Que Viva El Cumpleañero

What a week! First off, CONGRATS to Brian and Amanda!!!! You two are the best. Pero ya lo saben... Second off, thank you so much to everyone for all the birthday wishes! This birthday was the best yet. For my birthday on Tuesday we did divisions with a few elders from the zone, one Cali homie and one Kentucy homie. All 4 of us worked in our sector and we had one heck of a day! Nothing like serving others on your birthday. :) We had some bomb pizza in the house after a great day of work. On Wednesday we went to Guaranda to do some interviews. Nothing like a post birthday mini-vacation! We were able to talk to some solid people on the bus and while we were down in Guaranda. ´´y predicarán en camino´´. It was great. The drive was beautiful as ever. Thursday, after the district meetings, some Sisters in the zone made me a birthday treat....aka around 100 donuts. Homemade donuts and homemade frosting....SOOO BOMB. Needless to say I ate one for every year. ;) On Friday one of our investigators made us some BOMB bolones de verde con chicharón (look em up) and a super good jello/flan dessert! Then, Friday night, the Familia M threw me a little birthday celebration with some bomb food and cake. I am so grateful for all the people that made my birthday special. Why would we not love this work?!

We ended off a good week with a great sunday. We found a new family (costeños from Guayaquil), talked with tons of people, and then had a branch family home evening in the house of a member. Like 50 members showed up. It was great.

Today we went to BAÑOS again! This time we went to a MASSIVE waterfall, El Pailon del Diablo. All my pics are on Elder A´s camera, but this one will do for now! It was amazing. On the way there the bus driver took this sketchy off road dirt ´´road´´. We thought we were gonna die, but then popped up right outside of Baños out of nowhere...ended up saving us like 45 minutes! Epic. I love this country. 

Love you all! Please keep my baby niece Quinn in your prayers! You all are in mine.

Elder

Week of All Weeks

Hey all. This is gonna be a short one to make up for last week´s monsterous email. Everyone has always said that in the mission you learn how to think about others and forget about yourself. Even though I have been far from perfect, I have definitely learned a lot have and grown a ton. This week I turn 21, actually tomorrow. But I can truly say I don´t think I´ve thought about myself/my birthday at all during these past few days because I have been thinking a ton about my family. First off, on Friday, January 15th, my oldest brother Jeff and his wife Melissa had there first baby, Quinn. From the few pictures I have seen and all the things my family have told me I already love her sooooo much and am SO grateful for this huge blessing that my brother, and all of us, have received. Love you Quinn! In addition to that, my other brother, Brian, and his future wife, Amanda, will be getting married this Saturday. As much as I wanted to be there I could not be happier for them. They are both AMAZING people. Hope you two have one heck of a weekend and know that Elder Sorensen will throw down some Martinellis Sparkling Cider on Saturday night in your honor. After a few trials and some long months down here in Ecuador I am starting to truly realize how amazingly blessed my family and I have been while I have been serving the Lord in this wonderful country. Quinn, Amanda, see you in 5. <3

Love you all! 

Elder Sorensen

Changes

Dear everyone…

Well, another change has officially ended down here in Ecuador. Good news… I AM STAYING IN RIOBAMBA! Last night we received changes and to our relief both Elder B and I are staying together. We had a great changes, but it was DANG busy with all the traveling and holidays and combining zones and stuff…so we are stoked about getting another change together and being able to work a lot more in our own sector. Aside from that, nothing too big happened in the zone as far as changes go. We are looking forward to these next six weeks!

This Monday we traveled into Quito for MLC. Got some bomb burritos Monday night with all the homies who traveled in from outside of Quito. The conference on Tuesday was GREAT. President talked a ton about the culture of the mission and what we can/need to do to make it better. We set a lot of goals for the new month/year and as a misison we have definitely been improving a lot. The food was good as ever and it was fun hanging out with-chatting with some buddies from around the mission…including Elder Higbee from May Hall at BYU…nioce!!

One exciting thing we talking about in Tuesday´s conference was a new way to do exchanges. Now, instead of us going to the sector of the other missionaries, we will bring those two missionaries into our sector, split up with them inside our own sector, and get some serious work done in our sector. Then the other companionship will stay the night with us, well do some studies together, and then end the division that next day. It is a pretty big change that is going to be happening in many missions around the world and we are stoked! We won’t be losing as much time in our sector and it puts way more pressure on our sector to have plenty of people to teach and requires us to have a ´´model sector´´ (y nos falta mucho jaja). We tested the new method with Elder A and his kid on Friday and it went pretty well! Elder A and I were able to teach some way solid lessons, and my comp with his comp were able to go out and talk to people all evening. And like always, we ended the night with some BOMB pizza.

Oh yeah, on Wednesday we bussed down to Guaranda to do a few baptismal interviews and exchanges with the Elders down there. It was fun stuff. It´s a cool little town and a way pretty drive down. We went down early Wednesday morning and came back late that night so that we could be home Thursday night to get ready for the mini Zone Conference on Thursday. That went well, we touched most of the same points President talked about on Tuesday. It went really well.

Well, if any of you are still reading this… I´m gonna stop now.

Love you all!

ES

2016. Let`s goooo!

Watup fam!

Didnt have time to write a group email last week...but I hope you all had a GREAT Christmas and an even better New Year! Our Christmas down here was great. I got to talk to the fam on skype, which was awesome, and ate TONS of turkey (which is super rare down here) and had some fun Christmas activities/dinners. It was a super great 2nd Christmas down here in Ecuador. I am definitely excited to be with the fam next one, but these past two holiday seasons have been amazing.

As far as New Years Eve. On the 31st we were kind of ``locked in`` our house all day because this country kinda turns up like crazy for New Years. We were able to leave for a few hours to teach a few lessons and have a bomb NYE dinner (tamales...bomb!!), but aside from that we basically chilled in the house all day. Cleaned our house like crazy, and napped/worked out/did nothing. It felt so good, jaja! At midnight we went up to our roof and watched all the fireworks. It was sooooo awesome! Basically 15 minutes straight of fireworks in every direction. 

The biggest two traditions for New Years down here (that are different from US ones) are the vuidas and the viejos. The vuidas (widows), or locas (crazies), are grown men who dress up as girls and run around the city asking for money, and if you dont give it to them they do embarrassing/ridiculous things. On the way home from dinner at a members house they danced around our car until the dad of the family gave em each a quarter. Its soooo redic, but its pretty dang funny too. They all do it out of good fun and rarely does it get taken too far out of hand. The viejos (old..as in old/past year) are huge paper mache dolls/figures, which represent the past year, and then at midnight everyone burns them and if they are small enough they jump over them or kick them...as a symbolic way to kill all the bad from last year and prepare for an even better new year! A lot of people make super heros or disney characters or political figures...and there are some that are like 20 feet tall! Impressive stuff. At midnight it looks like straight anarchy because the streets are FILLED with burning things... Ill miss Ecuadorian New Years....

Well, aside from that, all is well. The work is progressing and I am extremely excited for this new year! I have lots of goals/plans/things I want to improve on. 

We are down in Quito tonight for MLC tomorrow. Cant wait to eat some BOMB Momma Christensen food! Wednesday we will go to Guaranda, and thursday zone conference. But Fri, Sat, and Sun, we will be going hard in the sector!!

Say an extra prayer for my brother Jeff and his wife, Melissa, who are expecting their first child ANY DAY! Love you guys!!!!!

Happy New Year. Love yall.

ES

(sorry bout the lack of pics....currently working on fixing my camera. sorry, momma! hehe)