Pictures

Mud House

Fabian's Baptism

The rabbit is the bigger one and the guinea pig is the smaller one. Rabbit is way good! Kinda tastes like chicken

Guinea Pig and Rabbit for Dinner

Wow sounds like it was a pretty crazy week and like it's going to be even more crazy with Thanksgiving and everything. Who is Uncle Stu gonna take with him to go shopping this year?? He's gonna need a partner haha. And that's cool that you only have to make one turkey. I just ate the turkey. Thankfully I haven't had to cook one yet. 

Life is still going well here in Ecuador. This week was pretty chill. Not a lot happened again. Just some usual mission stuff. We did eat Guinea Pig again this week. And I tried Rabbit!! It was actually really good. I liked rabbit better than guinea pig. But they are both are really good. This awesome family in the ward gave us rabbit to eat because we hadn't tried it yet. The ward here is awesome too. The members really try to help us out and are working on the Lord´s work.

We had a training over satilite from the Area Presidency this week. They talked about the importance of the missionaries working with the members. They also stressed a lot the importance of Ward Council. We have a new thing in our Area where we have to have Ward Council every week. They have put a big focus on rescuing less active members too. In Ward council we just talk about the names of the families and how we can help them. It's actually really cool because we are seeing a change in missionary work and the members are really starting to become involved. It helps a lot as a missionary when the members are helping us with referals and giving us people to teach.

Umm so I'm also sending home pictures of a baptism we had!!1 Whoo!!! His name is Fabian and he's a way good guy. He really has made a lot of changes in his life and it was awesome to see him get baptized. He's gonna be a good convert. I'm also sending home a picture of a like mud house that's in my sector. We have a pretty poor part in our sector here and it's kinda cool.

Well that's about it for this week. I hope you all have an awesome Thanksgiving!!! Eat a lot of turkey and watch a lot of football for me! Next one I'll be there too! And I'll make sure and get some Black Friday shopping in next year with Stu. Tell him to get me something cool on Black Friday haha. Love you sooo much!!!

Con amor,

Elder Joshua Lee

Pictures

Scary Neighbors and Early Thanksgiving Dinner

Dear Fam and Friends,

So life is pretty good here in Ambato. My companion and I had a pretty good week. We met this awesome family, the Acosta Family and they are dope. They are the family members of some members of the church and they are way cool! We met them and they came to church and they already have their answer that the church is true and everything. The problem is that on Thursday they are going to Miami to go to Disney World and visit the states. So their baptism is going to have to wait awhile, but it'll come!! 

Oh and we had the scariest thing happen this week. So my companion and I got back to the house at like 930 at night and started planning for the next day. And all of a sudden we started hearing some arguing and raised voices. So we stuck our heads out the door because we thought it was coming from down the street and we found out it was coming from the floor just above us in the house. Then the people upstairs started yelling really loud and we heard things being thrown around and plates breaking and girls started screaming and it was freaking scary. And the yelling went on for like an hour and a half. I thought someone was going to end up like killing someone else or something. Then the guy who was yelling left and the girl and her parents were just there and then the parents started yelling at the girl for like another hour and a half. We were soo freaked out that we couldn't go to bed and just stayed up listening until like 1230 at night. When we finally went to bed they were still arguing. I felt really bad. Something like that would never happen in the states. If people started yelling like that someone would call the police and they'd come do something. The police don't do anything here in Ecuador. But things have been calmer these last couple days so I think everything is okay. 

Oh and foolishly we thought that Thanksgiving was the 3rd Thursday of the month and so today we did a zone activity thinking Thanksgiving was this Thursday. But when I called President Ghent to ask for permission to do the activity he told me that Thanksgiving isn't until next week. I felt kinda dumb and really cut off from the world of the USA, but we ate turkey and the activity was okay so yeah. I'm going to send home a pic too I think. 

Umm oh and the pics are of the way cool family we found that is going to the states and of one of my converts, Luisa, who went to Colombia on Saturday. So I gave her an Arizona Tshirt so that she remembers Arizona. That is an awesome family and I hope the rest of them get baptized soon. OH and the other one is of me in front of the Lee jeans store again. They are just everywhere here haha. But yeah things are going well! Make sure and send Rachel my love!! Love you all soo much!!

Elder Joshua Lee

Drunks and Investigators

Dear Fam and Friends,

Well life is all good here. I'm actually really loving it in my new sector. I'm just on the other side of Ambato, but the new ward I'm in is great! The members are really awesome and are really trying to help in missionary work. They have given us a TON of referals this week and we have a lot of good investigators. This sector is really sweet. And Elder Russell is a great companion. Another gringo homie and we have a good time and are trying to work hard. The zone is struggling a little bit, but we're just getting started in our new zone so we are going to have more success down the road. 

In this week we've had some funny experiences. We had a drunk guy contact us in the street and he wanted us to go to his house. So we started following him and he straight up started running to his house. So we had to do the same to keep up and finally we got to his house and he started telling us this story about how he was in the war and he started acting it out and it was a really funny experience. 

We also met another drunk guy in front of the chapel who said he wanted help in his life and he wanted us to say a prayer with him, so he knelt down in the middle of the sidewalk by a main street and so we knelt down with him and started saying a prayer. That was pretty funny too. 

But like I said we have been really blessed this week. We have found a lot of new investigators and they are progressing really well. I'm way happy in my sector. Our house really is something. I'll take a picture next time so you can all see, but it's like the house from the movie I Am Legend with Wil Smith. There are big metal like curtains that cover the door and the windows and when we leave the house or go to bed at night we shut up all the curtains like we are preparing for a zombie invasion or something. It's quite someting. But I'll have pictures for next time. Oh and I'm going to send pictures of our baptism last week with my old companion. 

Umm so I think that's all I've got to say. Life is good. I hope you enjoy the email a bit more this week. Hopefully we have another sweet week so I can write more cool stuff. Love you all sooo much and thanks for everything!!!

Love,

Elder Lee

Transferred

Thanks soo much for the pictures!! I love them and especially the stories. It sounds like you all had a great time there in Nashville. I feel like I need to get to see a bit more of the States. I haven't really been around that much. But some day I'll get around and see it a little. I feel like I've been around Ecuador more than the US now. And Uncle Andy definitely won with the car burning thing. I don't think anyone can top that hahaha. 

So we had transfers this week and they were pretty crazy! So basically what happened was that I got changed from my sector to another sector in Ambato. They opened another zone here in Ambato and they sent me to the other zone. Luckily it means I have to deal with fewer missionaries. That's the good part. And my companion is another gringo! Elder Russell. He's like one of my favorite missionaries ever. We met like a year ago in Quito and now we're finally companions! Whoo!!! It's gonna be sick. We are going to have a lot of fun together and work really hard.

I was sad to get changes though. I'm going to miss the sector and the members there. They are pretty great. But we did have a baptism last week! Whoo!! I don't have the pictures because my camera is broken and so my companion just took pictures and he's not my companion anymore. But I'll get the pictures as soon as I can. Umm... I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry I'm so boring this week. Not a lot else happened. But I'll try and write more next week! Hopefully I'll have more stories. Love you all!!

Elder Joshua Lee