Elder Austin Lignell: Week Number Two in Ecuador

Okay, so this week, I have been trying to adjust to my new surroundings and it is not always easy! I'm in a new country that speaks Spanish and 99 percent of the time, I have no idea what is going on!!

We had our first Zone Conference, which included the President of our mission and our entire zone. The Conference was really good. They fed us breakfast and lunch and it was very good. My favorite part, however, was the individual interviews because I got to talk to the President. He was so encouraging and supportive and helped me with so much advice!

Also, there was another missionary there named Elder Riffel who came in the same time as I did and he was very homesick and I tried to give him the best advice possible, but it strengthened my testimony that if I can be able to tell others that they can do it, I can do it too!!!

Ecuador is so cool and it fun to see the people and practice my Spanish. The buses are always packed and on the buses, they play a lot of American music but I'm not sure anyone on the buses understand what the music is saying.

There are a lot of stray dogs here and a lot of them look like our dog, Bella.

Before we started our fast for this month, we had lunch at President Hansen's house. He and his wife are from Washington state and it was like a mini Thanksgiving. I loved it and I loved being able to talk to them in English!

Also, today I got my first haircut here.....it is certainly different.

I found some cool scriptures that I would like you to read. D&C 122: 5-9 and D&C 109: 2123. They are about missionary week and have helped me a ton!

Also, something pretty funny I saw was a big pig head hanging at a local shop and people kept bumping into it. I took a picture of it for you.

All in all, this is very hard and I'm still not perfect and I'm still trying to grasp the language, but I have hope and faith and I know I can do this one day at a time, one week at a time and one year at a time. I know this will benefit me so much in the end. I will be able to live anywhere and be a much better person because of all of the experiences I will have while I'm here.

I love you all so much,

Love,

Elder Lignell