26 Dec 2011

Hi again family! Yes, I know it has been a short time since we talked yesterday, but I will take a little time to write something short! It was really nice to talk to all of you and hear your voices, it was long-awaited! I enjoyed the pictures of your gingerbread houses, they all look great! However, I do give Mom the "Best looking house" award, although all of them look fantastic! Too bad graham crackers aren't sold here, or else I would have made my own too! However, we did make plenty of our own food on Saturday and Sunday, so we were well fed! I mentioned to you that I made pancakes yesterday for the other Elders in the house, later on in the night I remembered I had bought a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, so we had no problem in downing that either! It was definitely an experience I won't soon forget. I'm told that for New Year's we also have to be in the house, and I imagine why. People here build things called "monigotes", which are large renditions of popular figures from movies and entertainment this year, and when New Years rolls around, they burn them in the streets, causing a lot of black smoke to fill the sky, which probably doesn't help anyones lungs, and they all will probably drinking heavily, which could spell disaster if someone isn't careful. So, I'm fine with being in the house. But one of the popular monigotes is of the Smurfs (Pitufos en español). There are also some of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, many of The Simpsons, and whatever else happened to be popular in this year.

We'll be working really hard to get two baptisms this week, but with another short week, it could be more difficult than expected! We are still working with two great people, Holger, and Noemi. Both of them have a baptism date for this weekend, and they're both excited, so it's just up to us to keep them excited and arrive at the waters of baptism this weekend! I'll let you know how that turned out next week, which will also mean 1 YEAR!!! Woo hoo! Wow, the time has gone by real fast, and this next year will go by even faster I imagine! It will be a time of working hard and diligently, getting as many people possible back into the Lord's fold. I do oft-times ask myself "Where did this first year go?" I have had many experiences, which I'm trying hard to remember them all! The mission is for sure a unique opportunity in life to get to know how things are in other parts of the world. It took me a while to figure how people maintain themselves here, and in different ways, but they manage to do it, which I see as a grand blessing for them!

Well family, like I said, just something short for this week, as next week will be a little longer, maybe a look-back on 1 year as a missionary!

Love you all! Write ya next week!

(I tried uploading some pictures, but it didn't work, next week then!)
--
Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur

19 Dec 2011

Dearest family,

Yet again Monday has arrived, this time a week before the very special holiday of Christmas! By the way, thanks for the awesome picture of all the family! Looks like everyone is happy (as they should be) for the Christmas season. I received the package that the Young Women of the ward sent this past week! Thanks for that! The Gingerbread house and the Christmas tree look real nice! :)

This past week was a little bit crazy, we were to have a baptism, but unfortunately it fell through due to some health problems within the family of our investigator, Noemi. So we've pushed it back to this Friday, so we'll have 2 for sure baptisms this Friday, while we could have another 2 baptisms of a great couple, John and Julisa. They have to get married still, and they need to do it this week, so we're really praying for them so they can get married, so their baptisms can be had as well. Either way, this week leading up to Christmas will be a very special one sharing the Gospel, a message of real happiness, with everyone we can. And the members of the ward have told us they'll bring food for us at our house for Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) and Navidad (Christmas Day)! So we'll be good to go this weekend! 

We manage to keep working with new investigators, helping understand and accept the Gospel in their lives. It really brings a great spirit to see them accept the Gospel and make the changes in their lives. I've seen it many times while here in Ecuador, it is amazing! That is my wish for the new year as well, that more and more people can come unto Christ and see the blessings He has prepared for them more clearly in this life. And just like Mom said in her email, we're at the halfway point! (Ok, ALMOST at the halfway point) :)

Well, I'll keep this email short so there is a lot to talk about this Sunday, via SKYPE! Woo hoo! Love you all and talk to you/see you on Sunday!

--
Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur

12 Dec 2011 Sunscreen in December

Hello once again family from a sunny and hot Guayaquil. This week the weather has been very, very warm, so sunscreen (yet another thing I am not used to using in December) has been in good use. This week, up until last night, was just one of those "ugh, this is week is dragging on" weeks. That is until we found Holger, who was a referral from the Batallón Ward, which has boundaries with my ward, 7 de Septiembre. We went to teach Holger, not knowing what to expect, like what kind of person he would be. Within a few minutes of getting to know him, he explained to us in detail what he understood about the first four chapters of 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon. I was completely taken back by his knowledge and comprehension of all the events that took place in those chapters. So we taught him about the Restoration, and he understood all the principles of that as well. Without hesitation, Elder Curtis and I put the baptismal date, for the 23rd, and he accepted! An advantage we have is he already has one church attendance in Batallón, where he has several friends, one of whom is a returned missionary. So he only has to attend this week to be baptized the following! Woohoo! We will be working with him this week and the following to get him to baptism! He´s a golden investigator!

I´ll share a little about the area, as that was a request from Dad last week. We´re located in the south of Guayaquil, in the Suburbios del Batallón (the suburbs). There are a lot of small roads, only one way basically, which makes for kind of a maze trying to get from visit to visit. I am still trying to get accustomed to that. One thing that has confused me since I arrived in Ecuador are the directions, like North, South, East, West. And the addresses of people´s houses. There´s no organized structure to the road system here, it is confusing, so it takes time to know what is where and all that good stuff. Especially with all the transfers that I have had in the last two, going on three months, getting located can be quite hard!

Other than that, not too much is going on, just working hard and always keeping busy! Sorry for the shortness of this letter! I´ll let you all know next week about the Christmas phone call and how and when I´ll call you!

Love you all, and say hi to all the family at the Christmas party this week! Tell them I am enjoying the hot weather!!!!

--
Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur

5 December 2011 -- Eleven Months

¡Hola Familia Cederquist! Wow, I can't believe it either, we're already in December! Very soon this year will be in the books, and I don't think I have words to describe how fast this year has gone by! It's definitely been a year in where I've learned many new things, met some amazing people, and have gotten accustomed to moving around! But I am still here in Guayaquil, 7 de Septiembre, so for once I can feel a little relief in not having to travel! I'm still getting a little re-accustomed to the heat of Guayaquil, as I was away from that heat about two months when I was in Cuenca and Naranjito, but that's just a temporary thing!

This past week was a little bit tough, but we did manage to have a baptism of Karim, whose parents are less-active members, but a really great family. (I do have photos, but I left my camera at the house, sorry!) The baptismal service went really great, quite a few members attended in support of Karim and his family. We're looking forward to a really productive week to kick December off. Yesterday we got hosed by our investigators, who said they were going to attend church, and when we went to pick them up, nobody! Ouch! Of course, it doesn't help anything when church starts at 8:00 AM (6:00 AM there in good ole Utah). Nobody, including us as missionaries, are really awake, thus making it rather difficult to have many people attend with us. This is something President Montalti has expressed concern about in the past few weeks, and he mentioned he's trying to change some schedules to make it more convenient for us and our investigators to attend. But if I manage to stay here for the New Year, the schedule changes to 10:00 AM for us, so as it stands with four or so weeks left in the year, I think we can manage the 8 AM time slot. That's another thing that is surprising to me, in the six wards/branches I've been in, one has started at 8 AM, four have started at 9 AM, and one at 3 PM. I prefer the morning meetings, just so you know! :)

I feel December is going to fly by, and we'll be at that year mark before we know it! Don't worry, I'm not "trunky" as they say here in the mission, but it really did hit me this past week how fast the mission goes by. It feels as if just last week I started in the Provo MTC. Every day has been an experience, and I've sure had my ups-and-downs, but many more "up" moments than "down". I'm trying to keep up my day-to.day happenings in my journal as well, but lately it's been hard with having to talk to the District and Zone Leaders almost on a nightly basis.

Last night we were able to catch 45 minutes of the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, which started at 8 PM here. Only managed to see Pres. Uchtdorf's address along with part of Pres. Eyring's address. I felt kind of empty not hearing President Monson speak, but General Conference will be here again really quick in April, so that will be a good time.

Well familia, got to get going, but I'm glad to hear that remains well back home, even though the temperature seems quite cold! December through March or so is the hottest time here in Ecuador. People are kind of backwards here, when they talk about winter, they always mention how hot it gets, and that summer is the rainy season! I was confused at first about that too!

Write ya next week! Chao!

--
Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur

28 November 2011, Back To Guayaquil & A New Companion

Oh where do I begin this letter? Well, I'll start with this: My time in Naranjito has come to an end, and following what Kyley said in her email from two weeks ago, I've been transferred again! Today's entry comes from Guayaquil once again, from my new sector called "7 de Septiembre" (7th of September) in one of the most talked about stakes in Ecuador, the Cisne Stake. I've heard about Cisne all of my mission and the success that there is to be had with the people, and now I get my chance to be here! I'm pretty excited for that! My new companion, number 11 on the "Companion Counter" is Elder Curtis, from Draper, UT, who has 3 months here in Ecuador. Sadly I had to leave Elder Caal behind in Naranjito after only two weeks of training him. Hopefully he's able to find his away around quickly!

Well, this past week was a really crazy one! We were blessed to have the baptism and confirmation of Julio on Saturday, which turned out fantastic. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Bella, who in all honesty bugged out on us both on Saturday and Sunday. Not sure if I want to recap all that happened with that, but I'll do it anyway for you all. So Saturday she couldn't come due to a minor accident she had while at the gym. So after the baptism of Julio, we went to her house to figure out what happened. We then committed her to baptism on Sunday at 8am, right before church, where then she could have been confirmed in Sacrament meeting. Well, she arrived to the chapel, in which we're thinking "Awesome!", until she tells Elder Caal and I that she has to go back and get some things she forgot at her house, and would be right back. well, she left, and we did too to go pick up Julio, who doesn't live too far from the chapel. But when we returned, Bella wasn't there, and had gone straight to work, a flat out, 100% lie, which affected everything else of the day, most notably our investigators attending Sacrament meeting, in which we had zero, all due to us getting run around by a possible baptism. Wow, I've not felt so let down before on the mission. But I remembered that people have their agency, and we as missionaries can't force them to be baptized, we just help them arrive spiritually to that point. But it was more sweet to see the baptism of Julio, because he was ready, in that I don't doubt. I just feel bad that I can't be there to reteach the lessons to him to help him grow more in the Gospel. But I'll make sure to write him a small note here in the coming weeks to keep him excited about everything.

Elder Curtis told me that we'll be having quite a few baptisms in the coming weeks, so look forward to a lot of photos! Oh yeah, can I just say how physically tired I am with all these transfers I've had lately?!?! It's the most tired I've felt as of yet on the mission. That's a testament to the amount of work my companions and I have been doing, finding God's elect. The blessings are coming more and more abundantly, something I'm extremely grateful for.

To answer the question about Thanksgiving here: We made up for it this year. Allow me to explain: So Turkey Day was Thursday, but all the Senior Companions from parts of Milagro and Guayaquil (me included) had a training with President Montalti last Friday. After the training, we went to Terminal Terrestre (the huge bus terminal in G'quil) where there is a pretty nice food court. It just so happens that all the senior comps were Americans, so where did we go? Pizza Hut. And we ate. And ate. And ate. A supreme pizza and cinnamon sticks have never tasted so good! And we have even more training with President tomorrow and Wednesday, so we'll see what food comes from that! :)

Well family, I'm glad to hear all is well and that you enjoyed the holiday!

Love you all, and I'll write you next Monday!

--
Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur

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)

-- 

Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur

14 Nov 2011

Well hello family from what has been a cloudy Naranjito, Ecuador this past week. Cloudy may have been the weather, but the work of the Lord was sunny this past week! It's been a week of adjusting and getting everything in order, and even a BAPTISM!!! Elder Bohorquez and his last companion had been working with a lady named Viviana, whose dad is a member, for a couple of weeks, and she had accepted a baptismal date for this past Saturday, so it was yet another freebie baptism for me, but that's ok, because it's yet another soul coming unto Christ, the most important part of it all. I do have photos, but I left my camera in the house, so next week you'll get photos of the baptism on Saturday AND the baptism we are going to have this Saturday of a lady named Bella (yes, that means Beautiful in English, just in case you were curious).

This week we found some people who are pretty interested in hearing the Gospel. One is named Julio, who we found last Tuesday. Julio is a pretty cool guy. He commented to us that he feels a little bit lost in life, and wants to straighten things out, and the Gospel is the perfect tool for doing that. When we taught him, he really was attentive, and he mentioned he felt good about what we had discussed. We invited him to pray, and he gave a genuine, heartfelt prayer, one of the best I've heard in quite some time. The Spirit was present, it was an incredible feeling. While he was a little hesitant to accept a baptismal date, we helped explain that when someone feels the feelings as he did, it's the Spirit talking, confirming the truthfulness of the message, and that one should act on those feelings to receive even more of those feelings from the Spirit. Acting, in this case, is baptism, for a remission of sins and to have a constant companion in the Holy Ghost after being confirmed. The goal is for his baptism to be on the 26th of this month, so we'll keep working with him, helping him prepare for baptism.

While I thought Naranjito would be pretty hot in terms of weather, it really wasn't. Yes, it was muggy, but not as hot as it was when I was in Guayaquil, so that's a bonus. There's only four missionaries here in Naranjito, and we live together, as we all work in the same Branch. For our district meetings, we have to travel 20-25 minutes in bus to Milagro, which isn't the most exciting thing, as many people travel from Naranjito to Milagro on a daily basis, so the buses are usually full. But overall things are good here, the members are a good help for us, and even in a short time being here, I've gotten to establish a good friendship with some of them. Today is also the beginning of a new transfer, but no changes came for us here in Naranjito, so all is normal.

And changes in the Stake, huh? To me it doesn't make much sense in moving chapels as like half our ward lives a minute away! I'm not too surprised that those changes are happening, the stake was growing really fast! Any word on what other wards will be in the new building with ours?

Well family, that's about all from this week in the mission field. As promised, I'll get you some pictures next week from the baptisms and some sights, and more experiences from Naranjito.

Love you all, have an excellent week!
--
Elder Garrett Cederquist
Misión Ecuador Guayaquil Sur