Ya Mismo Navidad

This week was for sure a week for the books! Well I'll start from the beginning! I did intercambios (think it's called splits in English) with an elder in our zone in his sector, and man was it an event! His sector is just 10 minutes from my sector and man it was another world! I saw in my first hour there 3 fights and a cop pulling a gun on some guy! IT WAS AWESOME! I needed some action in my life! But it was for sure crazy! Some taxi guy was getting robbed and a huge fat cop saw it and ran over to help the taxi guy! This cop had to cross 2 lanes of traffic and while he was doing it the guy cocked his gun!  MAN it was crazy! Great fun! 

Well this week we had a surprise Zone Conferencia with another Zone in Guayaquil. The whole meeting was about staying in the gospel forever and never going inactive and it was awesome! Love my good Mission President and his family! It was super powerful and I also saw some of my buddies there! 

Well, there had been a lot of rumors that we weren't going to do a Christmas party and I was so sad, so after the Zone Conferencia President Moreno just ended it and then he said, "Okay follow me," so we all followed him (like 34 elders) and he took us to CHILI'S!!! YES!!!  I ate American food and heard American music and it was awesome! He rented out Chili's for us and it was an awesome surprise!  After that, it was just a normal week but we did marry 2 FAMILIES this week! It was a huge blessing from God that these great people got married!  First, we got hermana Yanira married to her husband John who's a member and so is his family! It was awesome because they didn't have a lot of money and it's a good $75 to get married, but their family came in and helped them out! Yanira is getting baptized this Saturday for the NOCHE BLANCA! Our other marriage was for the Familia Cabrera! Their son was baptized back in Agusto and there daughter was baptized like 3 weeks ago, and this family wanted to get baptized but just didn't want to get married until February, but we shared Alma 5 with them and they had a huge change of heart and got married last week! The 2 of them are getting baptized this Saturday as well! 

Also yesterday at church, we had 2 more investigatores who attended church in preparation so that they could get baptized and they came as well to church yesterday!  It was just a great week with a ton of great things!  Last night as well the missionaries in Guayaquil put on a show for Christmas and we had a ton of success!  Just a great week!  And this week should be another great week! 

HELAMAN 5:12

YA MISMO NAVIDAD!!

Love, Elder Hoole

At the wedding

The wedding party 

Chili's in Ecuador!

Getting ready to order American food!!!

Christmas present from my Mission President!

Here is the back 

Light the World banner for our Stake activity

Light the World with our zone

Exchanges/splits/intercambios 

Multi Zone Conference

The Zones

12/11/17 EcuaHOT!

EcuaHOT!!! 

Man lately it has been cooking outside (and inside the house).  It has been extremely hot lately and it doesn't really help that nobody has AC and they live with tin roofs that just cook the houses like an oven. Couple nights I have been going to bed already sweating haha!  We don't have fans and man it's tough but it's the life of a missionary I guess. 

This week was a slow week but we had some cool things happen!  First off we have 2 families getting married this week!  La familia Cabrera y La familia Cepeda!  We are so pumped because now they can get baptized the following week!  We have been praying so much and teaching these families a ton with members and finally se van a casar! (going to get married).  Also, we are working hard for our 2 actividades that we are going to have in 2 weeks!  Super stressful but they should turn out super awesome!  As a zone, right now we are working so hard to complete our goals for our NOCHE BLANCA, but it is just super hard for some people and some are just not down to go to church for 3 hours!  Yes, it is tough getting people to stay at church and make sure they have a good time and that the members help them feel welcomed. I would have to say that this ward here is probably the best ward here with the missionary work!  They help us so much!  Yesterday we had stake conferencia and after it ended we wanted to talk to our investigadores but all the members had them surrounded and we only got to say hi because they were too busy and I was so happy!  haha!  It is so much easier to be a missionary when the members help you! 

This week les invito a leer Mosiah 4! 

Gracias por todo y feliz navidad! 

Elder Hoole

(and yes, people still call me Elder Hulk because they can't say Hoole! haha)

Great Week!

Una Semana con bastante milagros!

Well, I'll start off my email with how my week started off.  So it was last Wednesday in the afternoon and we were teaching our investigator, se llama Elkin (his cousin got baptized last week).  Well, we were teaching him the good word and he told us in the lesson that in a couple of weeks he was going to be moving back with his mom in a different part of Guayaquil (and this same kid had the goal to be baptized for our Noche Blanca) so my companion and I just looked at each other and then back at the kid and invited him to be baptized last week!  He had been to church 3 times with us but we have never seen or even talked to his mom! Crazy! So he was super pumped and said yes! So that very same day we just taught him every lesson again and told him that at 7pm we were going to pass by his house to take him to his interview to get baptized.  Then later we passed by that same day in the night to go get him and his mom was actually there. Now remember, his mom doesn't know us because she actually doesn't even live here and she supposedly doesn't know anything about our church or that her child is about to get baptized later that week. So she sees us and then she comes up to us and was like, "Is my kid getting baptized in your church this week?" and we told her yes.  And then she just said, "Ok, just don't be out too late!" and that was it.  While she was great to support him and give permission, we still haven't seen her since!  Super random and funny and also super awesome!!

Also our other investagator, se llama Tahis got baptized!  She's awesome and her family is so cool!  So first her little brother got baptized like 5 months ago and before he was a member he was a really wild kid, but he has changed so much that his sister saw his changes and wanted to get baptized! So she got baptized last week!  Well, her parents aren't married and we have tried to really teach them and even hit them hard with teachings in Alma 5 and other scriptures to show them the importance of getting married. They kept telling us that they won't get married until February when they have more money and family is in town. Well, my companion and I did a fast last week during the week for Noche Blanca. We really want to hit our goals.  So right before the baptism of Tahis (their daughter), her mom took us aside into another room and broke down, saying "My health is so bad and I'm struggling. We want to get married this month!!"  My companion and I died!  This family has been so hardhearted about their marriage and then BOOM!!!  When they told us, we were all so surprised and then the whole family started crying and the members who were with us also started crying and the Spirit was so strong!  So today, we went with a member who is awesome (works in Galapagos) and with the family and took out a date for them to get married NEXT FRIDAY!!!!!  Which means that now their bautismo is 23 de diciembre!!!  We are so pumped right now!!!  It was awesome!!!  Milagros!!!  By the way, the members in this ward are so AWESOME!  They drop everything to help us with missionary work and are so amazing!  Legit I think they were super impressed with our dance moves haha.

Oh also I almost got robbed again last week trying to buy bread.

This Week:  In the Book of Mormon, please read Ether 12:27, Moroni 7:33, and Alma 32:17-18.

Con Amor

Elder Hoole

 Pre Bautismo pic with the boys of Guasmo Sur!

 Elkin

 Tahis 

 Tahis with her family!  Their baptism is coming soon!

A Missionary Christmas in Ecuador

Thanksgiving Pictures

These photos were sent to my mom on facebook messenger on Thanksgiving Day by our Stake President.

THANKSGIVING!

THANKSGIVING!

Well, this week was pretty dang slow with teaching haha!  Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday and man, was it tough not to be home!  But our Stake President is awesome and invited us to have a little Thanksgiving feast with his family on Thursday so that was really fun (the Chargers looked great! hahaha)!

Like I said, this week was really slow.  I started off the week by doing an intercambio (I don't know the word in English) with Elder Stoker.  We worked in his sector all of the day on Tuesday and it was my old sector, so yeah I went by and saw all of my converts and investigadores.  IT WAS AWESOME!!! I loved it!  Well, I got back to my sector later on Wednesday and man, every lesson we had fell through so we went over to a member's house and we told them how sucky today was and that we were going to buy crab to eat for dinner and then they told us to just go buy some crab off the street and that they would make it for us!  So my companion and I dipped out and down the street super fast and found some guy selling crabs on the street!  We bought like 20 crabs from him and it was so yummy!!!  Great end to the day! 

Then Thursday came around and man, we wanted some turkey and gravy!  Well turkey here is very hard to get, but our Stake President called us and told us to come over to his home at 6:00pm, so we went and ate chicken and gravy, which was pretty close to turkey, and had the best banana splits!  It was awesome!!!  Then after that we had our investagador get interviewed for his bautismo!  HE PASSED!  So that meant that on Saturday we had another great bautismo!  PILAS!!  

But yeah, this week still felt super slow and long and hot, but we did get a lot of people to attend church on Sunday and we are going to have another bautismo this week!  Junior Chuquimarca was baptized last week and Tahis Cabrera is getting baptized this week! 

All is well here!  ya mismo navidad!  yay!!!  Hope you all do the 25 days of Christmas "Light the World" from the Church!  It's on lds.org!  We are getting ready for that down here!  I really have been so busy lately.  We are trying to do 2 big activities and it is stressful.  I'm on my own here to make sure it all goes as planned haha!  They're in 2 weeks so we have a little bit more time to plan.  Hope all is well back home! Have a great week!

Hope all is well with everyone!

Love, Elder Hoole

maxwell.hoole@myldsmail.net

This is a monkey that we went to see at a member's home.

The monkey climbing.

Taking a taxi to a different area.

This is how they drive around.

Our crabs we bought off the street!

One of the member kids here who loves soccer!  I gave him a REAL Salt Lake sticker and he loved it!

Crab dinner!  It was so yummy!!!!

Our Stake President wanted to watch football on Thanksgiving. 
We didn't want to tell him No.  haha

Thanksgiving Dinner!  It was awesome!

Wearing our new Santa hats and hanging out with the kids!

Great baptism on Saturday!

I gave a nativity set and a Temple Recommend holder to our new convert!

Reindeer ears!

I did some shopping for the family!!! Can't wait!!!

11/20/17 - My First Earthquake!

Hola!

Well, we had a couple of earthquakes this last week!  I'll start off by telling a super funny story!  So we were in the house at around 8:40ish and our house just started shaking and we all thought it was just a big truck passing by because we live right by a shipping yard or a port, so there's always huge trucks driving by.  But then the shaking didn't stop and then it started to get a lot louder and the whole house was shaking and my first thought was, "Yo We Gotta Get Out Of This House!!! We Are Having An Earthquake!"  So mid-earthquake we dipped from the house because the houses are all 3rd world houses made out of nothing and we live on the 2nd floor, so when we got down to the bottom level the earthquake stopped.  People ran out of their houses but no one said very much when we were out there, other than if it is bigger we are dead.  But then we had another one that same night and I was dead asleep, but I do remember waking up that night and my heart was beating really fast, so yeah I guess that was cool.  Where we live is below sea level and Guayaquil is pretty much surrounded by water since it's a port city, so it's like an island.  Could be crazy in another big earthquake!  

Well, we didn't have our bautismo last week!  NOO!!  HE DRANK COFFEE!!!!  But we have made new plans and helped him set a goal to get baptized this Saturday!  ALSO the Stake President invited us this Thursday to have a little Thanksgiving with him!  Yeah we are pumped!  And yeah he has ESPN!  hahah! No, but really go COWBOYS haha!

All is well with me.  I like 1 John chapter 4 a lot right now in my life!  It talks all about the pure love of Christ and God!  This is the perfect time for you all to read it. 

Well hope all is well with everyone!  We might be going to the temple this week!!

Have an awesome Thanksgiving everyone!  Next year, I will get to eat with you!  Yay!

Love ya!

Elder Hoole

Pics are of some cool Book of Mormon covers that a member made for me, and an Ecuador toy.

Bautismos!

Well another week down south or up north? I don't know... Stuck in the middle of the world right now haha!

Well, last Monday my companion and I left after writing to our families to go and teach a lesson with our ward mission leader.  So we were just walking (kinda in a sketchy part of town) and BAM!  Like legit 20 cop cars just pulled up on us along with a bunch of the News Cars and I kid you not, there were like 100 cops just all around us searching for drugs in the trees along the road that we were walking on.  Well, we didn't try to walk around it and they didn't tell us to stop where we were going, so yeah we walked right through a 3rd world Drug Bust and I am like 100% sure that if you were watching tv in Ecuador that day, you saw the Mormon missionaries on the Ecuador news haha!  Afterward, it was super funny but also by far the scariest thing that has happened to me in my little adult life! 

Well, we had another great bautismo!  It was awesome!  Ella se llama Baneza!  Her kids are members and she never really wanted to get baptized.  We had been teaching her but she just was not progressing.  We went over about 3 weeks ago to visit with her and felt inspired to throw out an invitation to get baptized in a few weeks and she said no.  But she told us she wanted to get baptized sooner, so last week was her bautismo and it was awesome!  She has a great testimony!  This week we are going to have another bautismo.  El se llama Junior and he's such a cool kid!  He's 10 years old and a really great kid.

 

We have been planning a lot with our zona and in 5 weeks we are going to have an activity like Alma!  We are having a White Night or a Noche Blanca.  We are inviting all of our investigators in the Zone to be part of a special baptism night and baptize them all on the same evening at the stake center!!!  Our goal is to have 40 bautismos that night or more! 

All is well right now for me!  Almost Christmas!  I gave a talk yesterday in church.  I read Mosiah 5:8 and talked about the covenants with God that members of the Church have entered into and that there is great responsibility with that.  It was a call to the members to start to perform their church callings and help out more!

Things are good!

Con amor

Elder Hoole

 Our zone tie!  The lighthouse of Guayaquil.

The Zone!

 The baptism last week