Senior Companion=More Service Opportunities, Interesting Companion, Baptism

6/27/2016

Well changes are only one time but I am the senior companion now they made that clear in the changes. It isn't too much different for me as I am still serving my companion and leading the sector. Senior companion just means more service opportunities and to help your companion more. He does seem interesting and funny. He is a little different from some of my other companions. Unfortunately his last district leader was dying (missionary speak for going home soon) and wasn't the best example to say so I will have to work out a few of those bugs. Also he has an interesting teaching style. He seemed to have some things memorized like saying did you understand the three principles of something required for baptism in a practice and I went huh? He said you know the three things required for a baptism to be right and I was like uh going to church listening to missionaries and doing the compromisos. He's like no authority lots of water. I am like huh interesting I guess you can teach that but you don't need to teach that all the time. I hope to help him with his teaching skills. He seems to need help with that and contacts. He does seem to not know some things about the mission but that's ok I guess.

With the changes which were not yesterday but the week before they combined the sectors together and so now I am running two sectors. Not the most fun as it is the whole ward basically. It will take some work. We did have a baptism though as the other Elders left someone progressing. We still have to adjust to running two sectors and it could take some work.

Last week was great for us and we did see some more progress. Our hope is that we can get some people progressing now. We still have many people with quite the list of troubles and problems. Some fun with that. We still have to get Pedro in church. Martha might not be married. So we will see.

We have had a lot of appointments with new people fall so we are still struggling with that. I have seen many miracles here and many blessings of obedience. We had a particularly rough day but we did have a miracle in an appointment where we got an investigator to promise to do something hard and drop part of his business to be baptized. We have great hope with him.

Love you all,
Elder Throop

Photos to come as today we went to a museum that is an historical museum where they got independence here. I got some photos of that and the baptism.

View of the city in the rain

One Year Mark, Burning a Shirt (not one Mom bought!!), Changes, Senior Companion

6/20/2016

Well that sounds like no fun with that trip you had I hope you enjoy the strawberry jam though. Sounds great with the scout camps and I hope everyone has fun with those especially with Daniel and the trek. I really enjoyed trek when I went and also the SVU missionary camp. Of course it was only one week which really is not that much time.

Well for my one year mark that was a lot of fun. We went to this place that had a deal on pizza. It was good pizza but quite honestly nothing really gets close to the states unless it is super pricy. They do have papa johns and dominos here but it costs a lot but those are good pizzas. I did get pizza that day. What we did in the evening is we went to the other elders house to the top and burnt the shirt on a wire. It burnt surprisingly well. I did enjoy it.

And now for changes. My companion left going to Chillogallo which is in Quito. He is district leader over there. The other two elders in our ward got pulled out so they closed that sector. I do have a new companion now. His name is Elder Hernandez and he is from Mexico. So now I can confirm which words are not so great in Mexico. It is a little funny how he reacts but he seems like a great guy. He was a visa waiter in mexico a change and then got trained here. He just left his training. So, me and him are here running the whole ward now.We hope to work well with members this change. I figure after this change I could leave this sector easily. The changes were pretty crazy mission wide and I can imagine the culture will change a lot here in the mission.

So yeah, I do have some photos of everything to send you. This should be a neat change. The other elders did leave a program so we can help those people out. We also have to work with our program and possibly clean it up a bit.

Love you all,

Elder Throop


Mom's Note:
Apparently, the tradition in the mission field for the guys is to burn one of their shirts at their one-year mark.  When Tyler mentioned this to me before, I  wasn't thrilled with that idea and I kinda requested that he not burn one of the shirts I bought special for him that I took time to write his name in with fabric pens.  He told me later that he found a shirt in one of the apartments that had been left by another Elder and he would burn that instead.  That made me a lot happier. 

Lighting the Shirt

A little more fire

Burning well

New Comp Elder Hernandez

Random selfie at church

Better Week, New Investigators, French is Forgotten, New Ward Mission Leader

6/13/2016

Well last week went a little better with all of our appointments. We actually found some new investigators last week we just forgot to invite them to baptism which is one thing we will have to do this week.

With the foreign language I do worry as I can't remember diddly squat from French. It is because I am more than a year out of practice. I still can read French I believe and read it outloud. I can't write well. When does SVU start by the way? I mean it still is a bit in the future but then again things go super fast.

Yeah the ward is definitely heading in a better direction. Our ward mission leader is now a new guy but he is super smart. He moved here recently and we helped him out with some service. This guy works on the desk in the offices and is very smart. He is a psychologist and basically has handbook 2 memorized as well as handbook 1(he was an ex bishop) This guy is helping a lot with the ward. We hope in the next week we can teach members and get them to come with us.

We did have a good week with members present and we hope to improve that. I do plan on celebrating my year mark this Friday. I have a shirt I found in another house and we hope to have some pizza. So I will have some photos from that. We also have changes this next sunday so that will be fun to see what happens. My companion is likely to head out to somewhere else.

Love you all and have fun.

Elder Throop

Lots of Walking, Investigator Still a No-Show, Taking the Phone For A Swim-Not A Good Idea

6/6/2016

Yeah that sounds like great fun with the zoo and all those camps you are having. I did enjoy today as we got to actually have a zone activity as they have been cracking down a little on the rules for different things. So we got to play some basketball, soccer, and volleyball which was fun. The zone leaders mentioned the importance of having daily contact if possible with all the investigators we are working with but at the very least with those who have a baptismal date. This last week actually was one of the harder weeks for us as we had 3 days in a row with appointments falling.

We did so much contacting and walking. We got 5 people in church but our progressing investigator didn't show again which was disappointing. We will have to work with him. This last week we had an accident where I accidently dropped the phone in the toilet. I was wearing a sweater and I so though I put it in my shirt pocket but noooooooo. So we were in the dark for awhile. Fortunately the zone leaders are letting us borrow a phone until we can get a new one. Water damage is too much even for our almost indestructible phones.

I do enjoy it with my companion. His sense of humor is a little different but he still is amusing. He is a hard worker and everything. I am indeed excited for the year mark it is the 17th which is crazy. We already have some things planned for what we will do. I recently had exchanges with another Elder in his training. Elder Waldie wanted to go with the district leader which is slightly irregular to have a senior companion go with the district leader but our district leader got it approved. I got to help the guy a bit. It was rather funny as he was very slow at spanish and many times would be like your turn so it was a little fun. He was a little hesitant to talk to people as he doesn't know how to speak so well. That was fun.

I hope everything goes well for you guys and that you enjoy your week.

Love you all.

Elder Throop