Letter from Jon

11-02-09
Dear Family.
Well another week has gone by here in Guayaquil. The time is really starting to speed up and I can’t slow it down. We are already in week four of the change, and its going by really fast. Like normal Ill talk about the things of your email and then Ill talk about what’s goin on here.

DAD- 1st the boots are great they are really comfortable and all the people here know I am from Texas and obviously that’s why I wear boots J , because everyone that is from Texas are cowboys.
Actually I want to kill of my old florsheims so I am wearing those every day, not because the boots are uncomfortable but because I want to get those shoes done with.
I can’t believe those lug nuts were wrong. He had my rims in his hands when he was ordering them and was describing them just like you were. So I don’t know. I really would not pay 10 bucks a pop for them so I guess you just need to keep looking.
I think that my Spanish is coming along. It gets better every day of the life here I just need to keep working on it if I want to speak well. I can communicate with the people here. I forgot how fast and how thick some of the accents are here, but it’s getting easier everyday to understand and speak the language.
Oh and something that will make you happy dad, I have finally decided to stop chewing my nails and fingers, I’ve had a few relapses but I am going on a week without really chewing my nails or fingers. Actually on Sunday I actually used nail clippers it was the first time In years and years, it was really weird.
MOM- No I haven’t received a letter from anybody yet, only emails. Hopefully tomorrow when I am at district meeting I´ll get the first dearelder you guys sent me. So that will be good ill get them eventually so we just need to be patient, with Spencer especially I bet we will only be able to do 1 letter every 1 1/2 to 2 months, So I’m not holding my breath. I would like it if you guys could email me a pic of bens costume, it sounds awesome. I cant believe its already been like 6 weeks since your surgery. It seems like yesterday I was visiting you in the hospital. Its very weird.
Now on to the what’s happening to elder match front.
On the shoulder front, and before you read this I want you to know that I am fine and am working just like normal. On Sunday I had a really really bad day. I woke up and my shoulder just absolutely killed. I went to church and bore my testimony and after sat down and just started to cry. Yes I know like a girl. So I left the sacrament meeting and went downstairs then another member of the church and elder forero gave me a blessing, it helped, but t still hurt and elder forero went with a member and got my immobilizer and I wore that for the rest of the day. It still hurts right now but not even close to what it was yesterday. Now to the reason and it’s a story in and of itself.
We have two investigators that want to get baptized but first the husband needs a divorce from his previous marriage and to do that here requires 300 dollars, which is a lot. So to help them we decided to do a guatita. A guatita is a dish that is served here its made with penuts, onion, tomato, potato, and tripe( cow stomach) and you eat it with rice ( like always) its actually really good. So at 630 in the morning we got up and started walking carrying things and selling the guatitas, and I kid you not, we walked for 8 ½ hours without taking a single break. In the space of these 8 ½ hours we serioulsly walked over 30 miles. It was one of the times ive been most tired in my life. Oh yeah and after that we did missionary work for another 5 hours. I am still feeling the effects of it. We are going to try and get to the house 2 or 3 hours early to sleep before we need leave. I think this is the reason my shoulder hurt so bad, I literally overdid it. But the thing is im in Ecuador and that’s what we do here, so I don’t know, but It didn’t slow me down it just really hurt, and when I say really hurt I mean it, it hadn’t hurt that bad since I had the surgery. So I don’t know I just need to rest I guess.
Last night I realized that the moon is different here in Ecuador. We are having a full moon here and I realized the craters are different from home in texas, so I sat there staring at it for 5 minutes because I was seeing a different part of the moon. Im serious Ive looked at the moon enough to recognize that it wasn’t the same.
This week I counted the number of transvestites and cross dressers we saw. In one week alone I counted 10 different persons and one of them is the son of a member family. Now when I say crossdressers I don’t just mean clothes I mean like all out, makeup plucked eyebrows and all. So theres your weird Ecuador fact for the week. In el batallon there are a lot of cross dressers.
Cool food story on Friday I got to eat a little bit of manta ray. It was a really cool meat, because it had a light fishy taste and the texture and feel of pork, so it was really cool. If you don’t remember what they look like, manta rays, google it.
Well that was my week here, the language is going really good and the work as well. I hope you’re all doing well and are staying safe, love yall lots Elder Match