The Iguana and the Boon Docks!

Hello everyone!

This week has been full of learning experiences for me and Elder Hancock! I have learned that the Lord gives us challenges and he also blesses us on a daily bases. Everyday this week has been a roller coaster of events and investigators. The start of the week was super slow! And it seemed like nothing was going good at all, but we held our heads high and kept pressing forward. By the time Friday rolled around we had only taught a handful of lessons and didn't place any baptismal dates. Our numbers were horrible and we were walking and walking everywhere and just not teaching lessons.

But Friday rolled around and everything was different. One thing is that we prayed super long and hard the night before for each one of our investigators. But Friday we had this idea to go try an area in our sector that is about 45 minutes away from the rest of our sector (on a bus) to teach. We were the first missionaries hear possibly I'm not exactly sure but I do know one thing....I think it was every ones first time there seeing a gringo.

We taught two lessons there that went very well! And it was cool being just way out in a new area. But that Friday we got 7 new investigators! And placed two baptism dates! The following day we placed another baptism date! So at this point we were really pumped! But Sunday rolled around and we were hoping to get 5 people to church. Lets just say that we got 0 to church.....but the highlight of that Sunday was seeing our convert Aaron get to church early and prepare the sacrament ! It was awesome! The day before he also went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! And the temple is 3 hours away. I believe life in general is the same way, the Lord gives us all trials, but we need to keep our heads high and look to the lord for help and he will give us tender mercies along the way. Happiness/success is just around the corner. And one thing Elder Hancock taught me is that our success is up to the lord to determine not us. Because in the moment we don't know what the Lord has planned for these people we are teaching, we just know that we need to follow the spirit and do our best. Everyone has their agency and we need to have patience with them. The other day on Thursday we had an interchange and I lead my sector, everything went pretty smooth and good. This week i saw like 10 iguanas in our sector, so I was excited! They are pretty cool! I am loving it here, even though I am sweating all the time and getting bit by bugs. I love it!!!!

Oh this week we watched some videos from Preach My Gospel in companion study and I felt the impression to tell you guys how important missionary work at home is!! The members play a huge role in missionary work! We try to make 50 contacts a week, and we teach about 17 lessons a week. But think of how effective and how fast the church would grow and retain members if everyone had a part in the work! Just talking to one person a week and giving the missionaries their name, think of how great that would be! I think at home we get scared to share the gospel with our non member friends. We need to overcome that fear, people need to hear it! On that note I hope you all have a wonderful week!
And I love you all!!Elder Jase Warner

Our Apartment, and the guitar I bought!

Jase didn't tell us, but I'm thinking maybe the bus stop??????

47 Bananas!

¿Que mas?

This week was pretty good here in Santa Rosa Ecuador. We were blessed with another baptism on Saturday, Aaron Carrion. It was actually a very close call. On Friday night we went to go teach Aaron, and his parents told us he was having some doubts. His parents are non members by the way. But we listened and talked to Aaron for about two hours that night trying to figure out what his doubts were. At first he was telling us he wasn't sure it was true, but that was a lie ( people lie here 24/7) its just their culture. So we kept listening with the spirit, and then he said the reason was because of the word of wisdom, which was also a lie. He finally came out an told us it was because his friends at school made fun of his decision to be baptized. But we reminded him of his strong testimony of El Libro De Mormon, and the spirit was there pretty strong. After that he was very excited to be baptized the next day and he brought his whole non member family with him to the baptism! And the next day at church he was in sacrament meeting with his whole family and received the holy ghost. His dad knows a lot about the gospel and I am pretty sure he believes the church is true, he is just stubborn.

We don't have any baptisms for this week, but we have a couple people we are working with. One guy Josias went to church yesterday with us and went to Sunday school and he is a very intelligent guy, but his dad is a pastor at another church. But we are going to rely on the spirit and the book of Mormon to testify to him. The book of Mormon works miracle everyday for us.

Me and elder Hancock are doing great, were working hard!! Then on Saturday we walked probably 20 miles.....and not one lesson was taught that day it seemed like we walked everywhere and Saturday we just walked and walked ! But it takes hard work to get baptisms, and that's what we are here to do!

Some of the food here is hard for me to eat still, the hardest is the fish with the had and tail still on it, and we have been eating fish a lot lately. I feel so bad every time we eat lunch in the members homes which is everyday almost. They barely have money for their own food it seems like and they give up what they do have to us missionary´s. Its a lot of food too! I think they believe they need to give us a ton of food but they really don't need to. There are usually two bananas in each meal and more rice than I can fit in my stomach. Today me and elder Hancock bought 47 bananas for the week. That's how many we eat.....just for breakfast usually!! Its insane!

Our house is actually really nice we have 3 rooms and a living room kitchen and two bathrooms..Its big! And we have a gym now:) We finished building our weight bench the other day and we bench press our gas tank..and we have a pull up bar.

Today I found Brant Wadsworth's letter he wrote me in Spanish at the farewell and I could read it all! so I was happy about that.

Life is good here I'm happy, tired, and love the gospel!

Love Elder

Pix from the First Area!

We got these last week, but I couldn't open them on my computer. Finally got them!

Yummy Cow Parts

How is everyone doing?

I love getting all your emails. So we had two baptisms this week with Genesis and Bryan, it went great I baptized Bryan. Elder Hancock and I sang a song during the baptism and everyone said we sounded like angels. But everyone here is tone deaf.... We had a member in the ward baptize Genesis and it took him 6 tries to get it right, it was pretty funny but it was all good.

I had an awesome experience placing my first baptism date with a 14 year old named Arron Carion, we placed the date in the first visit, and he is getting baptised this next Saturday.

So p-days are kind of boring not being able to play ANY sports at all, not even volley ball. I really don't understand it at all but today i am buying a guitar. I love it here in Ecuador, My Spanish is still bad, but i am learning everyday with my trainer elder Hancock.

Yesterday i ate cow intestine and cow stomach and cow something else that i don't know exactly where it came from on the cow...We eat on average 5-7 bananas a day here, and a ton of rice, and the members like to serve fish, with the scales and heads and tails....yum...not , I don't like fish but I guess I will have too here.

Gringos here get stared at by everyone here, and we are the only white people around...the girls stare at us because they love the way we look and the guys stare at us because there girls are staring at us. Except the drunk guys they just say " hey mister" because that's the only English that anyone knows.

I love it here and we are working so hard but I am happy, oh my address is the mission address...you send it to the mission and they send it to me me with the zone leaders or we go to Guayaquil and get it. So the address that is in my packet, just send packages with the green sticker, if its a white sticker I won't get it, and try to send the packages no more than like 5 pounds each.

And it is about time to start sending Christmas packages, I want peanut butter and razor blades to shave( the ones for the Gillette fusion vibrating razor. And whatever you want pictures, whatever!

Love you all

Elder Jase Warner

I'm finally here!

Hello,

How is everyone doing? I am doing great in my new area in Ecuador! My area is called Santa Rosa 2. I am in the same area as elder Egan my first companion in the Provo MTC we are just in different sectors, but they are bordering sectors so our houses are like 3 blocks from each other.

Santa Rosa is toward the bottom of Ecuador near the coast. It is a city of banana farms and shrimp farms.You can buy like 8 bananas here for 30 cents! So we eat a lot of them:)

My companions name is Elder Hancock. He is from Utah. He only has till February till he goes home and he has been in Santa Rosa for the past 6 months! He is awesome and he is teaching my great. We are doing a lot of work here, and walking everywhere everyday. It is so much walking!! I will need new shoes for sure he says in like 6 months.

The food here is pretty good but we eat huge lunches at members houses around 1 o'clock and our mission is different than a lot in South America cause we have a different mamita that cooks for us everyday as service for free. But lunch is huge and we don't eat dinner usually till 9 at night. There is this place next door to our house that sells the best hot dogs I've ever had in my life for 1 dollar! And banana shakes the best also for 50 cents so that's my dinner every night. We spend 1.50 everyday except for pday....pday we spend15 dollars on groceries. That's my budget. Simple, ha ha.

So I love the people here and I love my president! The first day we got here we met our new comps and did a temple session. The temple in Guayaquil is so nice!! But we slept in Guayaquil the first night and the next morning we headed to our area. It takes 3 and a half hours on a bus to get to Guayaquil from our area. But I just slept the whole way.

We have a lot of pretty good investigators that we have been teaching. We have two baptisms next Saturday!!! Bryan and Genesis Mendoza, they are just kids. But they are awesome! I am baptising Bryan! And we have some other people committed to baptism for the following weeks. We would get a ton of baptisms here if people got married. If two people live together here they call themselves married, but really no one here gets married! I don't get it just a cultural thing, but marriage only cost 6 dollars...they don't like doing it cause to get a divorce its really expensive and a lot of people here are unfaithful to there spouses. But we have a couple that wants to get baptized and so they will get married this week or next week.

The weather here is actually super nice right now its like 65-70 and cloudy-ish and every one who lives here complains that its too cold, ha ha! They are used to it being super hot. But my skin is still sticky 100 percent of the time.

Oh Elder Egan and his companion had a baptism last Saturday! So Egan got one his first week! People here are so willing to listen! They all know that Jesus Christ is their savior already. They are just all Catholic.

But some downers to my mission! We are not aloud to play soccer! Or basketball! And me and my companion are going for 100 percent obedience, so no sports...its crazy to me but oh well.

Ecuador is treating me well, I see the power of prayer everyday already. Me and my comp get along great and we are gong to be very successful together. My Spanish is still bad....but that's okay!

I love you all choose the right!

Elder Warner

The Kite and the Book

This is the story of the Kite and the Book!

Hows it going?! So this week was a great week! last Saturday was sweet! Another great experience tracting and teaching the gospel! Me and my companion elder La Madrid started out by teaching less active members, we taught like 3 lessons but one lady was sick and asked for a blessing. I love how i get to give blessings all the time! And the whole time during the blessing was chewing on my leg....One of those stupid ugly white dogs.

But after we taught all the less active members on our list we then started contacting people in the park. We taught many different people but the people that stuck out the most was a family of 4 people. Dad named Pablo and mother and two little boys. They were all flying a kite and the kite broke so we helped the people fix it. After his kids started flying it again we talked to him about the Book of Mormon and he was very interested! He was amazed that i am in Peru for 2 years teaching for the church without getting paid. So when i challenged him to read the introduction and pray about it, before the missionaries came the following Monday. his response was "can i just read the whole book?" I was like of coarse!!! it was crazy! he was like so excited about the book.When we left, he called his wife and kids over and told them that they are meeting with the missionaries on Monday and then he asked if we could pray for them right there in the park, it was awesome! and this guy had never gone to any church in his life!

But anyways i leave to Ecuador now in 6 days! i cant wait! I'm so pumped!" And i am sorry to whoever feels like they are not receiving letters back from me. Because i write everyone back and send them, its just that the mail here is ridiculous. for example the letters i get on Wednesday usually get here the Thursday before, which is usually 3 weeks after u send it to me. and then i cant send a letter till the Monday after and it takes like 3 more weeks. and its not reliable, some of the letters Ive gotten have been opened and stuff. So hopefully the system in Ecuador will be a little better.

But i miss you all and love you so much!
Elder Warner

New Companion

So for everyone,

I love hearing all the comments that are posted up on the blog! I miss everyone so much and its nice to read those!

So this week we didn't get to go out and teach Saturday, so i don't have any really crazy stories. But last Wednesday was the day I got my new companion and his name is Elder La Madrid. he is from Trujillo Peru. He is serving his mission in Mexico. Elder Madrid is probably ten times more mature than my last companion. He pushes me to be better everyday.

Elder Madrid had a pretty hard time before his mission, on his 20th birthday, July 1st this year right before his mission call came in the mail, his dad died out at sea fishing. His whole boat sank and 15 men died with him. My companion was so depressed that he locked himself in a room for 3 weeks and hardly ate anything, loosing a ton of weight and being told that he cant go on a mission anymore because of his health. So he started eating 5 meals a day and started working out 24/7 and now he is here and he is one buff dude! he is like 5´4 and just huge! but his story is pretty inspiring to me. How he took suck a hard situation and still was able to be out here and do what he is supposed to be doing!

Also this past Wednesday we got to go on the tour of Peru. I got to go see the ocean and watch a bunch of guys surf.....it kinda made me mad not being able to get out there and surf too ha ha. The rest of this week has been class and more class. Me and my companion get along and teach very well together.We have taught a couple times to pretend investigators this week and he is a lot easier to understand than my last companion.but i don't know if that's just cause my Spanish has got a Little better or if its cause he speaks slower. I also taught a lesson to some of the new white missionaries that just got here from Provo and i realized how much i have improved since three weeks ago. Cause before that it felt like i wasn't really progressing.

But i get to go to Ecuador in just 14 days from now!!! i am so excited ! I love the MTC, but it is time for the field! It feels like i have been in here forever! but at the same time it feels like I'm leaving so fast, i don't know how that works, but it does.ha ha well I am sorry that i don't have any teaching stories this week, but i love you all and miss you all so much!

Elder Jase Warner

PS. remember to go to the blog and make your comments! My Dad sends them to me, and I love hearing from you.