Dear Family

May 7, 2012

Dear Family, Well hello guys: I had my first week here in Ward Apolo. I'm actually in the city of Milagro and I'm on the out skirts and in pure swamps. My mosquito immunity that I've had since birth is serving me very well. My comp is getting eaten alive but I don't get touched. It's sweet! I'm literally in the middle of nowhere and I'm teaching people in cane houses, like bamboo huts. This is really cool. Finally I get to be in a real setting that I imagined when I got the call.....but the sector is full of iniquity. Nobody is married. Everyone just lives together and if we want to baptize them, they have to get married which is impossible because it costs $50. That is more than their houses and we aren't supposed to pay for the marriages. I totally would go without food to pay for them to tell the truth, but we were told not to. Also, to freak you guys out a little bit, my sector is the most dangerous in this whole zone. There are parts that we are prohibited to enter after 4 in the afternoon because they will rob you of everything. It's cool, but to us the robbers just joke with us and stuff but you can never be too sure. Really, in Ecuador people respect anyone preaching the word of God because everyone, even the robbers, are scared of God. Yesterday we had to enter that part of the sector to take an investigator back to his house after church. We left allllllll our stuff at our house. I left everything, bag, good shoes. I put my oldest most craped out shoes on, I left my belt home, put on an old crap tie because we had to enter that sector at 6. Nothing every happened so I guess we were blessed but we did take paths through the sierra and swamp areas so we weren't on the main way where the robbers are. Ok, so when I have my own shop, remind me never to hire certain kinds of people. My comp is struggling to do a good job on everything. He is kind of lazy and he's a wimp. Really, he got a little blister on his foot and won't walk fast because of that. I just walk fast anyway so that he toughens up and gets callouses on his feet. He's way new so he's not been hardened yet. I'll get him to quality soon! He was talking and he said that he didn't know how people worked 12 hrs. I thought, WHAT? That's Normal for me...haha. Then I told him what I was working before the mission. He did the same thing as me but only did it for 6 hrs a day. About the Mother's Day call. We can talk about 7:30 Sunday night. I am super excited to talk to your guys. Happy Mother's Day, Mom :) I still haven't got my debit card but I haven't got any mail yet so I am sure it is just in the office. I love you all soo much :) Love Elder Profaizer