Hola Familia!

It sounds like everyone had such an eventful week! I´m glad that Dad was able to keep the fort down while Mom was gone, and I´m also glad that Mom was able to enjoy her trip so much! I didn´t know it was such an intensive trip! I thought that was very interesting about what you said about the divisions in the Community of Christ Church because that´s how 85% of the churchs here are. They are all divisions of each other, and love to get together to listen, or sing, or memorize psalms and there´s almost no order. The people aren´t exactly sure what they believe. There are actually some dangerous sects that don´t believe in sin and just do what they want, not thinking they will get any type of consequences. 

Whenever I think about the foundation of the Church I can´t help but think of how much help the Lord really gave to the early foundation of the Church. Now there are more than 140 temples in all parts of the world! That is just so incredible to me to know how the Lord is rushing his work.

We had a pretty normal week here, luckily with no trips to Guayaquil haha. Something that my companion and I have started is a competition every day for who can ask for more referances, (We´re in the week of his training that has us focus on how to find) with the winner getting a free 25 cent Ice cream cone at the end of the day. It´s actually been a really fun reminder to always be looking for people, and we found four new families to teach in just three days. We´re both a little competitive hahaha =) It´s been really fun to be with Elder Cari and remember how it was like being new in the mission.

This Thursday President Riggins is coming to Ventanas with Elder Calderon (our area 70) for our zone conference. We´re really excited for the conference! Elder Calderon spoke to us for the stake conference in Babahoyo and is a really excited speaker. We´re all working hard to get ready for the upcoming month, and everyone is already talking about general conference. It should be really great, but it´s almost a sure thing that I´ll be listening to this conference in Spanish because the district center is so small, and every room will be needed to put the broadcast on. 

Thank you so much for your prayers and thoughts, And I hope that everyon has a great week! Mom, I´m sure that everyone is very happy to have you back. The home is not the same without mother =)

Lots of Love,

Elder Hales =)