2 Months In!!!

Hey guys!!


Hope everyone's weeks are going good!!  This week was pretty slow for me but it was good!  We moved houses today which was really crazy cause we only had today to do it, but the good news is that the veiw of the ocean is way better.  Our bedroom has this sweet patio that overlooks everything.  But the house is super dirty, so that's awesome.

My Spanish is coming along, but it's coming slowly but surely.  It's getting a lot easier to understand what people are saying and it's easier to respond.  With the words I know, I just say them without thinking about it so that's getting easier.  I'm speaking a lot faster then I was when I first got here. But something I really need to be working on is my conjugations.  Those are rough for me.  Also there's a ton of little things and rules that I could fix, but those will come over time as I study and listen to how people talk.  Tons of things in Spanish don't make a lot of sense in English and I'm trying to make sense of them when people are talking so that's rough. But it's coming faster than I expected, so that really good.  Thanks to the Gift of Tongues of course.

Throughout the weeks tons of things happen and I can't ever remember them to write them for you guys. But something happened the other day that was really funny and scared the crap out of me. This dog attacked us.  It didn't bite us or anything, but almost.  It was a big agressive dog.  I would just reach down and act like I'm picking up a rock and it would back off but not for a ton of time.  This other dog thought it was brave and joined in, but I hit it with a rock and it ran away but the other dog was a sucker.  I didn't try to throw any rocks at it and I don't know why.... I should have. But it was good.  My comp laughed at me.

The food here is so good. There's a ton of weird food mixtures but they are always good.  Some good foods are encebollado.  I don't know how to spell it so my comp just helped me.  Also seco de pollo is good and ceviche. He also just helped me with that last word but those are really good.  Also, really the only real meal I get a day is lunch so I'm always starving and it feels like I'm always just fasting.

Anyway, the week was good and all is going well.  It's getting hotter and hotter every day I feel like, but oh well, what do you expect.  Alright, love you all.... bye!!

Elder Pollock

Week 13!

Hey Guys!!

This week went by so slow, but not super slow.  Every day takes forever, but at the end when you look back it went by fast.  I love my new area.  My house over looks the beach which is super cool!  It's really hard too, though the people are super nice, a lot of the times that we go to appointements they aren't home.  So then we go to a different house or contact and we walk so much!  My feet and legs feel so good when I sit down at night.

This week has felt better than the other weeks.  I think it's because my Spanish is getting a little better and I feel more confident with it, but it still just absolutely sucks.  It's funny when I'll talk to people and they'll just turn and look at my comp cause they can't understand me.  It's mainly just my accent on some words and I'm not very good at conjugations.  But little by little it comes.  I feel like there's never time to study Spanish cause they're isn't any time.  We are always having to do stuff.  Well, we have 30 mins of language study but that's not a lot of time at all to get a bunch of stuff done.  It's hard when people are talking to you and stuff and there's just so many distractions.

My comp is super cool!  We get along really well together.  His name is Elder Astete.  He works really hard which I'm glad.  He's from Bolivia and is 18 years old.  He will be 19 soon but I can't remember when.  He's really good and patient with me with the language barrier.  That's a good thing to have in a comp.  He jokes around a lot, but knows when to be serious when he needs to be.  That's really good cause we have fun when we can, but work when we need to work.

The other day we woke up early in the morning at like 6 and went and played soccer on the beach.  It was so cool and peaceful.  We live with two other Elders in our apartment which is pretty fun.  They're both white boys from the U.S.,  so it's a bunch of Americans and a Latino in the house.  It's fun.  One of the other Elders is Elder White, he's been out for a year.  The other is his comp and he's been in Ecuador for 1 week now so he's new and knows very little Spanish so he's like me!

All is going well and working hard.  My favorite thing to teach is the Book of Mormon because it's so powerful and really helps our lives.  It's a true blessing and we need to be reading it every day.  I promise that if you do you will be blessed and will have a better day.

Anyway,  love you all so much!  Bye!

Elder Pollock

Transfers!!!

Hey guys!!

All is going well and I'm just livin the life as a missionary.  It's starting to get hotter out and that sucks, but what do you expect while on the equator?  Before the mission I never really thought about what a 3rd world country actually is, but now I truely know.  It's all good though, I'm used to it now.  We had tranfers today and I had a baptism on Saturday. 

The baptism went really good.  It was really special.  The lady we baptized was super happy.  I didn't mess up at all when I baptized her and I said part of her name in a hard English accent which sucked but that's okay haha.  I'll send some pics of the baptism.  I'm so white... it sucks cause everyone always stares at me.  Actually, no I don't care.

I went on splits again this last week and I lead in my sector.  It went really good and I didn't get lost once.  I looked like I knew what I was doing even though I didn't know any Spanish.  It is getting a lot better though, but it still sucks. But all is well.  The language is super cool and I love it, but it's such a grind to learn a knew language and it's really rough. I have a headache all the time pretty much. 

So we had transfers today.  It was really sad to say goodbye to my comp and the other guys that we lived with.  We all got along really well and we were such close friends.  I loved it.  So my comp got a call last night at 10:00 which sucks cause you are pretty much packing all night and don't get any sleep.  But it was good.  Anyway, he got a call and we all thought I was going to stay cause usually all new guys stay in their first sector the first transfer, but they said my comp was leaving and me also.  So now I'm in Manta.  It's so pretty here.  My house has this balcony that over looks the ocean and it's so so pretty.  I didn't get a picture, so I'll send that next week.  The only pic I got was with my comp in the computer place before we started typing, so that's all I got for you from Manta.   Sorry haha.  Anyway, I was so stressed, but everything turned out all good.  My new comps name is Elder Astete.  He's pretty cool! He doesn't know a ton of English, but who needs English anyway, am I right?  Anyway, it's so hot here and that sucks cause I sweat a lot. But, I like it here alright so hopefully I continue to.

Anyway, love you guys so much!!  Hope all is going well and you guys are having a good week.  If you guys have a good week, then I'll have a good week.  So you guys better have a good week. 

Alright, bye!!

Elder Pollock

This week was way different!

This week was way different!  Monday night and all day Tuesday, my comp wasn't feeling good so we were in the clinic.  We weren't there the whole time.  We would go and have this check up thing and then go back to our area and do a little work and then have to go back again. The bus rides there were like an hour so we couldn't do much other then travel.  But, we did get some cool pics at the sweet bridge with a big river flowing under it.  My comp is okay, he just has some inflamation thing in his intestines,  i don't know, but it's been hurting him a lot.

On Thursday I went on splits with the zone leader.  They're house was so small.  His area is so cool.  The roads are only dirt and it's so quiet and peaceful in most of his area. There's no tricymotos or anything like that flying around.  I could feel the Spirit way better there.  We taught a bunch of people and it was awesome!  One family we just taught about the Book of Mormon for an hour and it was so spiritual and cool.  We then got back to his house and I looked on my bed and there were like a thousand ants on it haha! It sucked.  He just looked at it and said Muchos! And then he just went and made some toast.  I was like alright cool thanks.  There was only one crumb on my bed and I was like well great.  So I just swiped all the ants off and went about my business.

Yesterday I gave a talk in church. I was so nervous. All I did was really just write what I could in Spanish, but what I couldn't I had an Elder in my house translate it for me which was really nice. But I just took a ton of quotes out of Preach my Gospel and it was a lot. My talk was about 10 mins of me just absolutely destroying Spanish.  All the members said that they could understand everything so that was really nice.

Oh yeah, I have another baptism this Saturday!  I'm so pumped.  I hope everything goes alright.  Her name is Lady Salazar.  She can't read at all, so we help her out with that in lessons and she listens to the Book of Mormon on her phone.  She seems really excited, so that's good.

Anyways, all is well.  Just trying to work as hard as I can and do my best. I miss you all very much, but yeah 2 more years.  I hope everything is going good for you guys!

Love you all so much!

Elder Pollock

hey mom! im so glad you were able to have such a good time in paris! that sounds so fun! thanks so much for ordering and sending those things. im going to need the bug bite stuff haha! we do have a phone but my comp has it cause i dont know spanish. we write our emails in this little side store thing off the streat. its not very big but the computers are somewhat nice. that story of zack is crazy! hopefully none of that happens to me. we dont know but my comp will be leaving. president santos told me that my next comp will speak more inglish so thats good. i need that. but yeah next monday i will have a new compañion. i love you so much and wish i could write more but i dont have a ton of time. i love that your a seminary teacher and thanks for sharing what you taught. i love that chapter too! its such a good chapter. tell colton to hold in there.love you bye!

Hola!

Hola! This week was pretty good. I can't really remember what all happened cause the days really start to blend together here. As hard as it is, I'm loving it here. Conference this week was good. We did a lot of walking too. I love the people down here. They are all so nice and friendly. Some people just stare me down sometimes, I think it's because I'm white... but that's okay.

Teaching people is hard cause it's really hard for me to understand what is being said. I understand a ton more now, but still not even close to enough to put together what is being talked about exactly. But that's okay, I can usually get the general idea. Usually my comp will do all the talking and I make a comment here and there if I know what's being said and then I'll bare my testimony about the topic at the end. My favorite thing to teach about is the Book of Mormon cause the Spirit is so strong and I love it so much. We don't teach about it as much as I would like to though which kinda sucks. But all is well and I'm loving it.

So conference was this last weekend which was so cool!! The bishops wife was so kind and gave me her phone and some headphones so I could listen in English for all of the conference sessions whish was so nice. At times it was hard to hear cause in the chapel the sound was up so high in Spanish and it was hard to focus on the English, but I was able to get what I needed. It's really sad that Robert D. Hales died yesterday, that made me really sad.  Same with President Monson not being able to make it to conference. But, it was really good I loved it.

I can't really remember what all happened this week so sorry about that. Oh, we had a zone conference which is where we sat and listened to stuff for like 8 hours.  It was so frustrating cause I understood none of it haha. We are told not to bring our cameras with us when we are out prostaliting so I didn't have any pictures until I took some today, so hopefully you like them. One is when we were eating at a members house for lunch, the other is when we were shopping for food for the week and the last is just a pic of the street when we were walking down it.

Anyways, I love you all so much. Keep Christ at the center of your minds throughout your day and I promise your days will be better and you will be happier. Love you all and BYE! Oh yeah, and I'm so white in the pictures haha.. it sucks.

Elder Pollock

my area is Geranieos.  in guyaquil. your trip looks and sounds so fun!! im glad your having a good time. we are able to keep the appointments sometimes but yeah you know how missionary work is. lots of walking and yeah im going to need that bug cream haha i get some a lot.  i love and miss you so much!! im so happy i get to read your email each week!! oh yeah and me and my comp have to go to the hospital today cause his side has been hurting for a while too.. that sucks but hopefully all is well. could you tell dad that too cause i forgot to tell him. love you so much bye!!