Well Hello Guys

May 28, 2012

Well, hello guys :)  How are you all???  Wow, I’ve had such a CRAZYYYYYY week.  Really it’s so nuts.  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the Sr. comps, District leaders and Zone leaders all had to travel to Guayaquil.  We had to wake up at 4:30 every morning and be there on time because of all the busses and taxis we had to take but they were such great meetings and we all learned soooo much.  It’s so cool but you guys know when you work and don’t sleep your body gets weak and sick.  I’m just barely getting over a little cold but it will be gone soon.  My comp and a recent convert that has the priesthood

gave me a blessing and I’m feeling great today:).

 We had a good turnout yesterday at church so I’m pretty sure that we are going to have baptisms on the 9^th.  Two girls, Yomida age 16 and her cousin Ericka, 18 years old.  Ericka’s Mom is a less active member and we taught her daughter and her nieces and they all want to get baptized.  I’m so stoked, they only have to go to church this Sunday and they are all set.  They have changed 150%.  Ericka had a tongue ring and lip piercing and things like that and she’s taken them out and loves the Young Women’s and all the love that is in the church.  Something these girls have been searching for a long time, I’m sure.  I’m so happy for them.  They are good girls and they are reading like crazy the Book of Mormon.  It makes me so happy.  We are teaching a man that is 21 years old and he’s a marine.  He is so awesome.  We walked past his house Saturday night just to say hi and see if he was reading and he asked “do you have time to share something with me right now?”  THAT NEVER HAPPENS!!!!  People never ask us to share with them.  He’s got his baptism date for the 23^rd of June.  My one year mark!!  What a great present for my one year mark.  He also has a little sister Adriana, who is 9 years old and she wants to get baptized with her brother.  Wow, it’s so cool.  This week has been incredibly tiring but at the same time, we’ve received so many blessings for being obedient.

            My card finally came in the mail.  Thank you.

            I also have some bad news….it hasn’t happened yet but I’m pretty sure my camera might die soon.  Lines have been coming across the screen lately.  I don’t know what it is but there are places to fix things like that here so I will take it in to see what they can do, but I will wait it out until I really have to buy a new one.  It’s held out a month so far so maybe I can get it go to longer.  Also, a guy from our ward is trying to hook us up with some really nice work boot style shoes with metal toes.  I don’t really need metal toes but they are strong and nice.  He’s showed us a pair that he has had for 2 years and they are still holding up.  He works in some pretty rough stuff.  They only cost $25 because his own company has made them for the workers.  He is going to try to get us a pair.  My shoes are still holding up pretty good though so we’ll see.

            Gosh the time is flying past, guys.  I can’t believe it.  I love you alllll sooo much.  I will talk to you in a short week more.

                                                                                                I Love you,

                                                                                                Love Elder Profaizer

Pictures from 28 May 2012

Elder Profaizer and Elder Doyle at 4:30 in the morning before meetings with Mission President

 Elder Rodriges, Elder Profaizer, Elder Rincon.

These are Matthew's zone leaders and both are from Columbia

 Elders and Elder Snow from Idaho (Big Budah)

 All the Senior Comps, District Leaders and Zone Leaders from Matthew's zone.

May 28, 2012 - Hey family, How are you guys :)

Hey family, How are you guys :) Well, this week has flowwwwnnnn past. Really, it’s been a crazy week. Tuesday we went to a leadership meeting and then Wednesday we had district meeting. Thursday was normal, haha, then Friday we went to Guayaquil again for interviews of all of our zone. It really beats you up to have to travel a lot. I feel dead today. I hope that I can take a nap later on but I doubt I’ll be able to because my bado is so use to the sleepless schedule that we live. Oh well, Apolo is pretty much dead. Really I hope I’m not here too long to tell the truth. There is just so much iniquity here and the people are so deep in sin it’s impossible to touch them with the spirit. I had a scary experience this week. We were talking to a lady that owns a little shop and a drunk came to her shop. I always like to give drunks the word of wisdom pamphlet, so I tried giving it to him and he started spilling everything out of his soul about how his wife went off with another guy and how he doesn’t have money to feed his kids. He told me he was going to kill his wife….it scared me pretty good because he did have a gun. But he will chill with me and he kept asking me what I would do in his situation. I told him I would search out God to better my life but he just kept telling me how he was going to go shoot his wife. It really disturbed me for the rest of the night but I don’t know if he did it or not because after talking to him, he finally took the pamphlet. I told him to go home and think it through. He said he would but I don’t know…he just walked off after that. I can’t believe the mentality of people here. I don’t know! I’m sure there are people like this all over the world. I feel so bad for them. This sector has really opened my eyes to so much more than I’ve ever seen before. What a great experience though to teach me. I don’t feel fear in the streets and I don’t feel nervous. I really feel a great peace that God will protect us and I feel calm. I just say hi to the creepy people with a smile on my face and it lifts their angry faces. They just make a joke or something about the gringo and try to say something in English to me. It’s really fun to see the peoples expressions change. I am so happy out here and know that God protects us when we are being obedient. It’s crazy to see my attitude change and how I can just focus myself but I can see some attributes coming out of me when I focus. It’s kinda funny because when I’m focused I can see myself acting like Kirby Rhodes, (I love that guy) Don’t worry it’s not that extreme but I hope that this mission will prepare me to be a good boss one day when I have a shop. Oh boy, well I gotta go. I love you all so much. Love, Elder Profaizer Dearest Sar-bear I sure miss you so much. I hope that you have gotten my letters. It’s an envelope with 6 letters or something like that in it. I love you so much. I can’t wait to hear from you.

Dear Family

May 14, 2012

Dear Family, Hey everyone:) Wow! It was so good to talk to all of you yesterday. I won't lie, I was so nervous to talk to you guys again.... I don't know why I get so nervous, but I do. It is a little draining but I woke up this morning ready to go and ready to hit it again. Today we haven't done much but we actually did do something fun. My zone leaders called us and we all went to a city called “26”. That's the real name of the city. I don't know if they just didn't have a name for it or what. All the District leaders, of which I am one, and our companions went to “26” and we made hamburgers. They weren't quite like the ones we made on our homemade barbeque grill but they were still good and we had a meeting. We talked about the people in our districts and how to help them better. That was nice and relaxing. Our zone leaders are really cool and really good examples of how you can be a good and fun missionary, a good leader, and obedient but still be fun and have a good time so we don't die of stress (like one of my other zones). I'm trying to learn all that I can so maybe one day I can be a leader like them. I just soak it up when they come on exchanges because I just learn so much. Tomorrow we have to travel to Guayaquil and go to a big meeting of leaders with the President in the morning. We have to be in Guayaquil at 7 in the morning so we will get up at 4:30 and get to “26” which is a another 45 minutes then we meet with the other missionaries and then take another bus to Guayaquil. I'm excited to see all my buddies from the mission and my old comps. THE MISSION IS GREAT!!!!! I can't write much today, but I love you guys and take care :) Love, Elder Profaizer

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

April 30, 2012 - Dear Family

Dear Family,

            Wow, so I got changed out of my sector again.  I’m finally out of Guayaquil and I am SO SO SO Happy. I’m finally out where there are fields and dirt roads.  This will be awesome.  My companion is another newbee. He just has 3 months and he’s from Mexico.  I’m not all that sure about him so far.  He doesn’t stay on task very well, well at least not when we are cleaning the house.  I had to tell him when we get it clean is when we go write letters, haha, and we got it done.  It was so trashed when I got here, just so nasty and dirty.  But, oh well, now it is spic and span.

            I got a ton of Dear Elder letters from you guys and Sarah, wow, I’m so happy to finally hear from you guys.  So you wanted to know about my day to day life.  Well, it’s pretty boring, the same thing everyday relaly, but here we have mamitas for the clothes that clean them and in LaChala our mamita didn’t charge us.  She was the patriarch’s wife.  Her name is Annita, like Anna, but when you put the ita at the end it makes it like little Anna.  It’s hard to explain.  She was so great, but now I’m here and Elder Valenzuela told me the mamita here charges $5.  I’ll go find someone else to do it because that’s a ton of money.  Well, at least for broke missionaries like us.  But here they kill your clothes with bleach and they sometimes lose socks or burn them because dryers suck here. (if there are dryers).  But they always replace them but the replacement socks aren’t quite the quality that the gold toes are.  Like Farrrrr from the quality so if you guys could please send me a few pairs of gold toes.  Socks are golden out here.  I’m still good on garments though.  I really have everything I need here.  I never go without.

            I have a question, how are we going to do the Mother’s Day call thing?  I don’t know when Mothers day is here.  I think it is the 13^th so I’m not sure if I call you that day or what…..I’ll let you guys know Monday or I’ll try to do a pre-call thing again.  I’ll probably just call you guys from here because it is five cents a minute to the states from here.  I love you guys lots,  I can’t believe it’s that time again.  I complete a year here pretty soon J  Wow!

            So me and my old comp, Elder Hoskins, we had the best week ever.  Thursday we successfully cooked hamburgers on a fan grill.  They were sooooo good.  Then Friday night, we had to do a skit for the ward talent show.  We lip-synced a song in Spanish that is about a missionary that is leaving on the mission and he has to leave his girl friend. It’s like, I will wait for you and it talks about all that stuff and talks about being sealed in the temple for eternity, haha and stuff like that.  It’s funny because what we did was blew up a HUGE picture of Sarah’s face and made a mask, (hope that is ok, Sarah.  I love you.)  Then Elder Hoskins dressed like a girl with a skirt and I a Dad with street clothes on.  In the song, when he leaves for the mission, I pull of my shirt and I have my white shirt and tag on, and then when the song talks about eternity, I pull of my pants and Hoskins pulls the skirt off and I have my white pants on under and he has a ladies baptism jumper on so we were all in white.  It was great.  I can’t send the video but I have pics I will send.  It was so great.  I’m really gonna miss Hoskins a lot.  We were crazy rednecksJ 

            I love you guys a lot, pray for me in this sector….it’s not a good one.  The missionary before me was trunky and didn’t work very hard so they have no people they are teaching right now.  We will see how it goes…..

                                                                                                Love,

                                                                                                Elder Profaizer