Everything Will Be Alright, Alright‏

Hello family.  Well welcome back to Colorado Blake, hope you enjoy life.  Wow Chad is older than I thought!  That´s crazy.  He has the priesthood now.  That´s a bummer that Cambria almost died.  But awesome that she´s gotten better ya!  Ah man she´s gonna get her patriarchal blessing?  I don´t blame her for not wanting to wait.  But I do wanna hear it.  Oh well.  It´s a personal blessing!  Cambria just don´t expect it to tell you every little detail about your future.  After I heard mine I thought....that´s it?  What promise did I get??  And I thought that for a few years.  Only here in the mission have I thought....woooow.  It´s pretty sweet.

BURN THEM LOVE HANDLES BOOOY!!!  

Hey tell Taylor I said Happy Birthday.  I was thinking of sending her an Ecuadorian spoon but I didn´t find one.  But does anyone else see the danger of putting Mrs. Manning on a truck?  I think that´s breaking the 10 commandments.  What´s that about not lusting after the things of your neighbor?? And lusting after Payton Manning is pretty much breaking the law of chastity.  Repent ye repent ye and save yourself from a fiery eternity of woe and shame!!!  But all of this could have been avoided if we kicked Payton Manning off of the Broncos like I had suggested :)

Anywho this week was alright.  Kinda hard.  The zone is dying.  The half of the zone that´s getting ready to end their mission has received their flight plans and instructions on how to end their mission.  They´re trunky.  REALLY trunky.  So it´s kinda hard in that regard.  So I realized I have to stand up and be a man and try to fix things the best I can.  Or at least go down in a fiery blaze of glory.  HOOORAH!  

I also have eaten things that would make little girls scream in horror.  I don´t know why they give us so much pig stomach here.  And this....manly soup called Caldo de Manguera.  It´s......just terrible.  But the second time I had to eat it wasn´t half bad so yeah it´s okay.  I´ll get used to it. And might as well enjoy it because when am I ever going to get to eat pig stomach in the states?!  My point exactly.

Um...  yeah I´m going to have to get focused and down to work.  It´s strange how on the mission you can get so distracted.  You start doing things that really don´t help anything.  Or just wasting your time.  So I´m determined to start this next year full steam.  Start out strong.  I´m gonna have to get up, shout, lick a battery, and take a cold bath because it´s time to start rocking the mission again.  I just sometimes get weighed down with the problems of the mission when I should really be getting lifted up by the gospel.  So I´m excited for that.  So this week is gonna be different than the rest.

And yeah, nothin really new to tell ya here.  Hope you have a good week!  See ya later!  I love you all!  Keep on rocking my friends!

We're Halfway There ooooOH Livin on a Prayer‏

Well yeah that bank stuff was a doozy.  I'm still lost.  But all I know is that I could eat some and get fat again.  Happy happy joy joy.

So not a whole lot happened this week since I was in Quito.  AGAIN.  I just wanna work in my sector sometimes and help some people out here.  Well those that are left anyway.  In Coca everyone leaves to where they came from, Esmereldas, Guayaquil, other strange small places from the oriente and coast.  So we had about 60 people in church this Sunday, and the first councilor made me conduct the meeting.  Chuuusooo that was just awkward.  And nothing was planned!!  Sooo we will now sing.....a hymn..... (looking through the hymn book)..... I am a child of God..... and then we'll pray.....and the Santa Cena.... and we'll ask Elder Reber to talk.  Cough.  That is all....Thanks for coming.

But it was alright de todos modos.  But slap me with a napkin and call me Mr Higgins but I have a year in the mission this week!  Woooo!!  que loco.  What were we doing a year ago??  Walking in the sand dunes.  An ill fated trip.  Walking for hours through sand, we were lost, the sisters crying, dad far off ahead with his GPS, I just wanted to eat something and get some shade.  Sounds like the mission. We'll get some elders who will start dying and crying on the trip back home, or the year mark, others will keep blazing ahead with the guide of the Spirit like the GPS.  I just hope I don't walk around looking for food and mumbling to myself.  But really it's been an awesome experience so far.  Shoot, I might as well make a list of the things I've learned on a year in the mission.

1. God exists
2. The Church is true.
3. Families are way important.
4. It is not a universal law that woman must shave their arm pits (heeey that lady looks pretty nice today.... HOLY SHERWOOD FOREST!!  enough hair to make a Bagwell blush)
5. It is RICE not bread that is the staff of life (sorry Mr. Coombs)
6. The mission makes skinny people fat and fat people skinny.
7. The Atonement is real (and not just some word in the scriptures)
8. I'm slow AND a little stupid
9. I can tell the difference between a Colombian, Ecuadorian, Argentinean, Brazilian, Mexican, Chileno, and Peruvian
10. The gospel changes lives
11. Americans have very little to complain about
12. You don't love unless you show it (don't take it for granted!)
13. Lots of other stuff that I haven't thought clearly through and besides I don't have time

Well here's cheers to another year, we'll see how it goes!  I'm excited!  Somebody kick me in the butt and hit me with a cattle rod because it's sink or swim now!  But I love you all, I'm very grateful for what you've done for me, and I'm prayin for you.  Adios!

Re: Living The Impossible Dream...or an Excuse‏

I´ve tried in two different banks.  One says it doesn't exist.   The other said it was blocked.  But now that I'm here in Quito for three days I¨LL try here.
They give us 90 dollars every 15 days but with being a leader I also have to pay for cell phone calls and $20 trips to Quito.  But they reimburse the trips.  Things are just more expensive here Coca I dunno!  But don't worry mom I'll survive.  You've seen the pictures.  I'm not starving to death :)  
 You can just send me money for Western Union by here in Ecuador in my name.  I can go buy the place Friday to pick it up.  But if you don't want to do that mom it's okay.  We can wait if it's too much a hassle.  Okay?  Love you thanks for everything bye!

Living The Impossible Dream...or an Excuse‏

Hello!  So I'll write fast because I'm lost and confused and it just comes out like a bag of jelly beans fighting with skittles at a rainbow parade yeah. 

So Rex is the one who died.  That stinks.  He was a cool dog.  But okay I now understand the whole kitten situation now.  And I hope the fire problem doesn't get worse.  It was on the news here supposedly.  So it must be big because the only American thing on the news I've ever seen is Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez.

So Blake is still looking for work in Atlanta??  Would he mind working in Ecuador?  Mi pana Jose could maybe hook him up with something.  Stuff with oil companies or malls or somethin.  I dunno.  But yeah just better that I pray for him instead.

So there were changes here in the Oriente and we're going to have 3 new elders, 2 of which will end their missions in this change.  And my companion is going to be ending is mission this change too.  So this change we'll have 4 missionaries ending their mission this change.  Gadzooks.  That's half the zone.  So hopefully they bring a lot of experience but want to keep working or we're goin down down in an earlier round....

This week was good.  We had absolutely no money and we were pretty much fasting everyday except for lunch.  THANK YOU MAMITAS!!  And I carried a bag of yuca and it broke my watch.  CURSE YOU YUUUUCAAAAA!!!!  Stupid stuff.  And I weigh 200 pounds.  WOooohoooo tubby tubby. 

But that's all I have time for!  I'll see you guys later.  Love you all!  Hope you're great!  I'll be praying for you down here in the land of yuca and rice.  Choaa