Pictures

Baptisms

Dear Fam,

Hey. What's up? Sounds like life is pretty good. I'm glad the kids are doing well.

Umm.... Not a lot new. We had a baptism this weekend!! Whoo!!! It went really well. I'll send some pics too. We did our baptism with the baptisms of another ward because the sister missionaries can't baptize so I baptized their investigators as well. It was a kinda stressful night because there were a ton of people there, but it went really well. 

It was a pretty calm week. Not a lot went down. We need to start finding more people to teach. We have some good people, but a lot aren't progressing so my companion and I are going to focus on that a lot more this week. And there are transfers next week. So on Monday I'll let you know what happens. If I stay or go or get a new companion. All the good stuff. Time is flying by. I kinda want to stay because my sector and the families here are awesome. But we'll see what happens. 

I'm sending some pictures that we took with the Familia Osorio. One is with my last companion Elder Rogers, from a long time ago. The others are from when we cut my companion's hair. It didn't turn out so well haha. But it was a fun experience. Umm for Christmas send some good stuff for like my companions or people here, but I don't really need anything. Maybe just more shampoo, hair and body moisturizer and hair gel. But nothing else. Life is good and I'm just living it up in Ecuador. 

Con amor,

Elder Joshua Lee

Pictures

A Sad Week

Dear Fam and Friends,

So this week was really sad. Our mamita, the Hermana Maria Cabezas, died this week. She had surgery to fix the a blood clot in her brain or whatever is was and the surgery didn't go very well and she died the next day, this last Thursday. It was really sad because she was still pretty dang young. She was only 52 years old and she and her husband had a lot of plans to serve a mission together and all sorts of stuff. The funeral was sad as well. The family was pretty down too. But they will recover. Luckily they are a family very active that believes strongly in the gospel and in the plan of salvation. They know that whey will be able to see each other after this life. Hopefully they can recover quickly though

On a happier note, my companion and I are going to have a couple baptisms this weekend!!! Whoo!!! We have been teaching some great people here. One is Janet and the family Marge. In the family Marge, the husband doesn't want to get baptized right now. He's more hardhearted as are men almost always, but his wife does want to get baptized. Hopefully everything goes well and I have some more pictures to send home next week!

I did take a lot of pictures this week as well. I'll send as many as I can. My companion and I had to cut the grass again, but this time we at least got some bigger scizzors. here's a picture. we also both bought Ecuador jerseys and took a lot of pictures in them. And we bought some sweet sunglasses too. We've been trying to style it up a little bit lately. So I'm going to send home as many pictures as I can. Oh and the volcano Tungurahua is errupting again. There is alwasy like ash coming out of it. But it's way far away so don't worry about that still.

Yeah and life is all good! Thanks for everything mom! You the best!! I'll try and send home more pictures next week! Love You!ª!!

Elder Joshua Lee

Finally, A Worn Out Pair of Shoes

Dear Mom,

I'm glad the family is doing well. I have been reading the Miracle of Forgiveness these last couple weeks, (I found it in the house so I decided to read it) and it is a really good book. It really has given me a better perspective about things. And one thing that really caught my attention in that book is that it basically says if we get bad grades in school because of being lazy and not studying when we would have gotten good grades if we had studied, that it is akin to sin. That made me feel a little bad about not studying as much as I should have my first year of college, but I'm going to do better after.

Oh and finally a pair of shoes has gotten a hole. Well not a hole yet, but the sole of my shoe has cracked and it is a pretty big crack. Luckily I have 2 more pairs of shoes. And if I have to I can get these shoes fixed here. I didn't ever think my shoes would get to this point, but it finally happened.

One thing kind of sad did happen this week. Our Mamita (the person who feeds us lunch) Wednesdays, had like a stroke or something and is in the hospital. We had gone to her house on Wednesday and she gave us lunch and was way happy and doing well as always. Then later that night, her son called us and came over to our house to say a prayer for her because she had had this stroke and was in the hospital. Two days later we went to visit her in the hospital and she was still in a lot of pain. Her head was really hurting her and she can't be moved from her bed for like a week because if might happen again. When we were there though she asked me to give her a blessing. It really touched me a lot that she asked me to give her a blessing and that her son came to our house to say a prayer for her. Some of the members here really have a lot of faith in the missionaries. It makes me want to be a better missionary to earn their respect. Thankfully, she is getting better and hopefully she'll be out of the hospital soon.

And a bird got into our room yesterday. I don't now how, but we got home from church and it was flying around our room. It took us like forever to get it out too. It was another daily adventure in the life of us missionaries haha. So things are going well here. Hopefully I can send a couple pictures in another attachment. But I love you all soo much! 

Elder Joshua Lee

Pictures

Loving Ambato

Wassup??? How's life in the good ol`USA?? Because life is great in Ecuador! I'm glad to hear the family is doing well and everyone enjoyed the trip to Disneyland. Disneyland is cool. Not as cool as Ambato, Ecuador, but cool.

So life is good here. I don't really have a lot to report this week. I'm doing well. We are working hard and the work is going forward. A bit slowly for the moment, but it is going forward. We have a great family we are teaching, the Marge Family. I think I might've wrote about them before. They are awesome and my companion and I are trying to help them progress to their baptism. They have gone to church twice now, but they are still a little hesitant about baptism. We are trying to help the dad of the family get his answer especially because if he gets his answer the whole family will follow him. I just want another family. It's cool to help people become converted to the gospel, but it is 10 times better helping families. People who can get sealed in the temple for all eternity. I just want another family in my time in Ambato.

But it is great here. The missionaries in our zone are awesome and we are helping them get way excited about this work. It's a good zone and hopefully we have a lot of success here. I don't want to leave Ambato yet. Ambato is like my favorite area so far. The members are great, the people are humble, and the Lord is sending his work forward here. So hopefully President doesn't change me in 4 weeks when we have transfers. But meanwhile I'll just work as hard as I can. 

Oh so I'm sending some pictures too. The first one is with all of the zone leaders outside of the city Quito because we had to travel and stay in the missionary apartment there for a meeting with President Ghent. And while we were there we just decided to puy some Papa John's because it is 2 for 1 on Tuesdays. So we got 8 pizzas for 8 missionaries. Lets just say we were all kind of sick in the meeting with President Ghent the next day, but it was fun haha. And the other pic is of my companaion, Elder Cortes, and I being gangsters haha.

Yeah so life is all good here. Juss working hard and doing my thing. I hope you are all doing well! Love you sooo much!!

Love,

Elder Joshua Lee

Oh and General Conference was AMAZING!!! I love sooooo much listening to the Prophets and the Apostols of our days. They really are men called of God. And luckily we still get to watch it in English here. We called it "The Racist Room", or the room where all the gringos went to watch conference in English haha. It was great! Love you soo much!

Pictures

Baptism!

 

 

Companions

 

Goofing off in the Apartment

Another Baptism!

Dear Family and Friends,

 

Well I don't have a lot to say this week. Again. Sorry about that haha. But everything is still going well here in Ambato. My new companion like I said is Elder Cortes from Chile. And he's a boss! He's a way tight dude and we get along really well. He's really active and funny and he works like a beast too so that's awesome!

 

So we've worked so dang hard this last week. We've been trying to find new people and help them progress and come to church. I was a little discouraged at the start of church last week because we were hoping that like 10 people would show up to church because we had visited a TON! of people and even more were supposed to come. but only one showed up at the start so we were kinda upset. but like halfway through church 3 more showed up so that was great! and honestly we had a great week.,

We worked and walked like beasts and I'm soooo tired because of it. I go to bed and I wake up tired. everything is just tired. I cant remember not being tired now. but tired is good as a missionary I guess. it means we're working hard. 

 

Oh and we had a baptism!!! whoo!!! So our work paid off! Her name is Daniela and she is the girlfriend of a member and she is really great. She has a strong testimony and we made sure she didn't just get baptized because of her boyfriend. We are also teaching her mom who is way cool too and hopefully will get baptized soon!

That's pretty much is this week. It has been a really fun week and a really tiring week as well. but I think the most fun you have is when you are working as hard as you can and that makes you really tired too so they go hand in hand. Oh and I'm sending some more pictures like of me and my companion playing baseball in the house. Luckily we didn't break anything haha. Love you all soooo much!!!!!

Con Amorcito,

Elder Joshua Lee!!