Elder Matthew David Morris

Hey Everyone!
I had a great week this week. We had a very spiritual zone conference this week. We didn't end up having very much time to do a whole lot of this as far as teaching goes, but we had a very good week here in Otavalo. Tuesday I had to go with a couple of the Senor missionaries from the offices to go do checkups on the houses of all of the missionaries here. Luckily all of the missionaries passed the cleaning check. On thursday we had interviews with the President. They turned out GREAT! I learned so much in my interview. I filled up a whole page of my study diary with things that I learned in my interview alone. Then thursday evening one of our investigators here had an interview with President Sloan. After the interview President came out and gave me a big smile, and a thumbs up! So our investigator passed the interview and is going to get baptised sunday the 28th in the morning before the meetings start. He told us last night that he wants to be baptised in a river or in one of the lakes here! So we have an appointment with him tonight to work out some of the details.I am really excited for him, he is a great guy. His name is Luis Alberto Quinchguango. He is indigenous and doesnt speak a whole lot of spanish, so it has been a bit of a slow process but he´s finally ready! He has had a really hard life, he is really poor. He is married to a member that has for about 15 years been inactive. He and his wife got married about a year ago, they are both about 40 years old. His wife was born blind, and she is now 8 months pregnant. We are really excited for them both. They are progressing so much now, they have the goal to go to the Temple in another year after the baptism. It has been a great experience for me to be able to know and to teach him and his family. I have learned so much from him and how humble he really is. When we first met him he didn´t really have any purpose to life, he lived with fear every day. Many days they didn't have food in the house for the family. Even worse with his wife so close to giving birth now. But now with him learning these things we have seen him find a new light and happiness. He truly has a new light in his eyes everytime that we visit him. I will surely send pictures home of the baptism.
One new thing that I just remembered, I got a new companion this week. Elder Taylor got transferred monday morning. I am still here in the sector. My new companion´s name is Eler Paredes, he is from Lima Peru. He only has about 3 months left in the mission now. We are getting along great, he is a funny kid, and a great cook! haha. Yesterday he taught me how to make Chinese fried rice! Today we went with the senor missionaries from the offices to show them around Otavalo. One of the pictures we took I am sending with the e-mail. In the picture of the group of us, starting from the left the couple is the Curtis´, they live in Sandy Utah, they will finish the mission about the same time as I have, next is Hermana Dressen, she is the secretary in the offices, she is from good old REXBURG IDAHO!!! Well she is actually from Wisconsin, but about 12 years ago moved to Rexburg. Then comes the Rose´, the big guy and his wife! They are great, they are from Roy Utah!

It was alot of fun going around with them. We went to the market here in Otavalo today to buy souvenirs and I helped the senor missionaries to not get charged too much. It was just a blast for me to go around translating for all of them.
So ya thats been my week. Lots of fun down here in Ecuador. The other pictures I´m sending are of me doing a little unplanned service project for a member family, cracking bean pods! It was alot of fun, they let the pods dry out, then you crack them open and the beans all come out. It was really pretty to see how all the different pods had different colored beans.

Then the other picture was from church two sundays ago, I was worried that I would get changed so I made sure to take a picture with some of the cute little kids here! They really are adorable kids here. In the picture the little boy´s name is Nephi!