¡Hola familia!

Still hanging out in Utah huh? I’m still hanging out here in Jipijapa. Well, not so much “hanging out” as walking a whole lot and teaching occasionally. I did get back to work this week, which was a relief for about 3 hours until I realized how nonexistent our teaching pool was. It pretty much fell apart. It was a very slow week in which we put a whole lot of miles on my shoes. I don’t think I can convey the absolute slowness of this week. My companion is feeling pretty discouraged about it all. I’m doing ok. We did have a few interesting experiences this week though. For one, we had a baptism! So this week was not a complete disaster. I think that shows how good we were doing before I got sick because even with almost no contact with anyone in our program for two weeks somebody got baptized. Her name is Cesibel and she is 32. Her sister is a member and we met her when we were doing all that work to find inactive members to bring back to church.

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We also taught a pretty unforgettable lesson Saturday afternoon. In our quest to find people to talk to who weren’t afraid that we are from the CIA or something like that, we found ourselves in an area that we were pretty unfamiliar with. It was at the edge of the city—just dirt roads and bamboo houses. A group of guys called us over to them; these were some pretty rough guys—the kind of people that when they start talking to you, you think, “I wonder if they’re going to use a gun or a knife to rob me.” They started asking questions about what it is we teach and stuff like that. We told them we teach about Jesus and how to have more happiness in our families. That pretty much was the end of their interest in our message, but they decided that we were pretty cool guys so they invited us to have a drink with them. When we declined, their interest in us was peaked again. They started asking all sorts of questions about why alcohol is bad. We had to tread lightly because we didn’t want anybody’s feelings hurt, mostly because we didn’t want to get hurt. By the end of an hour I’m not sure if we had any of them convinced; and as we were walking away Elder Ruiz and I were talking about it. We decided that it may not have been the most productive hour ever but at least now we know that if we ever see them again, they won’t try to rob us.

Thanks for trying to get the Gamboas to let me work again. I’m pretty confused about how fruit is supposed to help me fight off dengue as well. I do eat a pretty fair amount of bananas though. Mostly because they are cheap and even when I am flat broke I can always scrape together the necessary two cents to buy a banana. I ate two bananas for breakfast today for just that reason in fact. Today is the day that we pick up money but I ran out of food yesterday and the one store in town wasn’t open yet. My breakfast was supplemented with gold fish crackers and peanut M&Ms (thanks grandma). So don’t worry about me eating enough fruit. I got it covered.

To answer mom’s questions, when I need a hair cut I go to a hair cut place. I can’t think of the word in English but you get the idea. It costs $1.50 in case you are curious. No, I have not seen any other missionaries these days—although I will see Elder Mitton at zone conference in a couple of weeks. Well that’s pretty much it. We are going to Manta to eat pizza today. I have not eaten pizza for a long time so it’s going to be a pretty exciting event. Have fun in Utah and try get over that whole strep throat thing.

Te quiero,
Elder Walke