Letter 11 - 5/11-12/10

May 11, 2010

Anyway. So I´m here in Guayaquil and this place is absolutely amazing. Humid, but not uncomfortable. I stayed the night on the temple grounds, which was really cool. The temple is absolutely gorgeous. This city is AWESOME! I love it. Imagine a cross between the city that Jason Bourne was in when he was in hiding and San Francisco that´s really dense, in the middle of the jungle and sprawls over these huge jungle hills, with all these jungle trees mixed into the city. It´s the best. Just so incredible. Also, there´s stores and food shops literally everywhere. The best part is that there are no street lines so you just freestyle while you drive. LA eat your heart out! You drive 45 mph down these little streets and dodge around other cars. I love this place.

When I got out of the airport and felt the air I was so pumped. It felt like the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland when it´s super hot outside. Only.... there´s no Splash Mountain. I´m so excited and ready to get to work. This place is so cool, and before it was just another thing on the map. What a gem!

Ok, well It´s almost time for dinner with the President (such an awesome guy) and his wife (also extremely awesome) so I gotta run.

May 12, 2010

Well, here I am. This place is crazy. I´m at the very southern tip of Guayaquil. I´m pretty sure my companion, Elder Robinson, said it´s the poorest. I for sure believe it. I´m going through major culture shock still. It´s crazy to see what people are living in. Things like rusted aluminum siding, bamboo fences, cinder block houses, anything. Dogs roam everywhere and I just saw one covered in fungus, with no hair. The only way to describe how this place looks is like Jamaican-Queens (NY neighborhood), Detroit, and a splash of Camden all mixed in with a post-apocalyptic movie set. It´s crazy, but as soon as we get into the houses and start teaching I completely forget about everything and it´s great. Our house isn't bad. It´s pretty nice actually. It's just always hot. Seriously, I¨m always sweating. I was just in a phone booth and I was as wet as if I had just gotten out of the shower. The food isn't bad here. I just have to be really careful of what I eat. So because of that I´m eating a lot less than normal because I¨m pretty paranoid until I figure things out.

Anyway, I just met my comp last night. He´s a really cool guy.... elder. We've had a pretty good day today as far as I can tell. I think we´ll do some great work. We got someone to start coming back to church today. Now we have to go and get some new investigators for our goal today, so I gotta run. Bye!

PS- there´s this car going around with a mega-phone talking about these onions he´s trying to sell. Just thought it was funny.
O yeah and in the northern part of the city we saw a Peugeot , Porsche and BMW car shop. anywho. Gotta jet.