Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

This week has been really good. ON Saturday we had 2 baptisms. Rocio and Fernanda Martinez. Their baptisms went well (despite the fact that Rocio and to try 3 times before she was successful, I think she was scared to go under or something like that haha). Rocio is the mother of Fernanda and Adriana(one of the people we baptized on December 26th). I’ve been teaching them ever since I’ve been here. Adriana made a lot of friends in the church and gained a testimony really quick so she was a little easier. Rocio and fernanda on the other had were a bit harder. We challenged them for a baptism a few times and they didn’t really give us a straight answer. We finally ended up just going to an appointment with them and just bearing pure testimony that they needed to get baptized and that baptism is what God wanted for them. We found at that they were scared because all of there family is catholic and they didn’t know how their family would take it if they got baptized in our church. We just testified again and asked them to pray and ask if they should be baptized. We went back the next day and they said that they wanted to be baptized. So now the whole family has been baptized except for the Dad. Every time we try to talk to him he kinda puts up a wall. He’s a really nice guy, he just doesn’t like to talk about church stuff and it always seems like he just feels awkward when we try and talk about church stuff with him. But its nothing we cant take care of with a littler patience and longsuffering!

Ok I have a few scary stories this week:
1) On Monday night we were at an appointment when the energy went out. We were just finishing so the people asked them where we were going next so we told them that we were going to barrio unidos somos mas. Then they told us that we shouldn’t go there when the lights were at because it’s a dangerous area. We told them that we had god on our side and weren’t worried. So we went anyway. While we were walking to our next appointment we came around a corner and saw some people sitting outside on a curb. When we walked past them they started to sing/chant “Los mormonas, vamos a matarles” (the Mormons, we’re going to kill you). We just looked at them, smiled and waved, and kept walking. Then the next day we found out that 2 people had been killed in that neighborhood the night before. Haha it was kinda sketchy… (but don’t worry mom, there was never any real danger. I promise! We have the spirit with us which is the best protector you can find.)

2) On Thursday night I woke up to find a man standing right outside our window. He was tapping on the window so we went and opened the door. It was some random person that we didn’t know but he knew us. He said he was a member and that he needed money to get home. Anyways, long story short, he was begging for money and we had no idea how he knew where we lived or how he got in the gate in front of our house.
This week we were at a lesson with a 15 year old boy named jimmy. He told us he didn’t have that much time because he had a ton of homework to do and he had to wash the dishes and clean the house so we offered to help him out. We ended up doing the dishes and I thought it was funny because they only materials they had to clean were a sock and laundry detergent. Haha they definitely do things differently here.

Usually we never take dinner but on Tuesday we decided that we were hungry and wanted to. So we went back to our apartment. When we got there, there were 2 white guys knocking on our door. When they saw us they turned around and started speaking in English to us. It turned out that they were missionaries from some non denominational Christian church and were in our area knocking doors. We talked to them and got to know them a bit. One of them had been a missionary for 25 years and had been in Ecuador for 9 straight years. They started telling us about themselves and how they decided to be missionaries and stuff. I’m not gonna lie, I got a really creepy feeling when they were talking. It was weird. They said that god started talking to them when they were little and told them that they needed to be missionaries. I don’t mean to disrespect them or anything but I just knew that they weren’t serving God. It reminded me of the story in the book of Mormon where Korihor says that and angel came and told him to preach against Christ but really it was an angel of the devil. I think its like alms 30 or something like that.

On Wednesday we went on divisions with the Zone leaders and the one I was with told me what was going to happen next week when we have changes. I don’t know if he has inside info or if he was just guessing so I’ll have to wait till next week to find out. I’m still hoping the president gets inspired to send me to Quito where I can feast on McDonalds, pizza hut, taco bell, ect… everyday. Haha I get to go to Quito tonight though so i´m excited about that. I have to take all the new missionaries back to get there documents to stay in the country.

Thanks to everyone that wrote me a letter or sent me something. I’m trying to write back as fast as a can! I love you all!