Post Earthquake Update, Foods, Feet Sore, Bowling

4/25/16


So with regards to the situation our mission president has told us officially that for now we can't do too much as it requires professional help with the situation. Apparently it is extremely bad as it has been 9 days I believe since the earthquake so if any of the missing people weren't found within the first 4 days they are now dead due to lack of water.  Apparently the smell and destruction has caused a lot of psychological damage to péople working there. He states in the future if we have an opportunity to serve he will notify us. Apparently the situation is very dangerous to head over to the coast and Guayaquil West mission has evacuated missionaries from Manabi and affected parts due to robbing etc. So that is what we know of the situation so far.

We had a missionary recently go home here I believe as he didn't know why he was serving. I met this missionary and he just had no purpose and really didn't want to work. Apparently his parents had forced him to serve a mission and it kind of destroyed him.

So here in Quito the food does involve lots of soups normally. However we have a coastenian pensionista so we get a lot of coast food for lunch and I kind of got sick of rice after 3 courses of rice for lunch and dinner. We actually don't have a dinner person so we normally have to get our own food for dinner. The normal food here is usually some type of chicken with a salad of some sort with rice. Sometimes you get beans. The coast food involves a lot more of something called maduro or verde. Those are a type of plant that you can cook. With maduro you can slice and fry it and it is extremely sweet. Verde is usually used for patacones which is smashing and frying verde and it is rather good. Coast food also involves great quantities of rice all the time and also lots of seafood with the meal. They usually drink a jugo which is just like a fruit drink.


My toe is actually doing well I made sure to trim it well and now none of my toes are red or swollen so my feet are fine. The only problem is the bottom of my feet as we have been walking so much that it has opened a few sores on the bottom of my foot. It is rather small but it can hurt.

Today was fun as we went bowling (found in the north mission) as a zone. Unfortunately our group of 5 people got the rounds cut short as for a good portion of time our lane didn't work. So we got like 1 and a half rounds due to time issues. I did get a few photos of us. Not too many. That was the main feature of today as well as eating dunkin donuts (again only found in the north mission) over there. That was lots of fun.


Thanks
Have fun!

Elder Throop

A Stadium in the North Mission

Playing billiards before bowling

Preparing to bowl a strike?

Tyler and Elder Coronado from Peru

Earthquake (everyone is ok), Hammered and Chatized by Elder Hales and Elder Oaks, Ward Council Struggles

4/18/2016

Well with regards to the earthquake, Quito didn't get hit too bad. We were in the house of a member and it started shaking pretty hard. It felt like a very roller coaster ride almost. The thing was that we weren't sure to react as both me and my companion are from Arizona so we didn't know how to react. Quito did not receive any damage that I know of and I am not sure about how we will be helping the people here. I did hear Santo Domingo and a good portion of the coast got hit pretty bad which definitely wouldn't be fun especially if they can't write to their families. Our mission president still hasn't sent us any mail with regards to the earthquake but I am sure by this Thursday we should know something as we have district meeting. But yeah the excitement of the earthquake possibly will wake people up and do what they need to do.


Yesterday we had a multi-stake conference which featured as part of the speakers Elder Hales and Elder Oaks. They hammered people pretty hard here. Two speakers actually spoke Spanish for the entire talk but one had a reaaaaaaaly strong gringo accent (Bishop Davies) but they gave great talks. Elder Oaks did a kind of scary part where he mentioned that the suffering in these countries (Ecuador, Venezuala and Columbia) is coming from lack of paying tithing and if the people want to bring blessings on their nation they need to pay tithing. He mentioned that when Saints in a nation aren't faithful in general then they are cursed. I was thinking ohhh dang we are already in an econimc crisis here in Ecuador, but it could get way worse until people are faithful. Elder Montoya mentioned that when we fail to serve it is because our love for God is cold and considering the great commandment is love your God as yourself that was pretty hardcore.

The hope is people listen or there could be worse things in for store for them. I know our ward is really struggling. It's hard to get ward council as the members don't show up and they don't do too much to help us. Considering all that has been said on what they need to do if they don't do it we may need to bring down President Christensen and have him admonish ward members and ward council. We hope the work in that area can improve. I recently hit 10 months in the mission which was pretty cool. Pretty soon I will be at one year. I can't believe how fast it has gone so far.

Well I love you all and hope all goes well, Pics later.

Love,

Elder Throop

View from Quito in new sector

Another view

View of the Panacio from apartment

Elder Waldie

Elder Waldie as a pirate?

Slow Start to Sector, Working with Ward Mission Leader, Interviews with Mission President

4/11/2016


Well the work is going here it is just a little of a slow start.  Apparently we are the ones really starting to work hard to get the program going here. It has been a little rough some of the days as the ward members have very low confidence, but do have very strong desires to work. We have been contacting a ton and the hope is we can show to the members the disposition to work so that the members will be motivated to work with us. We talked about ideas for a ward mission plan and I shared a previous idea from Santo Domingo and they seem eager to work hard with us. The whole goal is to implement those plans to ensure the members really get to work. We have found some pretty cool new investigators but one goal we have is to get people with baptismal dates. We are really close with this one guy who is kind of like an eternal investigator and just acts strange sometimes but does know the church is true. I have high hopes for the sector.

We recently had interviews with our mission president and that went really well. I was super happy to hear that I am progressing with my accent as sometimes it is difficult to hear my accent and President Christensen was happy with my progress. He asked how I was trying to be like Christ how I am helping my companion be more like Christ and what were some things I learned from Conference. I shared I am striving to be diligent and humbly listen to the advice of my companion to learn how I could improve. Then I told him that I hope to instill in my companion hope and diligence as my companion sometimes can be discouraged as I was awhile ago. That was a great experience.

This last week was more work with contacts and finding news and we have had success. We still need to improve in some points but yeah it is working. The sector is a lot hillier then my last sector in Quito. The people are the same more or less as well as the ward. The weather is a mixture between cold rains here and sun in the afternoons. I use my sweater the majority of the time.

It is great Jorren´s birthday went well. Make sure to tell him Happy Birthday from me (even though it is a little belated) I hope you have a great week and I am enjoying it here and learning this sector well.

Love,

Elder Throop

Excited for Quito Temple, Internet Issues During Conference, Preparing People for the Temple

4/4/2016


Well it is certainly true that the Quito temple announcement caused quite a stir here. When they announced that,  everyone (including me) cheered like someone won the Superbowl. That was how excited everyone is. I don't know how long that will take to translate to people to want to work with us, but it is something we can use definitely. I know the faithfulness in tithing paying will go up here and hopefully we will be able to convince the members to work with us more. We did here the rest of the talk but only heard the Lima temple announcement as they were so loud. We did listen to Spanish this time which wasn't so much fun as my companion really wanted it in English and so did I. What happened is the satellite transmission didn't work for the building so they used the only computer for the transmission. Then of course the internet was bad sometimes.  During the Elder Holland talk the internet shut down which was extremely disappointing as we missed part of it. I wasn't so happy.

I do remember all the talks as I took very good notes. I plan on listening to them in English as it just isn't the same in Spanish.

Please wish Matt congratulations on the mission call. I was wondering when we would hear about that call. That is indeed strange that I will be more than a year in the mission when he hits the mission.

We enjoyed this week. The work is a little hard here but we plan on working a lot with members to get the work going here. Hopefully with a temple announced they will be more motivated. I have no pictures this time unfortunately as the batteries failed and so I had to get two new batteries and I only got that done today. I plan on getting pics this week. My companion is a little shorter then me but yeah we both are tall. We are staying diligent and things seem well. I definitely enjoy it as I play an active role in the sector and there is no real control of directing anything of senior companion. I  figure it rarely happens where the older person is junior companion but I enjoy working with him so I don´t mind.

I hope you all are well and we are certainly excited here!

Love

Elder Throop