Guayaquil Hill

Guayaquil Hill

Friday, January 22, 2016

Nov 30 2015

Hey familia!
Well I guess I'll get the hard part out of the way. To be honest the passing of Grandpa is no harder for me than the passing of Otis. Please don't take that the wrong way but simply I teach the people in situations a lot harder about God's love for us. I help others understand that this world is only a brief challenge and the result of me teaching that is that is becomes written in my heart. I understand 100% that this life is not all, and honestly, that grandpa is a lot happier now than before. I feel more than anything for Grandma, who jut lost her life partner,and for Mom, Aunt Leslie, Aunt Janine, and Aunt Debbie who lost their father. Death has been one of the bigger challenges here. When someone tells you they have brain cancer and they are not going to make it, I have the special opportunity to teach them where they are going and of the mercy of God. I guess in short, you guys are in my payers.
You are right mom, I have two bigger memories of grandpa. Riding in his truck to school every day and having him say, ''Ask me a question''. I learned about how a car works but honestly I don't remember much. The other I have is his attitude for working. Always was working in his ward, even after he lost his memories. He loved to work and have a perfect yard. When we put in gravel in the backyard he was there with his truck helping out. Just picture the same willingness to work up there in Heaven. He's doing all he can now to help others find the gospel.
Now for the week. I feel bad for my little bro now. Being sick is the worst. Especially throwing up. Luckily I haven't had the all night experience here but I did have a night when I was sick. It sucked because I wasn't about to go sleep on the nasty Ecuadorian bathroom floor. I had to stay in my bed. But it only lasted one night and that was a while ago. Now I abolutely love our new house. People say we went from the worst house in the mission to one of the best. I will send pictures this time, last week we were in a crappy cyber and the USB didnt work, sorry.
My Thanksgiving was actually pretty sweet. We ate turkey with the family Surita and it was delicious. With real mashed potatos. Later, hno Peña bought us a giant hot dog with a drink, then took us to his house and gave us another huge plate of spaghetti, with 4 GIANT mangos to go. My stomach hurt so bad!!
Last week we also had inspections. We passed with flying colors. We had to go back to the other house to inspect it too but it was all good. President walks into our bathroom and goes, ''You guys win the prize for the best smelling bathroom!'' haha it was funny. I love our new house. With green tile walls in the bathroom and a nice shower.  And a nice bedroom and kitchen and loft.  And balcony thing.. with hammocks and ping pong and a drum set. It's really nice.
About skype, I think you can do 3 way calls but you have to buy an account. Not sure though. That's still like 3 weeks away though.
Well, I'm gunna send some pics now, Love you guys!


Elder Taylor
The house

This is the view and this is the typical corner store.  They have them everywhere here.

A cool caterpillar we saw and a couple of cool birds.

This was just lunch. (Thursday)  I already ate my soup and popcorn.

This was dinner Thursday.

The the huge hot dog and Thursday as well.

Nov 23 2015

Hey familia!

Another week down here and again, faster than I can imagine! Haha I love it though, never having time to think, that's what makes it fly by. Sounds like it has been a pretty good week for you guys. The building looks great and you got eggs and a dog with a wierd net on it's head. What I wouldn't give to play with my dogs. But I can wait haha. The mission is too short as it is. I can just tell in 17 months, I'm gunna miss it like crazy. The random stuff that happens, the people you meet, the companion.. and the food. Food here basically means rice haha but I love rice. And I love lunch. A big dinner just sounds weird now.
Random story, we were knocking doors on this street and we had an appointment, so we started to leave. As we passed this completely random guy, he yells, DO YOU WANT JUICE? and without missing a beat, my companion yells YES! So the guy goes inside, and my companion looks at me and said, We are going to die Elder Taylor. It was pretty good though. Lemonade. But Ecuador is confused, lemons actually don't exist here. They call limes lemons and lemons lime. So technically it was limeade. But it was still good. Usually they make it with the peel but this one wasn't bitter. It was delicious.
Anyways, we started moving today. Hno Surita is the only guy in the ward with a truck and his truck is in the shop so we paid some random guy on the street to drive us. It was fun. We brought our beds and a few suitcases. We gotta go back later to get the rest. The old owner was a little unhappy because nobody told her we were moving but she'll get over it. She is charging double what is fair anyways.
Don't worry too much about Thanksgiving, we eat with the familia Surita and they are gunna cook us turkey that day! Super Pumped!!
They are a good family. Even if they forget, it won't make a big difference to me. Well got to go. Love you guys


Elder Taylor

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Nov 16 2015

Hola Familia!
Buenas como estáis? haha that's Spanish from Spain. We have an Hermana in our ward that recently returned from Spain, and always talks in vosotros. Basically it is the Spain form for you guys. It is kinda complicated, but ya. She has a little daughter thats like 6 and she talks that way too. It is really funny. Now I understand why Dylan wanted to talk to Ben so bad that one time haha.
Speaking of speaking, we are about a month away from that and they just had transfers and I'm still here! That was honestly the only thing I wanted is to be in Guayaquil city during the holidays. It will be a lot better. We have already had a family offer us their house to call home which is super exciting and mucho mejor. There is somewhat decent internet here in the city, so it'll be a lot better.
Ya I got to change my train of thought because now I'm super excited.
Bueno, last week was a quick and fun week. We had splits again and I stayed here, thank goodness. We had a somewhat successful week, but like always, it was super fun. My companion póints out a car and can tell you make, model year and motor. It is funny and fun at the same time. We also play a game with rocks. You have to kick the rock in between your companion's legs while you are walking. He is kicking my trash but it is fun. I'm getting better haha.
Anyways, we are also planning on moving houses next week. The office is coming this Wednesday to inspect the new house we bought and then the next Monday we can move. I am super excited. It is a third floor house with a couple big windows for air at night. The higher the better at night because there's no other houses blocking the wind.  Also they have a ping pong table so thats good.
I just remembered this, the family that gave us spaghetti and pizza and took us to the black market, the dad is passing a kidney stone. It is 9mm, and here, when this kind of stuff happens people call the missionaries. So we have been visiting him and it is hard to see. It reminds me of the scout camp when dad had kidney stones. Not fun. He can't drink without puking so he has a IV in his room.
Anyways, I can't remember a thing else that happened last week. Oh I guess here is a funny story, I was talking with the Elders Quorum Pres and he is living in the house of an eternal investigator so I always give him crap about how he isn't baptised. I say, in English, why isn't he baptised? And he goes, ''I don't know, I told him it was free!'' It was pretty funny.
Well I love you guys. I'll sent some pics of my weekly adventures, such as the english karaoke...


Elder Taylor

This is a banana split.. but here canned cool whip is 8 dollars, and syrup is 4 dollars. The people absolutely love the missionaries here.
 Also a super cute dog at a members house.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Nov 9 2015

Family...
Well thanks for the Hi from the dogs, tell them hola como estan I guess.. haha well, life here is all good. All good in the hood. haha But seriously it has been another quick week that has just absolutely flown by! I don't know how but it is gone. I love it though, the mission is the best.
 This week was pretty slow didn't do much out of the ordinary. I'll try to go day by day here.. Tuesday was pretty normal, Wednesday we had our zone meeting and then did splits. I left my sector for the first time in like 3 months and it was weird. Most people would think it is easier to go but I like staying so I can lead haha. I went to ward sauces and I was with Elder G. We started right after the meeting so we went to lunch. Elder G is having stomach problems so we had to eat in the office. He ate rice soup, (poor thing) and I ate lasagna! It was super good! After that we went and worked.
Nothing special. Thursday we worked. Friday we had a service project in the morning, we went to a random park and cleaned. Basically we swept and picked up trash. Elder G, he was trying to pull a bag out and goes, oh no, thats bones I'm out! We go over and look, luckily they weren't human but they were dog. It was really sad.
There were two dogs buried in that park that we stumbled upon. It was sad. I also found a cool turtle shell! It is white. I didn't touch it though it is probably full of diseases haha. But for some reason it was in a tree..
Saturday we worked. haha We were teaching this guy at 9:15 we were leaving and he says, I'll give you a ride. He is a less active who served in this mission. We also brought Hno Suleta because they served in the same time. We got in his car and he starts going towards our house. I say, you can let us out here, when suddenly he does a Uturn, and took us to a sushi restaurant. We asked him to get it to go but that didn't happen either. The restaurant was really cool though, owned by an old mission president. He wasn't there but his 3 sons were who are all return missionaries. We ate sushi and it was alright. I don't like sushi. But he insisted on paying. For this one plate we split and with a huge discount he paid 47 dollars!!  Anyways, remember how I said we were leaving at 9:15? Ya we got home at 9:40 ish. This is against mission rules... The return missionaries told our zone leaders about this and we got in trouble yesterday.
Remember that first, this is me. I don't break rules. And second, we were trying to hurry them up! Third, we were only 10 minutes late! Anyways, the zone leaders called us for an EMERGENCY MEETING and came and chewed us out. It was pretty stupid the whole ordeal but I didn't mind. I know the leaders are just doing their job.
Anyways, I do have a picture of us breaking the rules haha
Also, we might be moving houses soon. We might live above some members who have a ping pong table. We will be playing every day if that is the case haha!
Answer number 1: My companion is from Mesa, and he loves Arizona. He is convinced that Arizona is the best state, but that's because he's never lived in Idaho haha.We talk about cars all day. He is a fanatic and I like to learn.  He can look at any car and tell you all about it. We get along great.
Number 2: I don't want to be transferred. I love this ward and these people. My language is fine, I'm like 100 percent confident with my language. It's called the gift of tongues. It might happen next week but I think it'll happen in January after the holidays. It is pretty normal to have 6 months in 1 sector here.
Number 3: I love the food, I love the people, I love the fruit, I love it all.  The best plate here is callled currazgo. Basically rice with steak and green peppers with sauce (like fajita sauce) with french fries and an egg. In a month there will be soo many mangos! I am super excited.

Well I think that is it this week, love you guys


Elder Taylor



Friday, January 8, 2016

Nov. 2 2015

Hey family!
Well, I'm basically out of time. I blame it on the unexpected letter from the new bishop. It was nice though. He told me how you guys are studs. I told his that you were studs as well haha. He is a great guy. Emailing a random missionary he doesn't even know, and writing almost as much as my mom. I can't wait to meet him and the ward. 
My mind is still on the picture, (of Emily's foot) I wish I would have read this first but curiosity killed the video star right? Oh how I miss music haha.
This week was fun. I guess you already know about me singing last night, so thats that. But we did also do other stuff. We took our mission leader out for food. It was fun. We kinda spent 50 dollars on one plate, the place was super expensive. We split it between 4 of us which wasn't much food for us but we were happy. It was basically 2 steaks, 2 pork chops, 2 giant sausages, 2 gianter blood sausages (don't ask), 4 kidneys and 2 intestines. The intestines were disgusting but I tried them for the experience. My comp told me about a time in his last sector when he saw a family making them. The parents were squeezing out the stuff inside and my comp says, ''whats that?'' The little girl yells, ''SH##'!' haha in english and everything
Anyways there was also a funny discussion we had in ward counsel yesterday.. something like this.. Encomtramos una nueva familia. se llama cabesa.. Bishop, Ya tenemos una familia cabesa.. second counselor no eso es la familia cabeza de vaca.. OOHHH! (we found a new family, the familia head.. we already have a family head! No thats the family cow head.. OOHHH) It is a lot funnier in spanish but yeah.Well, I think that was about it.
SMARTIES! That is what I want in my package is a handful of smarties, but like in the rolls of course.
About the picking me up I heard we aren't allowed to do that the other day so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I will be coming back to visit this ward though, they are some of the most loving people ever.
Love you guys
Elder Taylor
The meal with Villavicencio (thats his last name)
The menu, prices.  It was expensive.
The meat.  The yellowish thing is the intestines.

The familia peña gave us spagetti last monday, a huge plate...
Also Friday dinner.. They feed us soo much!!