¡Felíz Día de las Brujas!In case you were wondering, they do celebrate Halloween here in Ecuador. There are all kinds of parties and celebrations that happen the week before. The ward had a Halloween party last Friday. The members here are very divided about whether or not we should celebrate Halloween because of it{s pagan origins. It´s kind of funny, a lot of them feel very strongly about it and keep asking us what Halloween means and showing us Wikipedia articles they printed off for us to read. A lot of people here have the idea that because we´re missionaries we know everything and our answers to there questions are doctrine but we´re just like "If you don´t feel comfortable celebrating it, don´t celebrate it".
It´s a fun time to be Ecuador right now though. During the Halloween/Día de los Muertos season they have a lot of cool foods that they never have during the rest of the year. One of them is called a Guagua de Pan. It´s bread in the shape of a little person filled with jelly and it´s delicious! They also have this drink called Colada Morada that´s basically a bunch of fruits mashed up into a sort smoothy type liquid and then heated up and served hot. American missionaries seem to either love it or hate it because it has a very strong, sweet taste, but I think it´s so good. It´s funny too because the TV show "Ecuador Tiene Talento" just started up and is a big deal right now. We have a lot of people ask us what we think of all the contestants and judges and sometimes it´s just easier to smile nod and agree rather than have to explain that we don´t watch TV. But we´ve heard a lot about that.
So we baptized Steven Falcon this last Friday! It was a really complicated situation though. We had it scheduled for Saturday at 7:00 PM and invited a bunch of people, but then Steven´s dad had to work and Steven really wanted him to be there. We then changed it to 2:00 in the afternoon to accomodate his dad. But then we found out there was going to be a Family History Discovery event at the Stake center so no one was going to be able to come. We then changed it to 2:00 on Friday, but then the Bishop couldn´t come because he had work and the 1st Counselor in the bishopric, Hermano Toapanta could only make it at 3:30. We ended up having the service at around 3:45 and it was a small gathering. Only us, Steven, his mom and two siblings (his dad didn´t even end up coming), Elder Mansell and Elder Melendez, Hno. Toapanta, and Jefferson Perez, the gospel doctrines teacher, were there but it was a great experience nonetheless. Steven chose me to be the baptizer. I was excited to have the opportunity to baptize again and I was honored and honestly a little surprised that he chose me. We felt bad though because he was so worried about the water being cold and we reassured him several times that the water would be warm. But because of all the time changes and delays, the water was pretty frigid by the time we actually performed the ordinance. I apologized to him over and over again afterwards but he just thought it was funny and was too happy to be upset or bothered by it.
His confirmation was a really cool experience. He invited his siblings and mom to come so they were at church too. Afterwards, he was asking us all kinds of questions, like how does he get a priesthood interview, when can he go to the temple and things like that. He also leaned over and asked, "Hey, Elder is like a title for missionaries, right?" I was all like "yeah, sort of" and then I heard him whispering to himself, "Huh, Elder Falcon." I couldn´t help but just smile. He is such a great guy and I´m really excited to see where he goes in the gospel!
Well, I´m happy to say that I am free of all parasites! But Elder Mansell has two just like me. I don´t know what´s going on! We´ve been getting to know the new Elders a lot this past week because they eat lunch with us and we´ve been showing them around the sector a bit. They are super cool guys! Elder Mansell came from Santo Domingo near the coast, so he´s picked up on a lot of weird slang terms and speach patterns. But he´s really funny and he only has one transfer more than me in the mission, so it´s been nice to have someone in the same boat as me. It´s always exciting to hear about what´s going on with our old families up in Argelia Alta.
I´ve been having a much better time now that I´m parasite free and excited about Steven. As always, I hope you´re all doing great back in the States or wherever else you guys happen to find yourselves. Los quiero bastante y espero que todos tengan una buena semana y vida.
Hasta el proximo lunes,
Elder Travis Hicks
Picture 1: A pic before the baptism.
Picture 2: A pretty view of the Andes. This picture doesn´t really do it justice, lo siento, but it was so beautiful.
Picture 3: Elder Mansell had a hold of my camera.
Picture 4: Me about to eat a guagua de pan.
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