21 November 2011 Another New Companion

Hello once again family! Sounds like you all had a great last week, as did I! I think Kyley mentioned in an email last week that it seems like I get a new companion about every week, well, that is the case yet again! This time around I am TRAINING!!! My NEW companion is fresh out the MTC in Bogota, Colombia, and his name is Elder Caal, and is from Cobán, Guatemala. After P-Day and all last Monday, we received the call from the zone leaders saying there were transfers. The conversation went something like this: "Ok, Elder Bohorquez will be switching rooms in the house (yes, that's really the case) and Elder McRae to the bus terminal in Guayaquil at 7:30 Tuesday morning, and Elder Cederquist will be training." "¿¡¿¡WHAT?!?!" was my reply to hearing that news! So Tuesday, I went with Elder McRae, who is also pretty new to the mission, to Guayaquil to drop him off and to wait for our new companions in a stake center near the center of Guayaquil. They arrived about 2 pm or so, and we had a "new missionary training" with President Montalti after their arrival. Elder Caal is pretty excited to be here, and I'm pretty excited to be training him! Recently, the Church released a a 12 week training program for the new missionaries, something I didn't have when I first arrived to Ecuador. "The First 12 Weeks" is an excellent training course, I even feel like I'm learning more and more thanks to it!

Alright, to the news of last week... Unfortunately the baptism of Bella fell through due to a work conflict, so she will be baptized this weekend along with Julio, who has been taking it all in in terms of the lessons, and is really excited to be baptized. We're just finishing some things up in terms of teaching and all will be ready for this Saturday! I'm really excited to be seeing the fruits of our labor. We've been really blessed lately in teaching them and finding other people to teach as well. The time is really passing by quickly, mainly because we're keeping busy and working diligently. This week is shaping up to be a really successful one, in which I'm really happy for! I won't lie, I felt just a little lost in the sector last week, as I was only with Elder Bohorquez one week, and he knew the sector really well. So I had to ask him a lot of questions last week about who lives where, where do we go to lunch on what days, yeah, at least I'm somewhat familiar with the area now!

I will post more photos next week, as we'll for sure have the baptisms! Don't worry!

And LA won the MLS Cup.... Didn't help Houston that LA was playing at home. And what happened to Chelsea? Tough season so far!

So the random experience from the day: We were shopping in Tia, when all of a sudden I hear "Teardrops on My Guitar" by Taylor Swift. I couldn't help myself, I was singing along. It was a little odd hearing a song in English, but somewhat refreshing as the music here in Ecuador gets a little boring after hearing it a million times a week!

Well, that's about it for this week family! Another busy seven days is upon us!

Love you all, take care!

(the photo is of the baptism of Viviana, from Saturday the 12th)

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Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur