companion¨ I had no idea what the guy was saying so Elder Silva explained some things to him about boarder patrol or something and we left.  It was an interesting experience.

Last night we taught a clown.  Literally, a CLOWN.  With face paint and the outfit and everything.  He came to church and said he would be baptized.  Again, another interesting experience.

So today I was up at 4:30 am because there are changes today.  Elder Silva went to Guayaquil to be a zone leader and I got a new companion.  His name is Elder Church and he is from Gilbert.  So maybe people in our stake know his family or something like that.  There is something encouraging he told me.  Our apartment that I have been living in is horrible compared to others.  So really, I got to experience the worst of the worst first.  So when I leave Naranjito, I will have a good apartment to look forward to.  Possibly with HOT WATER!

So I am really excited to get to work this week.  I think it is going to be a very important week.  We have a lot of interested investigators.  I am learning a lot about love in general here in the mission.  Love for others, and love for the Lord.  It’s easier to love the Lord when things are not going perfect or you’re having a hard time.  But I like that.  I enjoy the difficulties because of what I learn from it and how I grow.  Look at the positives of your situations, Christ is always there to help.

Love,

Elder McRae

10-31-11 Naranjito, Ecuador

Family,

It´s October 31. So Halloween, football playoffs, soccer tryouts, and all that good stuff.  This week was defiantly one of the more difficult ones.  My companion had to go to Guayaquil for the first few days.  This was very frustrating because 1. I couldn’t work in my own sector the whole time, and 2. I didn’t have anyone who could translate for me if I didn’t know how to say something, or needed to answer a question.  The other two Elders I was with didn’t speak any English.  

Besides that though, the week began awful.  We visited Marcos Monday night.  Your letter mom was about Guillermo, not Marcos.  Marcos was going to be baptized on Saturday so we went to his house to see how he was doing.  The door is always open so we looked in to see Marcos on the couch with a cut forehead and road rash on his foot and arm.  His wife looked furious.  We asked what happened and spent the next 2 hours talking.  Marcos feels depressed because he doesn’t have a job.  He went out to drink, didn’t want to pay for a taxi so he rode his motorcycle.  He crashed it because he was drunk.  His wife was disgusted in him and didn’t want to look at or talk to him the whole night.  She told us he didn’t have the power to change.  He told us that he believed her.  If she didn’t have the faith in him for him to change then he couldn’t believe either.  I didn’t do a lot of talking.  I was pretty shocked.  We got them to pray together.  It took a lot of convincing but his wife said she would eventually forgive him.  Marcos promised us not to drink anymore.  

Leaving that appointment made me remember that this is real life.  We are working with real people, with real problems, not just baptismal statistics. The family is doing better now and Marcos has committed to being baptized on the 26th.  

Guillermo and Felix are stuck.  They cannot spiritually progress anymore right now because some people are holding them back.  Guillermo`s girlfriend has opened up to us more and said the does want to get married.  Her mom doesn’t want them to though.  So Guillermo cannot truly repent and enter the waters of baptism unless he marries Linda but she is not allowed to.  Felix needs to come to church.  His mom always says she wants him to and has given us permission to baptize him but she never lets him go to church.  Every Sunday we come to pick him up and he says his mom won’t let him.  We have learned that she is very much in love with money.  She is willing to do whatever it takes for more money.  She doesn’t want to let Felix leave for 1 hour to attend sacrament meeting because she wants more money.  It is hard for my companion and I watch this.  Because we both love Felix and Guillermo and there is so little that we can really do for them right now.  

So, guess what? The mission is hard.  It is supposed to be.  So I am going to continue to work my hardest and hopefully the Lord will help Felix and Guillermo to be able to be baptized.  

I am glad to know everything is good at home.  I liked Dad's email.  They always make me laugh because I can imagine him saying all the things he writes.   I finished my 3 month.  The time is flying by!

Love,

Elder McRae

10-24-2011 Naranjito, Ecuador

Dear Family,

Not a lot really happened here this week. Just a full week of work.  It does feel like I just emailed yesterday though.  The week went by so fast.  That’s what happens when you stay busy.

Monday my companion got Dear Johned.  At first, you know, I said, “oh I’m sorry” but then he replied in an angry Spanish accent, ¨THATS THE 3RD TIME!¨ So then I just erupted into laughter.  I asked him if it was the same girl who dear johned him 3 times or if it was the 3rd girl. He said both.  I guess my companion has a lot of women waiting at home in Chile for him and they all keep sending him emails saying they are dating someone else.  But once they break up with their ‘other boyfriends,’ they start writing my companion again.  I laughed for the rest of the walk home.

Tuesday night we ate at an investigator´s home.  Afterwards my companion said he felt pretty sick.  We had a district meeting the next morning and he endured through that.  But after that, he spent the rest of the day in the bathroom puking and using the toilet.  We went out that night but had to hurry home because he went to the bathroom in his pants.  As he lay in the bed above me he said, “My girlfriend crapped on me, I crapped on me, Elder McRae, are you going to crap on me too?”  After that, I laughed for 10 minutes, then I told him ‘no’.  But the president called about 5 minutes later and said he needed him in Guayaquil.  The president crapped on him too.

I had to go with him to Guayaquil to drop him off and then I returned with the two other elders who live with us.  My companion is staying in Guayaquil for a few days so I am here in Naranjito in a trio.

My favorite experience this week was Wednesday.  We were teaching a man who has done some pretty bad things in his past.  He has a family now, but doesn’t have a job.  He is going to be baptized this Saturday but on Wednesday he was telling us sometimes he doesn’t want to read the Book of Mormon or do anything because he is depressed.  He looks at his past life, his family he can’t provide for right now, the job he doesn’t have (and a few other things) and it causes him to be depressed and to doubt whether or not this church is true.  My companion told him always read the Book of Mormon because it will give you strength.  I then piped up.  I said, ¨I cannot relate to a lot of the things you are going through.  I am just a white boy from the United States who never had to work a day in my life, who always had a family there for me, and never have had a worry or ever doubted that this church was true.  But, since I started my mission, and my family was gone, and I had to work every day, and no one can understand me because I don’t speak Spanish, all of the sudden for the first time in my 19 years of life I began to question and wonder.  What am I doing here? Is this church really true?  What would happen if I die? Will the lights just go out? Is there really a heaven, a Jesus Christ, or God?  For the first time in my life these feelings entered into my mind in the MTC. And there was only one thing that gave me strength… only one thing that was always there to confirm my testimony that this church is true… my English Book of Mormon.  I read it non stop in the MTC because when I read it, I have no doubt that this church is true.  The Book of Mormon will do the same for you.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that the Church of Jesus Christ is absolutely true.¨

That was a very emotional night for Marcos, but I was glad that for the first time, I could relate to someone here.  It’s hard to relate to them when I’ve never lived like them.  But now I have.  And I am thankful for it.  For the tiny house, the poor conditions, the freezing water, & the bad water.  Oh and the power goes out all the time.  I am thankful for these things because I can relate to these people and help them come unto the fold.

Love you all,
Elder McRae

10/17/2011 Naranjito, Ecuador

Family,

Okay I am done hearing about football.  It’s the only thing I miss.  I can’t believe A) that Liberty had a chance for a game winning field goal and I couldn’t kick it, and B) that Liberty started choking again and not being the pure dominating, steamrolling force they should be every year.  Tell Dantrell I wrote him a letter today so he should get it in a week or so.

So much has happened this week it is hard to remember it all.  We had another baptism.  A 10 year old boy named Luis Telmo Quispe Loor.  Yeah, that was fun to say while I was confirming him in front of the whole church.  We have more investigators than I think anyone else in our sector.  It seams we almost have too many to handle them all.  The sad part is all of them have either problems or are just really fighting baptism.  We are hoping to get 6 to commit to baptism this week.

For the first time, at the very beginning of this week, I felt a strong urge from the spirit.  My companion said he had an impression to go visit a family.  We walked way out of our way to visit this family but they were not there.  He was wondering why he felt this impression if they were not even going to be there.  I didn’t know any of this at the time but turned around and saw a door.  It was light at night but I really felt the urge to knock on the door.  I went up and knocked on the door and a 14 and 18 year old boy answered the door.  They let us in and we talked to them and about our purpose as missionaries.  The 18 year old (Guillermo) told us he has been wondering what he should do with his life this past week.  He got his girlfriend pregnant and she lives with him.  He doesn’t know what he should do with his life at this point.  He said we were like angels from God answering his question.  His brother loves us as well and they both want to be baptized.  Felix, the 14 year old, is scheduled to be baptized in 2 weeks.  Guillermo has to wait a little bit.  His girlfriend doesn’t like us… or the church… or any religion.  She is mad at the world.  We are all going to fast together this Sunday to try and soften her heart.  Guillermo really wants to do the right thing and is willing to get married and join the church.  He just wants his girlfriend to be okay with it and want the same thing.  But the point is, I listened to the prompting of the spirit and 2 or 3 baptisms may come of it.  It is so important to 1) Have the spirit so you can hear these promptings, and 2) Follow them! This will change this family´s life forever.

The other thing I have been thinking about this week.  WHY?  Why do I have what I have? Why do these people have what they have?  What did I do to deserve so much more? I don’t know why I was blessed with so many things for no reason.  This is what I have come up with.  I must have done something pretty freaking amazing in the premortal realm to be blessed like this.  You all better of done something amazing.  To be born into an LDS family in the country of the United States of America where you have a good job, clean water, a nice house, an amazing ward, education, and much more.  You must have made some pretty unbelievable covenants with the Lord to be blessed with all this.  So the question I have been thinking about is, “Am I keeping those covenants?”  Am I, and are you working your tail off so that you are worthy of all your blessings?  We need to keep in mind that we have been blessed with so much, more than 99% of the world.  Are we wasting Heavenly Father´s blessings?  Just something to think about.

Anyways, I am having a blast here.  Everything is great.  Love you all.

Love,
Elder McRae