JULY 26TH, 2010

Well not much has happened this week just work. We had to go to Ibarra which is about 3 hours away and on the way back up here there were no more seats so we had to stand for three hours I have never felt so sick, I have no idea how I didn´t throw up.
We didn´t have any baptisms this week. We put them off til next Saturday because we wanted to prepare this family a little more, but next Saturday for sure. So the little boy from this family likes to come with us to lessons, so we have this 14 year old kid, who is tiny, who just goes with us to lessons, almost all of the day. His mom told us that he wants to go on a mission and help people like we do so that was pretty awesome. I am going to Quito tomorrow to see the foot doctor one last time and I will talk to President Sloan then about the whole teeth thing.

So man time is flying, it´s weird people that had a year to go when I got here are going home this cambio and the next cambio. It´s kinda scary. You kinda wish that the time would slow down but it doesn´t, it speeds up with more time.

So how´s everyone doing? It´s so weird that it´s summer right now. I don´t even think of it being almost August cause it feels like December here.
So on Saturday we had to basically plow a field with this family that we are baptizing and man it was hard work we just used shovels and picks. They are starting a potato garden. Then we went and helped one of our members teach english at a school. I am sure glad we know english it is so hard for them to learn, so hard.

So I hate our shower I don´t know if I have told you guys but it´s freezing cold absolutely freezing. I wake up and work out, then I absolutely dread getting in the shower. It´s like torture. Seriously, once like every 2 weeks we have warm water and when we do, we take like hour long showers. It dosn´t help that it never gets warmer than 60 degrees here and in the morning it´s about 40 and it´s a wet cold, so it just hurts your body. I can´t feel my toes half of the time here, seriously, I am just used to it. I should feel lucky though we have investigators that have to shower outside with buckets of water and walk to the outhouse to use the bathroom. The sad part is, I am in one of the richer parts of Ecuador. Here we eat potatoes, always, always, always. I hate potatoes now with everything in me and the sad thing is that I am barely half way done with the time that I have here.

The other day we ate Cuye. It´s hampster but like giant ones and ever since I have gotten to Ecuador I have heard of them, but never have at them until the Otavalon family, that we baptized, gave us some. It was pretty good. It´s very similar to chicken, just harder and in the shape of a giant rat.

What else have I ate thats weird, oh yeah, I ate a cow hoof with soup it was about as nasty as it sounds. I am so sick of juice too. The juice in Santo Domingo was good, but here it´s nasty and thats all that anyone gives us is juice. This stuff called aguita is like some herbal tea from here and with bread, always, about 5 times a day. Thats about it for food thats about all I have eaten for the past 2 months and McDonalds once. Man, I took McDonalds for granted in Springerville. This place is cool though. Every night the streets are completely crowded with people from Colombia and Ecuador. They just like party and you can hardly walk through the city on Friday nights. And then every morning, we wake up to the same song that the trash guys play so people will know that they are coming, so we hardly ever set our alarms, we just wait for the garbage guy to wake us up. I know that when I leave this place that I will miss that sound though for sure.

So Tanner is about to start football pretty soon. Is he gonna play any varsity? Man I miss football so much it was the best time of my life. It´s so wierd Kellin will be home in just a little while man. How´s willie doing? Is Chase working a lot? How´s dad doing with all of those tests that he has to do? I bet he´s so sick of them. Rylee, whats that kid up to? I bet no good since he has no school. Who watches him? Does Tanner work? Get me caught up..... freak1 I know nothing! Where are they going to have school at? This email is kind of everywhere but things are just coming to my mind.... Is Willie moving back? Whats he going to do for work? Has Chase been dating anyone?
I still haven´t gotten any of the packages you have sent but when I go to Quito I will try to get them, how many have you sent since the one with the ties and Mtn. Dew?
So we have basically 2 days straight of meetings and since I have to go to see the doctor President Sloan gave me permision to go and listen. This man is seriously the smartest man alive, he´s so awesome. But 2 days of meetings could get old, but it´s life right?

So mom how have you been? How´s work going? How´s everything? How´s grandpa? How was Rylee´s baptism?

Well I definitely post more pictures this next Monday because we will have the baptism and I will hopefully will have my new camera.

Anyways I better get going but tell everyone that I love them and that I always think about them, especially grandpa. And tell him that I will be writing him a letter asap. Tell Brad, what the heck? for not writing me, Willie, Chase, Tanner, Rylee, and Dad they all are slacking.

I better get going but I will write you guys more on the next Monday for sure.

Love you all.

con amor,

Elder Hamblin

JULY 19TH, 2010

Wow this week flew. We had changes last night and Elder Hilden, one of my good buddies left, it was pretty sad. It was a good week though. We challenged a bunch of people to be baptized and they all said yes. We´ll see how it goes, we have to still teach them some commandments, so hopefully it all goes well. We have a family of 4 scheduled to be baptized this Saturday so I will let you guys know how that goes on Monday. Other than that, not to much new. I am done with 5 changes it´s weird. I stayed with Elder Walker, which is awesome because we get along really well. We are having a lot of success here. We finally drank that Mountain Dew that you sent me last night. We just drank it, it was amazing.

So today we had p-day and we ran into some new members that just moved here from Ambaoto. They asked us if we could help them unload there stuff into there house and we thought it would take like 2 hours, maybe, but it took us about 5 hours. So we didn´t really have a p day and we are exhausted because we had to walk up and down 3 flights of stairs. It seems like every p day we just get more tired instead of resting.

President Sloan was sick again, so I doubt he´s going to email me back so I will just have to wait til next week or the next couple weeks. That poor guy we all thought that he was over his lung sickness and we found out this week that they had to do another surgery on his lungs. This man is seriously one of the toughest guys in the world. He´s so awesome, so strict, but I love him. And he loves us more than we can even imagine. We have been praying for him alot. I will let you know about the dentist when I find out though.

Rylee is getting baptized thats awesome. Are you doing it in Utah? Everyone is all scattered around for a week. The car seems way nice. What ever happened to the truck? Tanner still getting bigger? Man, I remember this time last year and it seems just like few weeks ago. Has Willie has asked her yet? Well everything sounds good and hopefully everything, work wise, will get better.

I went to the foot doctor like 3 weeks ago and have to go again in like a week or two. He says he has to help my nails grow in right or they can stay bad for a long time.

The packages, I will probably get in like a month or two since I am basically cut off from the whole world and mission here. But thanks mom thanks for everything. I will try to post some pictures up so you guys can see.

I put some more pictures up and I want my big picture on the top of my blog to be the one with me and the missionaries and that family. I only put like 5 up but thanks.
Oh and you guys need a family picture of everyone so I can show people my family. So take some and put them up when you can with everyone, you, dad, Tan, Rylee, Chase and willie. Put it up and I can take it off and put it on a flash.

I love you all so much. I better get going though.

Elder Evan Hamblin

JULY 12TH, 2010

Well this week went by way way quick. It was good though. It is the last week of this change coming up and it went by way way fast. I think that me and my companion are staying together another one, I hope at least. Thats what President Sloan told us. Nothing very interesting has happened this week. Evan though we didn´t have any baptisms, hopefully this next one or the one after we can get some. We are working hard so I know that they will come.
Anyway what else? Oh yeah so today we were like going to have a p-day of rest, but we went to playing basketball with our bishop who´s like 25 and two other members. We ended up playing about 4 hours so I am completely dying, but me and my comp won. They had to buy us sodas and our bishop owes me pizza and a soda because we made a bet on the Spain Holland game.

So my health is getting better. We have to go back to Quito one more time towards the end of this month to see the doctor again for my feet because he says that he has to reshape them my nails so that should be fun. What else? not much here, my hands are good though. I will have some cool scars on them but they are basically healed.

Freakin Rylee, i miss that kid, he´s gonna be huge and not as funny when I get home.

I hit 9 months in like 2 days, crazy huh? Time really does fly out here, but I am loving it. I am having fun for sure. My spanish is getting a little better and better everyday, I just need a latino again, but I have a bunch of time left so I am not to worried.

The Mountains are beautiful here except they are better down a little lower like in towns like Otavalo or Ibarra. Because the mountains look a lot bigger because it´s lower elevation. Here where we are, we are like on top of the mountains.

I heard that LeBron James went to the Heat with D Wade and Bosh. Thats gonna be a crazy good team.

Anyway I better get going though. I will let you know when I get that package and everything else when I find out, and I will put more pictures up next week too.

Love you guys,

Elder Hamblin.

JULY 5TH, 2010

Well it´s nice to finally have time to write.
So this week has been pretty good we had a baptism on Saturday it was awesome. It was of a man who´s whole family are members, so they were all pretty pumped. My trainer Elder Caresia baptized the kids 2 months ago so it´s pretty cool. We still are hoping for a lot more success this month we´ll see though.
So another funny thing that happened this week ha so we went into a investigators house and they were watching the Uruaguay vs Ghana game, it was in penalties so it was on. Awesome game and after, the kids wanted to play soccer in their house with a little rubber ball, so I was the goalie and the kids scored twice on me. So the third time I wasn´t going to let him make it, so he kicked it and I reached my hands up real fast to block it, and yeah, well the roof isn´t very high so I jammed about every finger on both hands. The paint drippings on the ceiling were hard and dried so it´s pretty jagged and my right hand is cut up bad. I got 3 fingernails peeled back, it was horrible. I dripped blood all over the floor. She wanted to take me to the hospital but I just asked her if she could do it and she cleaned it and bandaged it up. It´s pretty hard to type right now, but I will send put some pictures up on my hotmail thing so you guys can see.

So today I was about 16,000 ft up. It was awesome. We left at 7AM this morning and we took all 4 of the missionaries in this town, 6 members, and we got a guide. We hiked it but litle did we know that it was suppost to rain, ha, but it doesn´t rain at 16,000 ft, it snows ~slash~ hails. It was so cold. And it takes 2 1/2 hours to climb up and go down. But it was pretty awesome. It´s so hard to breathe at the height and I now have a massive headache because the lack of air up there. I will try to put more pictures up of that too.

So the 4th was boring? I don´t believe it, you are just trying to make me feel good. It kind of sucks that it landed on a Sunday. We had a missionary and future missionary breakfast to celebrate on Saturday. They all thought it was ALL for future missionaries, because they are from Ecuador and have no idea what the 4th is but us gringos knew. It was fun though.

So Chase got the surgery how much was it? Thats cool though. About grandpa I will definitely keep him in my prayers for sure. Man it sounds like he´s having a rough time. Anyways yeah I finally got my package with ties and the Mountain Dew. Ha, we are saving it until the end of this change to celebrate me and my comp. but man it´s tempting to drink it. I put it in our fridge so it´s just chilling in there but I will stay strong only 2 more week before this change is over, and thats freaking crazy huh? It seems like I just got here. Anyway I better get going.

Oh yeah I went to the dentist and they said braces would be 1000 so IDK I have to talk to our nurse about it still so I am going to email her today but let me know what you guys think I should do.

I love you guys all so much and don´t forget to check my pictures and tell everyone, "what's up?"

Love your son