Serving the Lord in Quito, Ecuador: More Studying, Relying on God, Hiking, and Golden Contacts

*Mom's Note. So, I guess I'm really behind on updating the blog. My schedule's been crazy since the kids went back to school. I'll post each letter separately.*

8/24/2015

I am definitely looking forward to General Conference and I think that weekend will be great. I will still be in training when general conference happens so that might interfere with studies but we have had some trouble getting our full studies in for various reasons. Either we end up having service or a meeting a conference or a lesson to teach in the morning something happens a lot sometimes and we don`t usually get our full studies in.

I have a hard time doing the studies right now but I think I can improve my attitude towards them as I will have to study for my whole mission. Fortunately after my twelve weeks of training I should have 3 hours of study max per day and sometimes that can change. Still it is not the end of the world for me but I just prefer doing the actual work. I guess the studies remind me a lot about the MTC where I felt like I was in prison more or less getting taught classes and studying a lot. My companion is the opposite. He loves studies and doesn`t like doing the work too much. Weird huh?

That is also great to hear that Daniel wants to do Zion`s Camp as I really enjoyed the program. Granted nothing can truly prepare you for the spiritual, physical, emotional and mental hardships you go through on your mission as on your mission you truly feel like you are facing an impossible task sometimes and that can bring you down a lot. On your mission you truly face the temptations of Satan and go through some of the greatest trials of your life. It is all part of the refining fire but it sure is a lot of stress and you have to deal with that stress. You can`t escape it and on your mission you really learn to rely on God. Still it is not all bad and there are a lot of great times on your mission. The Zion`s Camp gives you a taste of what happens and really lets you look forward to the experience of actually teaching the gospel and sharing the gospel. Because until you enter the actual mission field you will have done practices. The mission field definitely is worth it as you invite people to come to Christ and you get people that actually accept and change their lives.

As for me today we went and hiked a nearby mountain a bit which was fun but super windy and it was at a really high altitude. I will have to get you some pictures if I can as it was really neat. We took a bus to take a little cart thing (can`t remember the name) but that took us up a ways. We then started hiking and we got a pretty good distance and I think I might have gotten close to 14000 feet above sea level. I made the mistake of wearing shorts and bringing only a sweater so it was hard for me but it was great. That was our main activity today and that took quite some time. We had to leave the apartment early then we normally do on P days but it was well worth it.

This week was pretty good and we had a good number of lessons and contacts. We have these two investigators who seem just golden. They are progressing really well they accepted the baptismal invitation they went to church with us and it was just great. Hopefully we can gently guide them to a baptismal date and if we can get them to accept the baptismal date we should have 2 baptisms pretty soon. They are a mother and her 30 something year old son and they are awesome. So it was a good week overall I think and I look forward to helping those 2 progress. Have fun and lots of love,

Elder Throop

p.s. I am attaching some photos of me at the top of the mountain. You might notice the low hanging clouds on the mountain behind me. It was really cold thanks to the wind. I'm also including a picture of us at a service project. We helped move sand to the top of a building for a while. There was a lot of sand if you can't tell by the photo. The other two Elders are named Elder Leonard and Elder Smith. Then, there is the Latino we helped.