Ian's First Week In Ecuador

Our first letter from Ian now that he has arrived in Quito. After spending three weeks at the Provo MTC and six weeks in the Lima Peru MTC, he is now in his first area. He included some great photos of what it looks like there: "Wow, Ecuador, my new home. So, the President's house is amazing, and Quito in general is, too. My Companion is Elder Barrera from Nicaragua. He is 15 months or so out already and we got put into a new area that hasn't had missionaries for about 6 months, I think. It has been tough getting our bearings. Our entire sector, San Juan, is all on the side of the mountains in Quito. The best part is that our view from our third story apartment is the same - or even better - than the President's. We have a cool spot on the roof, too, where we can eat breakfast. Lots of rain and lots of sun, too. I love it. I've been using my dry bag to keep my stuff dry (obviously) which has been helpful. Lots of meeting and things like that, so we haven't done a ton of work yet, but at church, we taught a class for investigators. There were about 5 or 6, and then after church went around to their houses and 3 of them are going to be baptized - one this Saturday! Sweet! There is so much good stuff here! Everything is so new and different. I never knew how much of a difference smog checks in the US make! The roads are just dense with exhaust, which makes it all the easier (haha) to scramble the streets at 9,000 feet up! From my room you can see up the mountain a ways and there is a tram off in the distance that looks really cool. I saw Elder Lamprecht today! It was so sweet and so random, just passed right by him on the way to the grocery store. I gave him a big hug from his parents and another from Cooper Nessor. We're going to have a meeting with his zone on wednesday or something...I can't wait to see what this week brings me...  Love you all and love getting letters from everyone! Elder Blackwelder Here is a part of Elder Lamprecht's letter to his parents that mentions seeing Ian: "Oh Yeah, I also saw Ian today!! I talked to him on the phone last week but just by chance we ran into each other today! He's in a zone like 30 minutes from me and we've got a conference with him on Wednesday so it's gonna be sweet to spend some more time with him! He's definitely got the "oh crap, what am I doing here?" look on his face, haha, but he looks great and I'm sure he's gonna do an awesome job!"