5/30/2016
That sounds like a lot of fun with the zoo. I hope you enjoy your day. I didn't remember when memorial day was but we found out as we had been expecting to receive our money that we get normally but it got delayed which was unfortunate. We found out it was memorial day and that had caused the delays. Not too bad for me but also a dinner appointment we had fell as well as the person is working which might mean a longer day for us.
Today we had no activities. They have been really hammering down on activities and emphasizing the rules on activities like crazy so it is harder for the leaders to get permission. So this morning we only played sports as an early morning exercise before studying which is allowed.
This last week was a lot of us visiting members trying to help them gain confidence in us and also encouraging them to fulfill their callings (we did that in a subtle way) in ward council we actually got more results as we mentioned a form that they need to use which explains a lot of their duties. We hope next week they actually bring those forms and we might see more results. Our ward mission leader also got released as he wasn't helping too much and also had family troubles. Apparently he didn't want to do anything more in his calling. We still don't have a ward mission leader but they plan on calling someone who should help things start moving.
Our investigator that was doing well has randomly disappeared these last few weekends. We will have to see what happened. I am not sure what happened.
Well I hope you guys do well. Have fun with everything!
Elder Throop
Monday, May 30, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
Rough Week, No-Show Appointments, Fortify the Members
5/23/2016
Well we only had the zone conference. The multi stake conference was not apparently real which was weird as it looked real. This sector is still going hard with the ward. We had one of the roughest weeks with members helping us so far as we had 14 lessons but members were only present in 3 lessons. We invite,call, etc and just nothing so far. Unfortunately we feel it might require the help of our mission president as I was giving the information to our district leader and he mentioned that we really need more priesthood keys to get anything more done. We talked to the Elders Quorum President about the things going on and he said a lot of members lack faith and he would like the members faith fortified.. The only problem with that is we don't have enough time as that is the entire ward he wants strengthened and we just can't do that on our own. One big problem is the economic crisis has hurt people a lot here. The members now have longer hours and less pay and he explained many people worry about losing work . Also many here are now independent workers so they have to take advantage of work opportunities. So we are fighting against a lot. They know we are working but they have a great fear. We might see some results but right now our big objective is work a lot with fortifying the ward.
The investigator that was doing well didn't show up in church as he had a family problem so it makes sense why he didn´t show. We will have a family home evening with him and the bishop tonight. We have to reput the fecha and get him in church this sunday. Just a lot of work here.
The zone conference we had was great and they were mentioning some of the reasons why members don't help us. Quite honestly I felt parts didn't apply to us our 4 other elders as there are two particularly bad wards here with the missionary work. The other ward the one were the district leader is at has nothing too much as they walk a lot. They were mentioning we need to be specific in our reports (which we try to do now) and a few other things. The big problem is that there is no organization here and they make assignments but nothing gets done. So we are trying our best but the members know very clearly we are working hard yet they just sometimes don't want to work with us. Many excuses are made or the members don't show when we can plan to go with them.
Today we went to the basilica so I got several photos which I will send you. Last week we visited a few members and we are trying to find more people that can progress and help others progress. Some need to get married. I hope you guys do well.
Enjoy summer vacation.
Elder Throop
Here's pics from another trip to the Basilica
Well we only had the zone conference. The multi stake conference was not apparently real which was weird as it looked real. This sector is still going hard with the ward. We had one of the roughest weeks with members helping us so far as we had 14 lessons but members were only present in 3 lessons. We invite,call, etc and just nothing so far. Unfortunately we feel it might require the help of our mission president as I was giving the information to our district leader and he mentioned that we really need more priesthood keys to get anything more done. We talked to the Elders Quorum President about the things going on and he said a lot of members lack faith and he would like the members faith fortified.. The only problem with that is we don't have enough time as that is the entire ward he wants strengthened and we just can't do that on our own. One big problem is the economic crisis has hurt people a lot here. The members now have longer hours and less pay and he explained many people worry about losing work . Also many here are now independent workers so they have to take advantage of work opportunities. So we are fighting against a lot. They know we are working but they have a great fear. We might see some results but right now our big objective is work a lot with fortifying the ward.
The investigator that was doing well didn't show up in church as he had a family problem so it makes sense why he didn´t show. We will have a family home evening with him and the bishop tonight. We have to reput the fecha and get him in church this sunday. Just a lot of work here.
The zone conference we had was great and they were mentioning some of the reasons why members don't help us. Quite honestly I felt parts didn't apply to us our 4 other elders as there are two particularly bad wards here with the missionary work. The other ward the one were the district leader is at has nothing too much as they walk a lot. They were mentioning we need to be specific in our reports (which we try to do now) and a few other things. The big problem is that there is no organization here and they make assignments but nothing gets done. So we are trying our best but the members know very clearly we are working hard yet they just sometimes don't want to work with us. Many excuses are made or the members don't show when we can plan to go with them.
Today we went to the basilica so I got several photos which I will send you. Last week we visited a few members and we are trying to find more people that can progress and help others progress. Some need to get married. I hope you guys do well.
Enjoy summer vacation.
Elder Throop
Here's pics from another trip to the Basilica
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| Looking north |
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| Looking South |
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| I promise I didn't take the rock |
Monday, May 16, 2016
Slow Ward Progress, But Working Hard
5/16/2016
This last week went pretty well starting the change off. Unfortunately we still are struggling a bit trying to get the ward to progress. The ward is veeeeeeery slowly progressing. But we try. We do have good news as we have someone progressing to baptism now. We finally got the guy in church and he accepted a baptismal date for the Fourth of June. He is really great and one of his children is 9 and is a girl and the other is 7 a boy. He has a slight word of wisdom problem (with smoking) but we already put goals on him and plans for him to get over his addiction. He is very cool.
The ward council barely gave us time to talk about things that need to get done here. Still they seemed interested to hear about progressing investigators. We talked with our district leader of what we need to do and he said that we really need to get a lot of appointments with members to teach them about their duty in leadership. We plan on getting one appointment per day which is somewhat high but it is in order to get work done. We will start with the ward mission leader as he is the one that lack helping us. We hope to talk to the bishop at some point (many bishops here never receive capacitation-ie training) and yeah the other leaders. Apparently there is going to be another multi-stake conference which is unusual as the last one was just last transfer. So we are working hard with the members. We do have a zone conference this week which should be fun and we should be hearing from our mission president some important things.
I am doing well with my companion. Our great hope is to improve the ward this change because we feel the reason there were no changes really is to save this ward. We are working hard and we will have to see how we can keep finding news and helping people progress. today we had no activities but we did play basketball as a district in the morning (not an official activity however) We are just trying real hard to get things going well here.
Elder Throop
This last week went pretty well starting the change off. Unfortunately we still are struggling a bit trying to get the ward to progress. The ward is veeeeeeery slowly progressing. But we try. We do have good news as we have someone progressing to baptism now. We finally got the guy in church and he accepted a baptismal date for the Fourth of June. He is really great and one of his children is 9 and is a girl and the other is 7 a boy. He has a slight word of wisdom problem (with smoking) but we already put goals on him and plans for him to get over his addiction. He is very cool.
The ward council barely gave us time to talk about things that need to get done here. Still they seemed interested to hear about progressing investigators. We talked with our district leader of what we need to do and he said that we really need to get a lot of appointments with members to teach them about their duty in leadership. We plan on getting one appointment per day which is somewhat high but it is in order to get work done. We will start with the ward mission leader as he is the one that lack helping us. We hope to talk to the bishop at some point (many bishops here never receive capacitation-ie training) and yeah the other leaders. Apparently there is going to be another multi-stake conference which is unusual as the last one was just last transfer. So we are working hard with the members. We do have a zone conference this week which should be fun and we should be hearing from our mission president some important things.
I am doing well with my companion. Our great hope is to improve the ward this change because we feel the reason there were no changes really is to save this ward. We are working hard and we will have to see how we can keep finding news and helping people progress. today we had no activities but we did play basketball as a district in the morning (not an official activity however) We are just trying real hard to get things going well here.
Elder Throop
Monday, May 9, 2016
No changes, Panacillo visit again, Fruits and Veggies
5/9/2016
Well first things first with the changes are whole district minus one person didn't get changed. So I am still with Elder Waldie. It was extremely strange. One person went to the offices as a secretary but he is super new which is strange. I don't understand the changes sometimes how they are made. So we got them at 7:30 in the middle of an appointment. We got a new zone leader in our zone which should be interesting. So yeah, I will be with Elder Waldie for my year mark.
Today we didn't do too much. We did visit the Panacillo which is in our sector so we went there and grabbed some photos. Church is still disappointing getting investigators present.We also didn't have ward council that day so this ward possibly go downhill if they get into any bad habits.
We played a little bit on a rather poor quality monopoly game I have. I just have some amazingly bad luck as this is the third game where everything just goes downhill for me. Oh well. I am glad I bought it as it cost $4 and is constant entertainment when needed and when you have time. So we had some fun with that.
We have normal fruits and vegetables that you would see in the states. Then we have kind of more exotic ones like dragonfruit (i believe) and granaba which has the appearance of an orange with a stem but has a hard outer shell. You break it open and it has seeds in this white film. It looks like white mini tentacles so it has the weirdest texture ever. Still it is pretty cool. With vegetables they don't eat too many as it can cost people a lot of money for fruit and vegetables here.
Love you all,
Elder Throop
Mom's Note:
We got to Skype with Tyler yesterday, on Mother's Day. The appointment with the member family fell through, so they called from their regular cyber store again, so we saw lots of customers, etc in the background. It was so great to talk with him. He seems so much more mature than when he left and it hasn't quite been a year yet. He was really pleased to see and hear all of us, even the kids when they were being loud. He bore his testimony again in Spanish, which is always such a delight to hear. The kids were happy to see him and Daniel asked him several questions about how he prepared to go on a mission and what really helped. Of course, daily scripture study was the top thing mentioned, along with prayer and reading the Book of Mormon. He acknowledged that not all guys are really ready to go out at 18, but that's ok to wait a year or two if you're not sure. But, he was really glad to go out right out of high school and that it was the best thing for him. Just one more month, and he'll hit the year mark!
Well first things first with the changes are whole district minus one person didn't get changed. So I am still with Elder Waldie. It was extremely strange. One person went to the offices as a secretary but he is super new which is strange. I don't understand the changes sometimes how they are made. So we got them at 7:30 in the middle of an appointment. We got a new zone leader in our zone which should be interesting. So yeah, I will be with Elder Waldie for my year mark.
Today we didn't do too much. We did visit the Panacillo which is in our sector so we went there and grabbed some photos. Church is still disappointing getting investigators present.We also didn't have ward council that day so this ward possibly go downhill if they get into any bad habits.
We played a little bit on a rather poor quality monopoly game I have. I just have some amazingly bad luck as this is the third game where everything just goes downhill for me. Oh well. I am glad I bought it as it cost $4 and is constant entertainment when needed and when you have time. So we had some fun with that.
We have normal fruits and vegetables that you would see in the states. Then we have kind of more exotic ones like dragonfruit (i believe) and granaba which has the appearance of an orange with a stem but has a hard outer shell. You break it open and it has seeds in this white film. It looks like white mini tentacles so it has the weirdest texture ever. Still it is pretty cool. With vegetables they don't eat too many as it can cost people a lot of money for fruit and vegetables here.
Love you all,
Elder Throop
Mom's Note:
We got to Skype with Tyler yesterday, on Mother's Day. The appointment with the member family fell through, so they called from their regular cyber store again, so we saw lots of customers, etc in the background. It was so great to talk with him. He seems so much more mature than when he left and it hasn't quite been a year yet. He was really pleased to see and hear all of us, even the kids when they were being loud. He bore his testimony again in Spanish, which is always such a delight to hear. The kids were happy to see him and Daniel asked him several questions about how he prepared to go on a mission and what really helped. Of course, daily scripture study was the top thing mentioned, along with prayer and reading the Book of Mormon. He acknowledged that not all guys are really ready to go out at 18, but that's ok to wait a year or two if you're not sure. But, he was really glad to go out right out of high school and that it was the best thing for him. Just one more month, and he'll hit the year mark!
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| Panacillo |
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| view from the top |
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| Tyler at the top |
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| Looking up from the lookout area |
Monday, May 2, 2016
Cleaning house and eating Cuy!!
Well this Monday was the last Pday in this change so we got to clean the house a bit and then went to El Recreo as the last Pday of a change that is what you have to do. That sounds really awesome with the Elder Holland conference. Our conference put an emphasis on The Book Of Mormon and the importance of missionary work. Sometimes the apostles have to rebuke and admonish and other times they express their love. Elder Holland is a lot of rebuking sometimes and also of love. I do find it cool you got to hear.
That is great with the grades of Jorren. I don't understand why that grading system is so strict though. 90 should be at the least an A minus. Doesn't make any sense. Still he did a good job. I figure with school ending soon for the boys you will get the final reports on how they did. I do look forward to seeing you next Sunday. We are planning to go to a member's house that day. I am not sure when we will receive changes but it could possibly be around the phone call time. I don't know though. That would be rather fun if you saw what changes are like here.
I got some fun photos from last week as we got to eat some really fun food. Do you know what cuy is? We ate this with a family where the wife is a member and the husband is investigating. He sells idols so it will take awhile for his baptism. He called us and was like hey you know what cuy is? (Making cuy sounds) and he said come hungry we are eating cuy (which is roasted guinea pig). So Elder Waldie and I had to get the cameras for pics of course.
Have fun and love you all,
Elder Throop
Mom's Note:
Here's pics of the cuy. (If you get squeamish at seeing pics of roasted small animals, you should just skip these!
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| Pics of Quito from up high with the clouds |
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| Quito |
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| Tyler eating a plate of Cuy |
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| Holding the head of the Cuy |
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| Another pic of the head |
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| Family that served the Cuy |
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