Sheppert, Samuel

It hasn't rained in Ecuador for a bit so now there are tons of outages which makes things real interesting. Shout out the September b-days especially the Madre on the 28th. On the 21st we were singing Earth Wind and Fire “September”, an important musical day to commemorate disco. Shout out to T-Church for that Mr&Ms "September" performance, never will forget that one. This was an interesting week no doubt. Once again we were put in a trio and split our time in half so we had to be super efficient and diligent with our time. Not running but really speed walking everywhere the whole time we were out of the house. I'm loving the Spanish right now, may even be able to answer questions of the soul. Facílito. In the trio with Elder Lopez and Anderson we try to meg each other with rocks while we walk on the dirt roads. There are an abundance of rocks these days to play with because they are breaking up all the roads and repairing the sewers. It smells fresh, real fresh. ...

I don't know what to say at all. Our phone stopped charging last week so we got one of the Zone leader's phones. "Thank goodness," we thought, but we were planning for the week like a diligent missionary may do when the new phone just blacked out and stopped working. I tried all methods of CPR, put it on a ventilator, and even followed my father's footsteps in giving it phone surgery but nothing worked. So now my companion and I are down 2 phones, money and communication ability.  I had the opportunity to go to the Guayaquil Temple on Friday. Wow. Everything about that trip was and still is great. This temple is particularly interesting because of its large Nephi-like stature. That temple is the house of the Lord if I ever saw it. I am so grateful for the temple and the peace, revelation, guidance, and spirit that I can be a part of inside and even outside too! My favorite message to share is how families can be together forever. Para siempre. I'm so grateful ...

A very fun week no doubt. We went all over the place all the time, everyday, with no breaks. That's the grind you asked for and the grind you enjoy. I will say the Spanish is coming along quite nicely. It feels better weekly, not daily. Some days I just can't understand a thing it feels like, and other days I'm just really feelin myself with the Spanish.  Two exchanges this week. One with Elder López and one with Elder Alvarado. Chileno and Colombiano so pure Spanish. Elder Alvarado has a thick Colombian accent and is crazy at fútbol. We walked the streets of Catarama and ate all sorts of foods at different lessons. I did definitely get sick after that day but no regrets, no regerts! He wanted to contact by playing basketball with a big group of people and so we did. Oh man! I missed playing that sport. It was really fun and they weren't actually that bad but we took the W. A crowd gathered and we broke a few ankles. I called one guy "Wemby" and he started run...

Another week for the books. The coolest part of the week no doubt was going down to Guayaquil to hear the words of an apostle. It was basically a 3 hour question and answer with Elder Bednar. The thing that impressed me the most was how he never ever thought twice about what he said. Hence the title, he could answer any kind of question flawlessy with exactly what I needed to learn. Somebody would ask a hard question in Spanish and he did not know very much Spanish. But within 3 seconds he'd say “That's a good question” and go on to give a 10 minute answer that is super clear and better than any talk I've prepared. His message was very clear to me. Agency is the ability to choose whether to act or be acted upon. In the gospel building faith, repentance, baptism, using the holy ghost, and keeping the commandments all take action. Many times people would ask a question and he would say “As soon as you quit worrying about it” or “Don't be an object.” If we take control in ...