Week 75 Ecuador

Dear Family,

I love all of your beautiful faces. It makes me super happy when you`re all happy and doing well. Funny how that connection works, huh? 

Well, it`s raining here in Duran but spirits are high!

Aside from what I said in my Voice Rec. we are anxiously looking forward to two Baptisms this week (some hard-set Catholics converted by the Book of Mormon!!) Irina and Kevin. 

Following that we have like 12 possible candidates for baptism this month of March, we`ll march forth with Faith and do all in our power. As a Zone we`re looking to complete a goal of 17 Baptisms and 19 Rescues this month. Rarely do Zones complete their goals and it would be a huge Testimony builder to see this Zone that has fallen short of its potential for so long come up and grab hold of it by helping so many genuine people come closer to God.

So, play on, laugh on, work on! Keep looking forward.

We have leadership Conference tomorrow, always a thrill. Other big news... An apostle is coming to our mission June 11th. Yes! Elder Estupinan dies 29th of March  :(  ..and, General Conference is like 1 month away. What more could you ask for?

2/29/16 Voice Recording

Happy Monday family. We worked a lot, and we learned a lot this week. It was very successful… a lot of feelings running around. This morning, although I’ve never been one to watch much sports or basketball, or much of one to play it, Elder Estupinan is a good basketball player, and with March Madness starting up in the United States we took it as a finding opportunity. We’re putting together a basketball tournament bracket here in the ward. The youth, adults, whoever, can form their own teams, and then submit into the bracket. We’re going to get a little ward trophy, and over these next three weekends we’re going to run a little tournament. Hopefully helping the recent converts, the less actives come, getting some new investigators. It’s a fun idea. We’re really hoping it works out good. Don’t be afraid to change things up to get new results. 

Well, continuing onward I’m going to give this week to you jumping around like an emotional roller coaster, cause that’s how it is in reality. I had an eye opening lesson learned the other day as we gave our recent convert, and current mission leader a blessing. For ten days now he’s been in a drug relapse. He was a cocaine addict for 27 years, and gave it up cold turkey six months ago to get baptized. Although he has the mental toughness not to consume, his body has developed a dependence on the drugs, and after not consuming in so long he crashed. Now he had to undergo detoxification treatments, and the biggest thing is the family doesn’t have money, so it’s kind of sad. We gave him a blessing, and I know some of the members are helping him out, but we were talking with him for a minute, and he’s realizing the consequences of his decisions for so many years. It’s a big lesson for me too. I’ve never seen personally a drug abuser and the affects, so it was kind of an eye opener for me. I just remember the old DARE program…Don’t do drugs. We’re praying that he can recover, that he’ll pull out of it. 

The following day I wasn’t in the sector because we had an exchange with the district leaders. I was with Elder Johnson. He’s from Utah too. He’s got a scholarship to go play football after. I can’t remember, I think he’s going to UVU at first, then he might go down to Snow College or something. He’s a good guy. He has like six weeks more than me in the mission. He’s just a solid dude. I was giving him a hard time though, he’s really uncertain about his decisions. He’s a district leader, but I’ve talked with President Riggins, and the only reason he’s not a zone leader is because he can’t be firm in his decisions. So I was talking to him…I say whether you’re going to succeed or mess up, do it 100 percent, and back yourself up. If you have logic behind your decisions, then nobody’s breathing down our necks if we mess up. It’s like a football play, when you’re in the huddle and they call the play, you line up, maybe the defense changes formation, but the play is called, you’re going…just go with your decisions! I think it helped him out. Sad moment though, when they called us last night and told us that he was being transferred to an area that’s having a lot of problems right now in the mission. There’s a lot of disobedient missionaries there. I think that’s a result of the type of families that really do influence a lot the missionaries that make bad decisions. I think there was an emergency change in that sector. They pulled an elder out. In other words, he’s walking into a fallen sector where an elder has done something bad. He’s going to have a tough situation…has to pull it back up, and gain the trust of the members. I feel really bad for him, but God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.

Alright, back up to a high point with a quick shout out to Darby! Happy 22nd birthday, although I wrote you a little note. I dedicated to day to you, and we went out and found three new investigators. Yes, I love you. That’s how we make things happen. 

Well, yesterday we had nine investigators in church. That might be a personal record for me, I can’t really remember, but it definitely gives us a lot of candidates for baptism. I’m really praying for a family, or at least a future elder that can be baptized, but we’re really excited. March could be the most successful month that I’ve had so far in the mission, and it should be. We’ve been working the past two months really good. Elder Estupinan is going home at the end of the month. He’s dedicated to work it out, so we’re really excited. We’re looking to complete the goal in the zone, and that does not happen very often. We still need to help the other missionaries keep pushing to put baptismal dates and goals with the people, so it can become a reality. Missionaries occasionally ask still how do we have success, how do we baptize, how do we do all these things. All I can tell them is all you can do is the best you know how, and then I believe that God truly blesses our efforts, and according to our sacrifice, diligence, and prayers of faith, God pours out his Spirit upon the people that they accept us. 

I’ve been reading a lot lately the Book of Mormon. I decided to read it again here in the mission, and I am inspired by the faithful missionary work of Alma and the sons of Helaman. I feel that desire, the urgency to find people, to teach them, and baptize them. I’m going for Alma chapter 38 right now, where Alma’s talking to his son Shiblon. I’ve been reading for five or six weeks now I think. It’s a blessing that you have time to study in the mission. After this I will have read all of the scriptures in the mission except for Doctrine and Covenants. I’m going to finish out the mission with Doctrine and Covenants I think. I don’t know, or wherever I land. There’s always good applications and studies wherever you look. 

 Well, I love each and everyone of you. You’re in my heart. Your in my prayers. You’re often in my testimony that I share with the entire world, so keep doing great things. Choose the right, and we’ll keep going forward. Take care. Have another wonderful week.