Weeks 3 - 7: Provo MTC & Machala

Hola Amigos!

After 6 weeks of training, I finally made it to Ecuador, and I absolutely love it here! Almost everything is different here but I love it! One very interesting experience this week was ordering a chicken soup, only to realize that the entire chicken was in the soup. Honestly, the taste wasn't that bad, but the thought of that chicken now in my stomach haunts me. The people here are so cool! They love eating and talking about Jesus! My trainer, Elder Aldana, is Bolivian and only speaks Spanish. I think we make a pretty good team though. Even though almost everything in my life has changed, I still feel the same love of Christ in Ecuador that I have felt in the United States. I love you all! Elder Trevor Bolingbroke

Editor's Note: Trevor's group left the MTC on Sept 20 and had to be at the MTC travel office at 3:30 in the morning to check out and catch their flight from Salt Lake City to Chicago. They had a very short 45 min layover in Chicago and had to switch gates and then board the connecting flight to Miami. The group arrived in Miami but the flight was then delayed until later in the evening. The flight ended up being cancelled because of volcanic ash over parts of Ecuador. Not knowing about the cancelled flight, we expected to hear from him and most of the entire day went by and nothing. Then later in the day we finally got a brief email from him. Then Thursday morning we received an email from Sister Barker, the mission president's wife, explaining what had happened and where to find mission pictures on Facebook. Trevor's traveling group was stuck in Miami and they had to get ahold of the church travel department which proved very difficult. Finally, a sister missionary traveling with them called her mother and explained what happened and the mother was able to get the group in touch with MTC travel and get flights rebooked and a hotel for the night. Trevor ended up sleeping on the floor since missionaries aren't supposed to share beds and the hotel wouldn't accomodate them with a roll away bed. So they arrived late in Ecuador a day later than planned where the mission president was surprised that not all the missionaries showed up. Two missionaries had been reassigned but the mission wasn't aware of that until the group arrived.

His first area is Machala, which is south of Guayaquil on the coast.