Faith

This week was a good week. We have been working our butts off without a ton of results. There have been a lot of difficulties in the sector and were trying to figure out the best way to sectorize still. Since we started this change, we have found 4 or 5 new families. Of those we are still working with two. Hopefully they will progress. They still haven't gone to church. One of the problems we've seen with our investigators, less actives, and members in our sector is that the church is really far away and you have to take a bus or taxi. They don't have money to pay for that. It's either work, put food on the table or spend the money to go to church. So, it has been a difficult thing for them to exercise their faith and make that sacrifice. The branches attendance hasn't improved much since we got here, only slightly. Hopefully these next couple weeks will be better. These last 3 weeks have flown by super fast.

 

This week we did a service project. I got sunburned again. Saturday we went to visit a family. This family lives about an hour and a half away from Tena. It's an older couple that got to know the church when they were in Spain for three months. They live out in the Amazon, and have a little farm more or less. Not the kind of farm you think of when someone says farm in the United States. They've been members for probably 12 years and have at the most not made it to church only five times. They have to take the bus at 5 in the morning. Sometimes they wait for hours until someone opens the church up. Sometimes they haven't had money to pay for the bus, so they take some things from the farm, fruits etc. and sell it while they are waiting for the bus. Then they make enough for the trip. They are very faithful. They showed us around their farm and I sent some pictures of that. Overall, it was a good week. 

 

The church is true. I love this gospel. 100% obedience equals 100% blessings. I hope you all have a great week! love and miss you, you're always in my prayers.

 

 

New Pictures

Lunch with new companion

Caught in a rain storm



One of the rivers

A bridge

View outside of apartment



Breakfast for the next few weeks!



Pretending to fish on Pday.





Up close with local monkey
 

Growth and Goals

This week has been good overall. We spent the first days trying to get to know the area. We got to meet a few members that live in the ward. There are two active member families in our sector, and two or three that are inactive. The ward had an attendance of 60-80 over the past year as an average. Right now it has been more like 30-50. There were 39 this Sunday. So obviously the branch is struggling here. We don't have a chapel. We hold meetings in a building. It has been a physically tiring week. We walk a lot because our sector is really big. We cook at home sometimes. My companion likes to cook a lot so that's cool. We've been doing a lot of contacting, and serving people where we can. We helped a bunch of people move the other day which was fun. We also had an interesting talk with a family. They told us a lot more than we needed to know. I realized that the world is a very messed up and disgusting place and that we are so blessed as a family. So very blessed! By the way, we have an awesome family if you haven't figured that out yet. We have so much fun together. I'm so grateful for the wonderful life you guys have provided for us.. So grateful! The mission has put a lot of things in perspective for me.  It's going by so fast. I have set a lot of goals for the new year, but overall as an unsaid goal I have the goal and hope that 2015 will be a year that I never forget, that changes my life a lot, where I become a true disciple of Christ. That's what I'm going for though. I've also realized that that is only accomplished through obedience. I've realized that obedience plays a big role in what we will or will not accomplish in life. 

btw my favorite scripture right now is Alma 27:18

Tena

We had changes. I'm in a place called Tena now. It is super hot here. It's like the farthest place out in the mission. It was a 5 hour trip today from Quito. I'm opening  a sector here with Elder Cruz, from Guayaquil. I'm senior companion. They just took all the missionaries out of these sectors so there are 6 of us now and we are all new. There hasn't been baptisms here for the last 3 months. It should be fun. They are starting from scratch though. I'm sweating so hard right now. Oh and we baptize in the river here which is awesome!!

Our apartment was disgusting when we got here. We spent the day cleaning all day, because we couldn't leave the house that day. It was a mission rule. It still smells bad, and water always leaks from the toilet, so we need to get that fixed somehow. The street doesn't have a name. It's on a dirt road.

Man made flood!

We had a good week. There were two baptisms on Saturday. I'll send a pic. It's been a good week though. We had a Christmas dinner with the President this week, which was really good. We also did a ward Christmas dinner as well. There seemed to be a lot of activities. Everything is going good though. This week starts the last week of the change. It should be interesting. Saturday after the baptism we forgot to turn the font off and we came back hours later and the chapel was flooded! Not good! We just started pushing water out the front door with brooms and mops. Then we used about 8 rolls of industrial size paper towels and cleaned everything up. No one has any idea what happened haha. So, disaster avoided. Anyway, we´ll talk Thursday, so I will leave you with that for now. Love you.

New Baptism

This week we had a baptism. He had been listening to the missionaries for four years or so and we finally got him to get baptized. Now that family is complete and can go to the temple together, which is special. We are teaching a lot of people right now as well, which is good. We had a few people in church on Sunday also.

 

I've been studying the book of Nephi and Luke. I always get something more out of the scriptures every time I read them. I've also been trying to apply them more to me. 

 

Things this week have been a little different. Right now is when they have what they call Fiestas de Quito. Well I think they ended the 6th, but there are a lot of parties and concerts. There was one outside our house this week and it was loud and going on till 2 or 3 in the morning. But it doesn't keep us from working.

Basilica

This week was good. I learned a lot as always and we were able to find people and have people in church this week. My comapnion is great! We get along good and we teach really well together. So we always have really spiritual lessons which has been something hard to do with some of my past companions.

 

This week I started  my study of the Book of Mormon over and I've come to realize how amazing the stories are and how to make them come to life. I think we have it easy comapred to some of the Book of Mormon prophets. I've gained a lot of respect for Nephi. He wants to know what his father saw so he prays and is taken away in the spirit. During that vision he sees the destruction of his people (1 Nephi 12:19). Returning from having this vision he finds his brothers fighting. He just saw the destruction of his people!! Talk about no hope. It was written in the Heavens! You can imagine it might be hard to get up and keep preaching and keep being obedient. But, the first things he does is try to help his brothers understand. The same brothers who he saw would never actually accept his words and who's posterity would eventually destroy his. See 1 Nephi 15:5,6. Notwithstanding everything he still loved them and did everything he could to help them. See 1 Nephi 15:25 and 1 Nephi 16:3,4. His whole life he dedicated to service of others in spite of knowing the result of everything he would establish. Also, we have the Book of Mormon, thanks in part to Nephi, it's not easy to insribe words on plates but he did it with a purpose: 2 Nephi 25:23. see Jacob 1:9,10. 

In these days have a better hope. People are prepared and we need to find them! 

Today we wenrt to a place called the basilica. It's a giant catholic church. I'll send pictures.