It was just a normal week, went to a baby shower and taught an ex-Nazi!?

Hola Familia,

I am so glad to hear that everyone seems to be feeling better. That makes me happy. I just now realized that today is Memorial Day, I think. I am glad you guys went down to the family reunion. That is awesome. I always love the family reunion. That is so awesome about Reed!!! Tell Molly and Andy, and Dahlia,  congrats for me, and tell them hi from me! He looks pretty sweet! That is crazy that Steve leaves soon. Tell him good luck for me. 

I am doing good here. Today we had a great pday. We had the house cleaned by 12 and the rest of the day to do what we wanted. It has been pretty awesome. We went to the store and we found chili and Kraft mac n cheese and we made chili mac hot dogs, they were really good for a little bit but then they were kind of gross. This week we have had a good week. We had three investigators attend church which is the best we have had in this sector which was awesome. We will continue to work harder to have more and more. Transfers are in one week from today and it is pretty likely Elder Hoskins will be transferred but who really knows. This week we had tons of free food. The Bishops wife had a Baby shower and one of our investigators was there so they invited us in to have some food. It was funny the Bishop was chilling in a different room watching a movie just like I would of done. It was also a little weird to be at a Baby shower but it was good to have lots of the relief society there with the investigator. Also they invited us to eat at another relief sociey party. It was  a little funny but the food was good. We are still working hard to find more investigators. We found a lady who is a Baptist, it is kind of funny. She has lots of questions which is great. We are hoping to be able to work with her. She has two sons which is good. She is a single Mom and we are hoping that through the gospel we can help her. We also found an old man who is hilarious, actually a little crazy but it is all good. First he was a Catholic, then he went Nazi, yes he is an exNazi, and now he is an Evangelico. He is funny to talk to. We are trying to help him but he is scared to leave his religion but we will help him.  That is pretty much everything for the week. It was just a pretty normal week. This is my  last week of training. I graduate this week. It should be great. Anyways I love you all so much. I hope you have another great healthy week.

2 Nephi 31

Love, Elder Benjamin Berg Duzett 

Another Week in Santa Monica

Dear Family,

Wow, nuestro casa es lleno de enfermos. I am glad that Ali is feeling better and I hope that Olivia feels better too. Way to go Mom! I know the Sister Missionaries really appreciated you being there companion for the day. The lessons are always much more powerful when there is a member present. We are always supposed to have a member present for our lessons. It is tough with the work schedule here but we try to have as many as possible. I am doing great here. It is great to be out here working the work of the Lord! Time definitely is flying here in the mission. I feels like I just flew to Peru but I am almost a fourth of the way through my mission. I need to keep working to have more and more success as the mission flys by. Our ward boundaries might be getting bigger so that will be great to have new opportunities. I am excited to work any new opportunities that come my way. This week we had the treat of eating lasagna made by Italians. Wow that was good. We are teaching a lady and her 15 yr old daughter who the mom or grandma lives in Italia and she was here and they invited us over to have dinner. It was awesome. Hopefully we can help this family to be able to live together forever, that would be awesome. This week we have a goal to help with reactivating the inactives. Hopeful we will be able to find some part member families! Not much really happened this week. It was just a normal week. We are still working hard to help this ward become even better. Thank you all for your love and support. Thank you Dad for your Family History work! That is awesome. Thanks for the update on that talk. That is awesome I will definitely be praying for the help of the ancestors of people we will teach. I miss you all a ton but I know we can live together forever.

1 Nefi 1:3

Love, Elder Benjamin Berg Duzett

(Sorry no pictures this week.)

Skype is a Miracle!!

Last night we were able to Skype with Ben for an hour and twenty minutes!! It was so awesome!! It was great to talk to him and to be able to see him was great!! A big thanks to the awesome family in his ward that opened their home to Ben and his companion so they could Skype with their families, despite the fact they had two missionaries of their own to talk to yesterday!!  It is also Mother's Day in Ecuador.

This is the family!

They also gave them dinner. They made them hamburgers!! I bet they tasted good! This family also has 4 large rabbits. They showed us one!! I couldn't tell what kind of animal he was holding up until he told us!

Ben sounded great!! He spoke in half English and half Spanish! It sounds like his Spanish is coming along well. He says he thinks mostly in Spanish now. He says that once he starts to testify the words come! Will asked him why he gives the thumbs up in every picture. Ben said it was because he was thumbs up! Ben told us that he has some extra roommates like cockroaches, termites and ants, but they bought some bug killer and they find dead cockroaches everywhere! Sounds fun!! He said they usually cook breakfast like pancakes, french toast and German pancakes (they taste more like crepes and are pretty good until you eat them 5 days in a row). They make syrup with brown sugar. There is only one problem now, their fridge broke and they don't know when it will get replaced. We asked Ben if he had eaten anything weird. He said no. I think he mostly eats chicken, rice, soup and plantains.  Ben also told us that the mission nurse thought he might have some gastritis and they sent him to the clinic for blood work, but he feels fine, he is just trying to eat a little less acidic. Ben said that on Sundays they get up at 5 am to go to their investigators houses to pick them up for church. He said they take the bus when they are going to do interviews and things because his companion is the district leader.  Otherwise they walk. Ben did say he fell off the bus last week because they were trying to catch someone they could see from the bus. He is ok though. 

Ben bore his testimony and told us a little bit about the couple they baptized and the changes they have made in their lives since joining the church! It was so awesome!! The church is true and Ben is happy serving his Heavenly Father.  Ben seemed to be himself and was laughing and joking with his companion and the family he was with! 

This was the perfect way to spend Mother's Day!! I am so grateful for my Stripling Warrior, for his courage and diligence in bringing the Gospel to the people in the Santa Monica ward in Guayaquil!!

Here is the email we received today:

Hola Familia,

It was so great to be able to talk to you guys yesterday. And HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM AND GRANDMAS I am so sorry I forgot to even say that yesterday. I guess I just got too excited. It was great to see you guys. I am still doing well. I got the blood tests back from the Doctor and it turns out I don´t have any dangerous gastritis or anything like that. I can now eat and drink what I want but just not drink huge amounts of Coca Cola which is great news. Everything is back to normal. Today we did not have a meeting it was a normal p day besides that we had to go get my test but it was all good. We decided to clean the house really well today that took a bunch of time. We are practically scrubbing the whole entire apartment with Clorox because something in the house we don´t know when they have been cleaned  The apartment is a lot cooler now but I did not have enough time to write an actual letter to you guys but I am going to throughout this week after planning in the night because we always have 20 minutes or so free. How is Ali doing? How is her spleen? I hope that all is well with her. I want all of you to know how much I love you all. I miss you all but it is so worth it to be here. 

Love, Elder Benjamin Berg Duzett

Hola Familia! Thank you so much for the wonderful emails. I am still doing great here in Santa Monica. This week we had Stake Conference so we did not have any Baptisms. Presidente Montalti spoke at stake conference and invited all the investigators to be Baptised. The president of the Guayaquil Temple and his wife also spoke. They both have horrible gringo accents it is kind of funny. They were great talks though because they spoke slow enough that I could unterstand every word they were saying. We are hoping to have a baptism of a young woman this saturday. That is so exciting that Gloria Orton got baptized. That is great for Duanne and the whole family. That is also great for the ward. We are hoping to continually try to make this ward here stronger with more and more members. The members here are all awesome. We had dinner with one family and they gave us tacos. It was awesome to be eating something other than rice and chicken. That is too bad to hear about Ali. Give her the best for me. I will definitely be praying for her. Tell her to stay away from the boys with mono just kidding. I am glad that you guys went to Hectors. It is pretty small and it is a little bit of a crazy place. The churros are really good though. I would love to eat one of those right now. It is crazy Andy is leaving so soon. I am glad he is. One of my zone leaders is from Argentina. He is a little crazy but he is pretty cool. He tries to help me out when every I need anything. Andy is going to love the people. Anyways I am pretty much out of time but I did get a letter from Brother Ridd. That is awesome on his new calling. Thanks for all the love and the support!! Miss you all tons!!
 Love, Elder Benjamin Berg Duzett