Week 53 Ecuador

Family Home Evening...

and you thought it was a Christmas party;)

...just goes to show I CAN plan things, when I want.

Baptisms in the Murillo family! You know the gospel is true and the Atonement is powerful when you see it bring two separating parents together as they strive to come closer to God. Result, kids baptized, happy family. This cracked me up, dad and son looking up (with the picture of the first vision in the background, haha)

Jump-suits are the bomb

Assistants being goofy.

Us, always happy doing weekly numbers!

9/28/15 voice message

Hi family. I hope everyone had a wonderful week. It probably wasn’t as fulfilling as mine though…just sayin’. We had some fun. I got to go out and play basketball a couple mornings. When one of the assistants was here, Elder Ryelch, he’s gonna go play for the University of Utah after, so he’s pretty good. He’s like 6’ 4. I’m about as good, or worse than I ever was at basketball, but you know…I can play around. Everyone says I shoot like a wrestler…ya that’s deserved I guess. My companion, he’s super good at basketball too. He played two years in high school. 

We had the biggest family home evening last Monday I’ve ever seen in my life, because Miguel Penafiel our old mission leader was leaving on the mission. He’s a pretty popular guy it looks like. We gave a message, I think it was pretty good, got some references (not really), but you know we tried. During the rest of the testimonies and things that went on for like 45 minutes, me and Elder Albrecht secretly played checkers behind a table. That was pretty fun. Won two times, lost once. Then we got some food. That’s the fun thing about being a missionary, the people always serve you first, so you never feel left out. 

Mexicans are few and far between here in the mission, but I got to go on my first intercambio with one, Elder Abendano. He’s a pretty cool guy. We ordered in some pizza for the six of us when we were doing the intercambio, and I didn’t get home ’til like 10:30…shhh. Don’t tell anyone, but it was mainly because a returned missionary drove us home in his car, and he was driving suuuper slow with spanish rap music blaring, mainly as a joke. It was kind of funny, but it got old, but whatever, we got home. All you can do is laugh about it. 

Some good things happened as far as the work this week. We found some good new investigators. We’ve got baptisms lined up for each weekend in October. We got to keep finding to fill up the month, but we’re just going to keep the baptismal font full so we can throw them in at any minute. Speaking of that though…keeping the font full. Me and Elder Albrecht forgot to drain the font from our last baptism two weeks ago, and we went to use it again…to clean it out. It was full of four dead cockroaches, and these nasty worms that were dead and floating on top. The water was like green and moldy. It was So disgusting, but when we tried to drain it, we figured out that there’s an electrical problem, and it won’t even drain. So that water is just sitting in the font at the church. It’s so gross. We don’t really know what to do, but hey not our problem I guess…whoops! Luckily we have another baptismal font here in the zone, and if that one just happens to go out then we’re running for the river I suppose. Doing it Jesus and John the Baptist style. I suppose that allows the more open, exposed heavens aspect when you come up out of the water. According to Ecuador, every time you give a baptism talk, they always say “there’s a party in heaven today, we’re so happy for you”…every single time. It just makes me laugh. I haven’t been to many baptisms in the states, but is that like a common thing to say? 

Towards the end of this week we’ve had some special opportunities I guess you could say. An area seventy came, Elder Calderon and his wife. They visited the mission, and shoot, brought the spirit. Poderoso! A few things I learned mostly, I recognized the most powerful teaching comes by personal experiences, our testimonies. We should ask to recognize how the spirit speaks to each one of us. Finally, I learned that faith never looks back, it is based on the hope of the future. My mission is my time to kill the things that can impede me from moving forward in life, and perfecting myself. I am to live out my youth to the fullest, yeah…pretty much that. #foreveryoung. I only have 6 more months of being 19 years old, and then when I hit 20 I feel like that’s when you have to be a man or something. I don’t know, I guess we’ll figure that out when it gets here…ha That’s sure not the case in Bryan I suppose, so maybe I’m good? Just kiddin’ Bryan, you’re a stud. Elder Albrecht just discovered that he’s gaining a widows peak, so it was a tough moment for him. I’m good though. I’ve always known that I have a widows peak…thanks dad;) 

Lastly, if one day with Elder Calderon and his wife wasn’t enough, we got another one! In the leadership conference Friday, two back to back meetings…gotta love that:) I pretty much fell asleep traveling both ways, but luckily nobody stole the pouch, all the goodies for the zone. We gained a priceless perspective on the mission and life. In short, the Lord has greatly blessed each one of us with abilities to adapt to our situations, circumstances, and lead in life. Out of love we can feel a true desire to serve by teaching others and upholding his standards, and hope to influence others to do likewise. We should be patient with ourselves and others, and that will truly honor God. Our personal progress is almost imperceptible, yet if we’re obedient it’s certain. Life’s not a race, our greatest enemy’s ourselves, and we should just enjoy the journey. Like people always say, but I really felt that was true as he was speaking to us. After giving us the feel good speech, he brought out four chairs, and every missionary knows what four chairs means…practices. He and his wife sat down, and Elder Albrecht and I had the privilege of volunteering ourselves to go stick our head in the guillotine and get it chopped off in front of everyone. They were like, we want you to teach the doctrine of Christ and we want you to invite us to be baptized. We were like easy enough, that’s our job as missionaries right? Well they stopped us every 30 seconds, and they’re like ok, what could you be saying right now? They analyzed every little thing, and all the missionaries from three zones were smirking, glad that it’s not them up there. Two other pairs of zone leaders went up too, and it was good. It was a good learning experience. It’s helped me and Albrecht perfect our teaching a little more. More and more I’m just realizing that the gospel is just principles that if we apply in our lives, we will see the blessings and we’ll come to love them, and it really is the best way to live. It brings happiness, and joy, and peace. I’m seeing that in the mission, and that’s what I want other people to realize. I only have 19 years of personal experiences, and that’s short in comparison with a lot of other people. I can use those to testify of what I know is true.

Finally, we ended this week…well, not ended it, but Saturday we had two baptisms. 

They were fun, little kids you know. I don’t know how touching they can be, ha. 

Elder Albrecht forgot his baptismal clothes, so we put on some of the wards. The suit was Way to small for him. It was riding up hard, but you know I had my classy jumpsuit. Everyone was super impressed, dad the bishop was diggin’ the jumpsuit. I think we had inspiration honestly…I’m going to wear that thing for my honeymoon…that is going to be my nightly gown;) You can know all is good when the spirit is felt. It will be something they can remember. 

If any of you have the opportunity to select the hymn that you’ll sing this week, maybe in your Noche de Hogar tonight if you get this message in time, my new favorite hymn…well, one of them is Brightly Beams Our Fathers Mercy, Brillan Rayos de Clemencia in spanish. In our hymn book it’s 208, but it’s probably not in yours. Sorry, I got talkin’ there in my spanglish, and Noche de Hogar is Family Home Evening if you guys didn’t catch that drift. 

Anyways, Garrett I’m rootin’ for you. I’m still waiting to hear about that first home run slammer for the year. Your all number one in my heart. Keep going strong. Love you all. Chau, chau.