Hello!

Hey so sorry if my letter offended Mom or something.  That wasn´t my intention!!!  I´m just terrible at explaining myself.  I would like mom to keep writing me but I would like to hear from you guys as well every week.  But if not just have somebody write me something!! haha  But yeah.  Sorry Mom!!!

But thanks so much for writing.  Lot of sick people dad??  That´s a bummer.  But I never understood how you could go out looking for hours for an arrow head.  It´s sheer madness!!!  But I guess after just sitting in zone leader council all day I just want to get out of there and you´re in an office all day for most of the week.  So it makes a little more sense to me now.  Hey but I have a question, what helped you in your leadership positions in the church??  Like what is something you would say is important to know or do?  I feel so awkward as a leader sometimes but I´m slowly getting better.  But what helped you?  But thanks for writing me dad!!  I love ya!

Hey Cambria I can tell you one thing write now.  If such a thing as a mature freshman girl exisits I´ll give you a $100 and my two front teeth.  It´s not possible sista!!  BUT BE CAREFUL OF SENOR BOYS!!!!! THE FIIIEEEENDSSS!!! Stay away from em.  They´ll talk sweet to ya but don´t listen.  Nada!!  

Hey right on with the blessing!!  I didn´t understand mine at first but now I´m seeing it being fufilled here on the mission.  So awesome that you felt like it was a spiritual experience.  LIVE IT!!  They´re so awesome.

But tell the high school teachers that Brett wants another scarf and some Mtn. Dew.  Naw.  But hey tell me how it goes!  Are you gonna do sports? 

But I gotta go tatter tot so keep me posted on what's goin down!

Si marchaís adelante con firmeza en Cristo‏

Hey Mom how´s it goin?

 

Yeah I heard of the shootings in Denver here in Coca.  The branch president´s wife told me.  They must think Colorado is goin to pot with all the fires and shootings and what not.  Or at least I do.  But that´s sad.

 

That´s awesome that Kyle is with a Colombian!  They talk so fast in Spanish.  But he´s talking English of course.  Tell Kyle to ask him what part is he from.  I kind of have an idea how Colombia is set up from talking with people here.  There`s literally about a million Colombians living in Ecuador.

 

Hey question, is Chase in Provo or Brazil?  He said he wasn´t sure.  I sent you a letter for him anyway.

 

Well Blake is going to be a new Mexican.  Awesome.  Maybe he´ll learn Spanish! That´d be great.  What is he doing anyway?  Tell him to write me.  I love that you write me about everything mom and I really appreciate your letters but I recall having 5 other members in my family.  But I guess that´s what I deserve for not writing Blake and just walking around the house with my ear phones in.  You sow what you reap!

 

I liked what you said Mom about sometimes we just need to do stuff.  That´s what I´ve been trying to focus on.  I´ve always kinda lived my life passively.  Never liked making decisions.  I couldn´t even choose what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas.  I´ve always gotten by with the minimal effort.  Heck I didn´t (or don´t) cook because I don´t even want to put forth the effort when I can just mix cereal and milk and start eating.  And the mission has helped me realize this weakness in me.  Elder Bednard talks a lot about how we´re meant to act, not just be acted upon.  So what happens when you live a life that´s just be a reaction, a small ripple of somebody else´s splash?  You get caracateral strength of a stack of cards!  You get the spiritual foundation of linkin logs!  So I´m super grateful for the challenges I´m going through right now as zone leader.  It´s helped me realize that it´s time to act and it´s time to take up the yoke and get to work.  We sometimes act as if somebody else is going to do our work for us, be it cleaning, studies, or missionary work.  But not anymore!  I´m going to start acting like it all depends on me.  So I´m excited for the future.  I want to change and the mission is going to help me do it as I focus on helping other people and remembering why I´m here in the first place.

 

So that´s what been kinda bubbling in my mind this week.  But it was a good week.  Hope this next one will be good for you!  Thanks for all you do, your example, and for the love you´ve shown.  I love you all, hope you´re great, and just keep on rockin!

 

Adios!

HOOOPLA!!!

Hello!

Wow you almost died!  3 rattlesnakes and Dad with a blazing barrell.  That´s crazy.  Good thing nobody got hurt.  Arrowhead hunting.... at least rattlesnakes would make it a lot more interesting for me anyway.

It´s already the celebration??  Why didn´t I get any photos of grandma's sandwiches and those mini wieners with BBQ sauce??  Mmmmm I´m hungry.  I miss food. But how was it?  That´s cool that they finally got a carnival with those wristbands.  How was the parade?  They're having a party here in Coca too this week.  Some kids just went buy blowing horns and everyone just started clapping their hands and dancing.  HOOOPLA!!!  

Hey that´s awesome that Blake got a job.  I hope he doesn´t start glowing in Los Alamos.  (But actually kinda do because that'd remind me of my Aladdin pajamas when I was 3).  Hope it works out for him.

Well this week was alright.  Went over to Lago Agrio, the part of our zone that´s 3 hours away and by the Colombian border.  My zone is split in two parts, Coca and Lago Agrio.  We have a district and 4 Elders here and a district and 4 Elders over there.  They all live in the same house and Lago has less than a year as a branch.  But on the second floor of a building they have a pretty nice chapel.  I like it anyway.  I just feel weird as a leader having to tell Elders what to do.  "Hey..... you guys should work more..... and get along....."  haha I just feel so awkward.  It's like we know we're here to work so let's do it!  And it's even weirder because 4 of them have more time on the mission than me.  But oh well.  I'm still learning.

We also found a family of 9 this week!  That was cool.  A appointment fell so we prayed and went looking for people and we find some ladies cleaning this piece of land with machetes.  "Ya need help??"  SURE!  OKAY!!  So we start wacking grass and trees and everything else green with machetes.  They gave us coke and then we set up a cita.  They're really cool.  Oh we also dug a well.  With shovels!  In rain.  It was work that just made you feel like a man and then they gave us this fruit that looks like a massive green bean but the fruit is white and hairy on the inside.  I like it!  So that was the week mas o menos.  Service, trying to help dying missionaries, and contacting!  And it was pretty sweet.  

The card is working!!  I bought stuff in the store to see if it was alright and yeah it's still good.  But how much do I have?  I'll keep track I swear :)

Oh I also sent a package to you guys.  But filled with letters I haven't sent for months.  And I lost some of the letters.  So if you could help me out sending some of those pleasseee..  thank you.

Well that's about it!  Sorry!  I'm just living the life down here in the jungle.  But make sure to do your family prayers, keep reading scriptures, and family home evening.  DO IT!! :)

Love you all.  adios

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