7 Months!

Hola Mi Querido Familia!!!

How's everybody doing up in North America? Great, I hope. Everything is still going great here in Vinces :) It didn't rain so much this week, which was good. But I know that more rain is coming....haha The rain doesn't stop until April or May from what I hear. So there's lots more rain to look forward to for me :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOSH ON SATURDAY!!! I love you Josh! I can't believe he is going to be 4! All the little nieces and nephews will be so big when I get back haha.

As you might have guessed from the subject of this email, today is my 7 MONTH mark! WOOO!! haha I can't believe how fast the time is going by. I feel like I say that all the time...but it is so true!

This week we had our Zone Conference in Babahoyo in the chapel where I would go when I was there :) Elder Baum was there too. That was fun to see him. He is living in the same house where I lived, but in the other ward. Something special about this Zone Conference was that Elder Gavarett, the 1st counselor in the area presidency, was there! That was pretty cool and he talked for a LOOOOONG time haha. But it was good :) He gave us lots of new ideas. And he told us something interesting that I never knew.... Mission Presidents interview themselves for temple reccomends. The only signature on their reccomend is their own! Maybe everybody else already knew that, but I though it was interesting lol. He told us that to show to us how much trust the Lord puts in Mission Presidents and how much we need to follow the counsel of our mission pres :)

Could you please send me the recipe to make Apple Pie? Every week the RS does cake-making classes on Thursdays and they want to make Apple Pie. It's great for us Elders too, because we have Correlation (is that spelled right? Spanish makes me doubt my english spelling lol) with our ward mission leader and then after the meeting the RS gives us a piece of cake or whatever they made that day :) lol I'm excited for this week cause they are going to make BROWNIES!!!!!!!! yum :)

So, here in Vinces alot of traveling is done in Moto-taxis. They're kinda like big tricycles with one person in the front driving, and two seats in the back. Anyways, 2 times this week we were in a hurry at night to get back to the house on time so we went in a moto-taxi. And both times it was the same guy driving the same moto-taxi. That's pretty common cause Vinces isn't very big, but the problem was that this guy doesn't know how to drive a motorcycle. BOTH nights he got stuck in the SAME place where it's always muddy and you have to go fast-ish through it so you don't get stuck. This guy must be a slow learner cause both nights he practically stopped before entering in the muddy spot lol. The second night that we rode with him I said to E Morataya "I hope this guy knows how to drive a moto now" And we were joking the whole way home about how funny it would be if he got stuck in the same spot again... And, what do ya know? He got stuck there again! We were laughing SOOOO hard lol. ( I just re-read that paragraph, and it was a LOT funnier in real life...so........sorry lol. Just laugh when you read it, ok? Cause I promise, it was funny. Thanks haha.)

Mom and dad...has a package gotten to the house yet? Let me know when it gets there and if it's broken when it gets there lol.

This week, we were teaching this couple (not married, of course) Luis and Maribel. We've taught them for a few weeks now and they have a Bible from the J-dubs that we've been trying to replace with the new Bible from our Church. But they always said no cause it was a gift, and lots of excuses. But, E Morataya and I decided to tell them straight up that the J-dub Bible was false. We showed them a few scriptures that they have taken out of their Bible and then a scripture that says you can't add or take away from the Bible. And when Maribel finished reading that scripture she picked up the J-dub bible and threw it across the table to us and said "Take it. We don't want it anymore. Take it." I was so shocked at first. I know they felt the Spirit cause I felt it so strongly. So that was pretty exciting news this week. We put a baptism date for them too :) The only problems now are getting them to get married and go to church. lol But I know they will do it :)

Well, I think that's all the news for this week. I hope everything is going well with the family and everyone :) I love you all SOOO much! Thanks for everything you do for me! Thanks for the prayers!

Love, Elder Beck