Elder Thayne

Well, things here in the office are going well. We're just working super hard! When I said that the old secretary was leaving this transfer, I meant he was leaving the office, not the mission field. So he's here with me for this transfer, and he's been in Guayaquil for his whole mission (a year and a half) so he's pretty anxious to get out. But yeah, anyway, this week was pretty crazy. We didn't get to go to the sector a lot, because we were doing a ton of stuff to get ready for the zone conferences that are this week, and getting visas registered and filed for the 18 missionaries that came this transfer. It was a lot of work, and we had a lot of really late nights. The secretary has to do more work than anyone here, so we spend a lot of time in the office. On Thursday, we were in the office until midnight.... sheesh. The schedule here is a little bit different (obviously). We doing everything we can to get in bed by 10:30, but sometimes it's just not possible. But we still have to get up at 6:30!

As of today, I have seen every one of the missionaries that I came with from the MTC. Yesterday, right after zone conference, I saw Elder Robinson because his conference was right after ours. That was the first time I've seen him. And Elder Johnson was the last one. I hadn't seen him in four months, and he popped up in the office this morning! It was really cool seeing him again, I had forgotten how tall he is! He is literally a GIANT here. Haha, but yeah that was cool.

We had a few good lessons this week when were able to go to the sector. We're teaching a lady called Emerica Reina. She's about 75 years old and lives in a house with a few of her grandkids. We went by last week and taught her a lesson and committed her to be be baptized, but she didn't accept. Elder Cambra said were going to leave her because she wouldn't progress, but I told him we should give her one more chance. We went back and taught a super powerful lesson on faith. The lesson went really well, and right at the opportune moment, we gave her another nice, clear, direct baptismal commitment. She didn't take it. She said she wasn't ready for that, that she didn't want to do it. We gave her some words of comfort, and then committed her to say a prayer and ask God what he thinks about the date we set. She accepted that one at least. Coming back to the next lesson, I didn't expect a whole lot from her, but I still had the faith that things could work out well. We went to her house, and we asked her if she remember the assignment we gave her. She said she did it. We asked her how she felt. She said she felt good. Then we asked what she thought. She said, "Me voy a bautizar," (I'm going to get baptized). Wow. So we have high hopes for her. It was incredible how she just changed like that. She had a completely different attitude about the whole thing, but yeah it was cool. We'll see if she shows up at church tomrrow!

We've also been teaching a young couple and their kid. Omar is 20 and his wife, Jennyfer, is 18 and they have a one year old kid. They live in a tiny little beat-up house the size of my room back home, and they're really nice people. Omar has been listening really well and keeping his commitments. We haven't been able to see them a lot because they're pretty busy with work and school, but we're hoping to place a baptismal date soon. So we'll see what happens with them.

This week, I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish for the first time. It was a pretty daunting task, but I read the whole thing in 12 weeks, and holy cow, when I finished I was speaking Spanish!

So that's that. Sounds like things are going well back home! And oh man, I loved those stories about the balloon, hahaha. So typical, Dad. And the pictures were awesome, thanks!

That's all, chao!
Elder Thayne