Week 8 -- Simon Bolivar

¡Hola! 

Family, let me begin by answering your questions; Yes, I did receive your packages and I loved them a lot! Thank you.  Yes, I did give Lanaya's gift to President Amaya.  He seemed really happy to receive the gift. To tell you more about Elder Mercado--he is 21 years old.  He is from Colombia and he loves music. He sings everywhere he goes.  He knows very little English but enough to communicate with me.  He has been out on his mission for 5 months now. What do I eat? Well, my first meal was this orange soup and it was super hot, and in the middle of the soup was a fish's head staring right at me.  It was gross but I still ate it. Usually I eat rice, some sort of meat and soda. It is actually pretty good, but that first meal was bad.  We travel around Simon Bolivar by walking and bus. Simon Bolivar is a big area.  The city is pretty cool--there are banana fields and cocoa trees and sugar canes everywhere. The people are very nice.  They all live very humble lives.  They all have dirt floors and tin roofs and its blazing hot but they also all have a flat screen TV and an I-pad so its kinda funny.  Those two people that I challenged to be baptized were baptized!  I performed one of the baptisms and his name is Carlos John.  It was really cool baptizing him.  Simon Bolivar is about 2 hours norte from Guayaquil.  My training is mainly just getting use to the schedule and understanding the principles of the gospel and learning Spanish. Yes, I am very happy and yes I can't wait for General Conference. Does that answer all of your questions?

I have questions:

1-  Sorry about my spelling--this computer has sticky buttons and the letters are faded off the buttons

2- How is Chase? I want more details.

3- How is Adam? I want details.

4- Can you send me a couple of CD's of Christmas music?

5-  Just fill me in about home and how life is?

Let me tell you more about the baptisms.  Well, on Sábado yo baptized Carlos John and that was really cool. I am not going lie--Sábado was really hard!  We walked all day with no one to teach and I was carrying two bags that were full and the sol was killer.  I paid the bus driver $5 dollars when it really costs .80 cents and he didn't give me change back so it was really hard.  But after the baptism I felt a lot better because that is why we are here.  We are here to invite others to come to Christ through baptism. Entones that was our first baptism. Our second was early Sunday morning. We woke up at 5 am so we could drive an hour to Milagro to baptize a woman named Yajayra.  Elder Mercado baptized her and it was super cool. I am amazed that I have had three baptisms and I have only been here for 2 weeks.  That is kinda cool! 

I am not fluent in Spanish yet but I am trying.  Yesterday this group of sisters threw me a birthday party and they asked me to teach them in English.  It was really hard because the last 2 months I have been teaching in Spanish so that was kind of interesting.  I don't have anything else really--I just want to become fluent in Spanish asap.  I love you guys.  Thanks for supporting me on my mission. 

LOVE 

Elder Farley