Week 18 - Esmeraldas is Basically Scout Camp...All the Time

So Adam experienced technical challenges and wasn't able to send a letter or photos this week which has him very bummed. But...he did get to Skype home for Christmas yesterday. His friends Mikayla and Mitch and grandparents were able to join us. It was absolutely wonderful to see him smiling and to hear first hand how he is doing. Adam called from the home of a church member, Hermano Enso, who Adam has previously mentioned in letters as someone always available to go on appointments and very generous in taking care of the missionaries in the area. We got to say hello and thank him at the top of the call and he said he’s grateful Adam is in the area — calling Adam “un misionero poderoso” - a powerful missionary. The camaraderie and care displayed by this great man toward my son was comforting.

Since there's no letter this week, it seemed appropriate and ok to share some of the highlights from yesterday's call.  Adam is enjoying Esmeraldas and would like to stay in the area at least another round of transfers. Adam’s companion goes home to Bolivia at the next transfer which happens the first week of February. The rest of this post are Adam's comments from the call.

It's very fun outside right now. Everyone plays soccer in the streets for Christmas - the balls have sand or some kind of weight in them to keep them close to the ground. They use 2-foot high modified soccer goals. Animal crackers and taffy are very popular at Christmas. All the stores sell little gift packs and I've had a lot of animal crackers this week.

The recent earthquakes have been wild. Back home (California) it’s more of a one and done and the houses are wood so they flex a bit. Here we have a big one and then like dozens in the hours that follow. And the concrete transfers the movement right to you so they feel really strong. I’ll upload some photos this week. Some hotels fell down in Atacames about 20 minutes from my apartment. The big earthquake back in April (which killed ~700 people) has everyone still pretty freaked out. People got their cars out of the garages and slept in the streets last Sunday night. We couldn’t lay back down because additional earthquakes kept coming. So we went to the chapel to sleep. All the chapels have alarms to prevent people breaking in and the missionaries have the key code because we use the building a lot. Well, there’s a safety mechanism that if the alarm is shut off after 10pm, a security company calls the building to see what’s up. Well, Elder Fernandez and I didn’t have the key to get to where the phone was. So an hour after we were in there, security personnel showed up and started banging on the gates and windows to get in and Elder Fernandez and I thought it was robbers coming to get us. It was honestly the first time I’ve ever feared for my life…you know because many people here are really, super sketchy. I thought I was going to die by the hands of a thief. My apartment is a single room and we moved our beds to near the door because it feels safer. The earthquakes seem to be around Atacames and last Monday we planned to go there because, well, we are dumb. We got to the beach and no one was there. And then we heard about a  possible tsunami, so we left.

It’s super hot here and I’m used to it now. My face really broke out and went crazy for the first month and my clothes are completely ruined. But I am getting used to it now. Everyone here is super dirty. (I can say this because English is like a secret language because no one speaks it. Its actually dangerous because if people hear you speaking English they will mug you - Elder George and I have to be careful on divisions.) So ya, when I got assigned to Elder Fernandez and met him in Quito my first day, he was super dirty, like way more than the other missionaries and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then I got to the apartment here that night and everything was dirty. We don’t have windows so the dust just comes and goes freely. You have to wear shoes all the time or your socks get destroyed. The area I am in is super hilly and the higher up the hills you go, the more poor it gets until eventually its just bamboo shacks with minimal plywood and metal roofs. The hills have gotten me in really good shape though. It’s good here, I like it. The humidity is really strong which makes its super hot and you never want to stand out in the sun. I have a mean farmer’s tan going on - a shower glow. My face is super brown but the rest of me is super white. It's bad.

The food is wonderful. I really love shrimp now. A lot of people don’t have much money so we eat a lot of humble foods - a lot of rice. People put rice on everything. I think the only people on earth who eat rice on a bed of mashed potatoes. And lots of pastas. We eat with one family each week and she makes the rice with oil and then puts tuna on top of it. The oil makes the rice taste a lot better. We get $90 every two weeks for food and supplies and it’s more than enough money. I made french toast for Christmas breakfast this morning and it came out really well.

I have lost weight. Most of it came off in the MTC (training center in Mexico City) and it has stayed off. I eat a ton - basically eating 24 hours a day. The people love to give you food. Lunch is the big meal. We have mamitas who serve use lunch everyday. Every meal starts with a big plate of rice and then stuff is added all around. When we visit people in the later afternoon, starting around 4, the families give you soup as part of the visit. We eat soup with every meal here. I’ve eaten lots of interesting things in soup. Like Yucca. Do you know what that is? Like super fibery, you wouldn’t want anywhere near your mouth. Well, they boil it, mash it with potatoes and then put it in soup. I’ve eaten a lot of fish and a lot of fish bones. They barely remove the scales and the skin still looks like a fish. And then it goes straight into the soup, bones and all.

Esmeraldas is basically like scout camp...all the time. There are constantly fires in the streets. There is a basic trash service that comes around once in a while but its not enough. So people make these piles of trash in the road and then someone sets it on fire to burn it. Ya - just in the middle of the road, with cars driving around it. I haven't eaten guinea pig yet, but I’ve eaten a lot of stuff way worse than guinea pig. Like cow stomach - the flavor is really good in a peanut sauce - but you have to chew it for hours and hours. On the inside there’s tons of flaps and the cilia and then on the outside its got these thick veins so its super chewy. Pres. Tello’s wife is the one who likes to give us more exotic foods. Last week she served us this pork chop with inch of fat and then skin still on it. And the skin - the hair was burned off but the follicles were still embedded in the fat...ugh. If people give you food, you are expected to eat it. And like I said, there’s no trash. And there are many people who don’t have food, so you can’t really throw or turn anything away. The people like to treat you and see how much they can give you and you can’t turn it back. And, when I first arrived I was dying to make friends, so I was eating everything. Now my stomach is stretched out and I’m feeling better, but the first weeks were a bit hard.

My Spanish is coming along - I’m to the point where there’s only 1-2 words in a sentence of statement that I don’t understand. But I can usually figure it out by asking questions or from context. The people are very hard to understand. I still haven’t had the “revealing” moment where Spanish becomes my language, so I’m still translating every sentence in my mind which is very tiring. But I’m feeling really good with my teaching and that’s helping. I’m understanding a lot more every week and that makes me a lot happier.

The kids are super friendly but they are also super thugs. The kids at church are wonderful. The kids in the streets are a bit rough and always shouting things at us. They call us “come gratis?” (so you eat free?) which is kind of funny because I’m pretty sure they aren't paying for their meals either. I’ve been making a list of all of the restaurants I want to go to when I get home. As a mental cleansing thing I wrote them down to get them out of my mind so I don’t have to think about them for 2 more years. But I do love the food here. The rice is 5-star rice and the oil helps it taste really good. The rice saves you if the meal is really bad.

I haven’t had a lot of time to write this week so my letter is going to be really short. I’m glad people are enjoying my letters. Thanks Mikayla and Mitch for your letters - they make me so happy. My letter tomorrow is super religious and short so stay tuned.

Everyone here loves the Simpsons like in Spain.

Don’t tell me anything about the Star Wars movie. The movies don’t come here right away so no one knows that’s happening.

There’s no street names. This place could really benefit from Uber but of course they need street names and house numbers first. 

The shower situation is ok now but I lost it when I first got here. I had a problem with my pin code so I didn’t get money for my first 10 days and the shower and dirty apartment, all of it. - I almost lost it. We collect water in a bucket each day and then use a pitcher to scoop water out for showers. The mosquitos come really quick here so you can’t keep water around or warm it. I shower at 7am which, ironically, is the only time of the day when there's actually a hint of cold. Quito has hot water and the missionaries there wear sweaters at night. I’m jealous about that.

I’m wearing my Quito tie for you guys. I really love it. I wore a red tie to church today for Christmas to match with our choir. No one plays the piano so our choir sang to a tape. It sounded pretty terrible but the feeling was there.

I print out all the emails and read them every week and they keep me going. I feel terrible asking for you to send me anything but if you have time, please make a flash drive with any and all church music possible and any church videos/mormon messages which are cool to share with investigators. All the TVs here have USB ports so I can use a flash drive to show the videos to people here. I’m going to invest in a speaker because I am dying without church music.

I’m great and this call has been wonderful for me. I've been out for 4 months and will be coming home August 6, 2018 so technically that's 4-1/2 months done. It will be a while before I get to talk to you again. Mother’s day, wow: I can’t wait for it to get here.

(Neither can we, Adam. Neither can we...)