Hey everyone!
This week was a roller coaster week. Lots of ups ad downs... The interviews were good this week. After all of the interviews we went to dinner with President Sloan, his wife, and the Stake Presidents here in the two stakes we are over. It was great. It was a really fancy restaurant on the lakeside just outside of Otavalo. I got a green salad with ranch dressing to start, then a Filet Mignon, with Cantelope juice to drink, then after the meal, I got ice cream with chocolate cake! It was pretty good in fact. The sad part was, that my meal alone cost about 35 dollars! WOW, I couldn't believe it, but President told us not to be bashful about what we ordered, it was our special night. So that was pretty nice. Wednesday morning I had to go to Quito. We left here at about 6 am. I had to go with some new missionaries here in the zone that had to go receive their official Ecuador I.D. It was an alright trip. Didn't get robbed or anything so that was good. We went to that burger shop again. This time I got an GRANDE RootBeer and double cheese burger! haha, it was delicious!
We have a new investigator here that is doing great! He is a members cousin here in our ward. He is no coming to church regularly and even the ward activities! He loves the Book of Mormon. He and his family are Catholic, but when we explained to him the Book of Mormon and he started reading, he told us it was what has always been missing to him. He will probably be getting baptised the 19th of June. I will keep the updates coming on him. Yesterday in our sector we were just trying our hardest to avoid all of the drunk people in the streets! They were everywhere. Sadly a couple of the investigators were a little bit "chumado" aka drunk! So we had a few rough spots in the week with investigators and members, but all is well. We are doing good here.
This saturday we had a ward activity for Mother´s day. We had a small talent show, then a "Parrillada" (barbecue). It turned out very well, except for the fact that they forgot to bring silverware for the food. So it got a bit messy! haha. We were the waiters for the activity. We got to serve all of the food, just to pay back to our "Mamitas" here. So hopefully they were able to gain more love and confidence with us. Its always tough when you don´t have the support of the members in a ward. The members here are pretty good with us, but could always be better. We hope to have some more success here to be able to excite the members more about being involved in missionary work.
I was able to chat a little with President Sloan this week in my interview about some things. He gave me the impression that I will stay here in Otavalo for another 6 weeks. So I will be here the same amount of time I was in Esmeraldas for, 7 1/2 months! But we will just see what happens when we get the changes in a couple weeks. He showed me my scheduled release date. Thursday October 14th!........... 4 1/2 months is all that's left for me. Its pretty scary to think about, so I try not to think about it! haha. But whatever happens, I will enjoy the time left here. There is alot to do here, and I hope I can get some of it done.
Thank you all for your letter and your support. Love you all!
Elder Matthew Morris