Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Yes Jacqueline got back from her dads funeral but hasn’t felt like talking to us yet and told her sister that she’s not going to get baptized this week. She’s super depressed because her dad died and everything and just lays in bed all day and doesn’t talk to anyone. I think she still has desires to be baptized but just doesn’t feel like doing anything at the moment. Its kinda a tough situation. At ward counsel yesterday we asked everyone to pray for her so hopefully everyone’s prayers will make a difference. Maybe you guys could pray as well? I remember when I was in Esmeraldas we had a few investigators that had really tough situations and couldn’t get baptized but when we started praying for the everyday multiple times during the day they started to make progress towards overcoming their problems. Then I left so I don’t know what happened to them. But at least I learned the power of prayer.

Other that Jacqueline, We have a couple other investigators with baptismal dates. One is Tarjelia Bravo. She’s Ronalds mom and had a date for the 31 of July but we moved it up this week to the 24th. She has her interview this Saturday so hopefully everything turns out good. Another is Rocio. She prayed to ask which church is true and had a dream that the true church had temples like it describes in exodus when its talking about the tabernacle. We talked a little bit about temples and she agreed to be baptized the first week in august. Her biggest challenge is going to church and keeping the Sabbath day holy because she plays on a soccer team that always plays on Sundays and she really doesn’t want to just stop playing. She came to church 2 weeks ago but didn’t come this week so we’re gonna work really hard with her to get her to go this upcoming Sunday.

We have one investigator-Hermano Mina- that wants to get baptized but has a really big problem with drinking. He has had it for almost his whole life and wants to stop but its really hard for him. He was driving drunk one time and drove off a cliff and almost died and he has a lot of health problems from drinking but he still does it because he’s addicted. This week we talk with him about the power that the book of Mormon has and how it can help him overcome his problem if he reads it everyday. We read a scripture with him (the last verse in ether 8… it think) that says that the book of Mormon was written to take the wickedness out of the hearts of men and persuade them to do good continually and we promised him that if he would read the book of Mormon regularly that the desires to drink would diminish and that he would be able to be freed from his problem. He said he was gonna do it so lets hope he keeps his word.

This week we had zone conference and a bunch of other meetings so we didn’t get as much work done as usually. We had interviews on Thursday, zone conference Friday, mini conference Saturday, and church and ward council(3 hours) on Sunday. Zone conference was really good. They are always good and I always learn a lot but this time was like extra good. President Sloan blew me away with his doctrine class. It was like 2 hours long and it was the most in depth stuff I’ve ever heard about the fall, the atonement, and repentance. It was like a doctrinal feast. The scriptures have a new meaning to me now. He explained things that I had read many times but apparently had never really understood. I wanted to go straight to the temple afterwards because I’m sure I would understand things way better now…. But I couldn’t so hopefully I won’t forget everything I learned in the next 14 months. Its weird that I’m less than 2 months away from completing a year. Time flies.

Special thanks to Torie for sending me all of tanners emails! It definitely made my day to read all about what my best friend has been up to. Thanks!!!

If anyone is waiting for a letter, I’m super sorry that I’m taking so long to write. Ever since I got switched to Quito it seams like I’ve been busier than a worker ant. But I’m working on it I promise! Please be patient with me.

Random story: on Wednesday we were walking into the gate in front of our ward mission leaders house and their neighbors dag came up and started barking at us like crazy like it was gonna bite us or something. It’s a little tiny dog so long story short…. My companion kicked it and sent it flying. Then in ran in the house with its tail between its legs and never bothered us again. It was pretty funny. We were laughing for a while.

President gave us permission to play soccer so today I played for the first time in over 10 months. It was pretty fun even though I am ridiculously tired right now. Its pretty hard to play when your at an altitude 10,000 feet. But it was definitely worth it. Anyway, that’s all I have for this week. I love you all! ¡Que tengan una Buena semana!