Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

This week has been pretty crazy down here in Ecuador. My district hadn’t had any baptisms this months so the zone leaders started getting on my case about it. It was kinda frustrating but after sulking in my pride for a while I finally humbled myself and decided that they were right and that if I was the district leader that I needed to set an example for everyone and start baptizing more. I didn’t know how I was gonna do it but on Wednesday I got the idea in my head that I was gonna baptize at least 2 people this week so I asked the zone leaders if we could do divisions so that they could help me resolve some problems with a few investigators. We were only in divisions for like 3 hours but we managed to give 2 baptismal challenges to 2 people for this Saturday and they both accepted. It was Celeste and Jacqueline. They both were going through some problems. Celeste had a ton of opposition from her family and Jacqueline was still depressed because her dad died but we managed to overcome their problems and got them to agree to be baptized on Saturday. Saturday came and all was looking good but then at 8 in the morning Celeste sent us a message that said that she couldn’t get baptized so we went straight to her house and after talking with her for a bit we managed to convince her that she needed to be baptized. Her problem was that her whole family was pressuring her to travel back to Guayaquil that day and they told her that her baptism wasn’t that important and that she could do it another day. After resolving her problem for the first time we went back to work but about an hour later she sent us another message saying the same thing. She said she wanted to get baptized but her family was forcing her to leave that day. The same thing repeated all day long… she would send us a message and tell us that she couldn’t get baptized and we would run over and convince her that she had to. I think we repeated the process and least 5 times. We finally settled everything once and for all by asking the bishop if she could be confirmed on Saturday so that she could go to Guayaquil so that her family wouldn’t get mad at her. It was a crazy day and it was definitely a miracle that we got everything worked out and that she got baptized. We almost forgot about Jacqueline but luckily she didn’t face much opposition that day. Satan was focusing all his efforts on Jacqueline. So anyway we ended up having 2 baptisms this week thanks to a lot of hard work and a lot of divine help.

One day this week we were walking to an appointment when we saw a little old lady that was going crazy because she had locked herself out of her house. We asked her if she was alright and she told us her situation and asked us if we could climb up a telephone pole onto her porch, break in her back door, and go open the front door and let her in. how could we say no to such a request? My companion climbed up and when he was about to break in he realized that there was an angry dog inside that didn’t like strangers. The lady was like “there’s a shovel up there that you can use to defend yourself so he grabbed the shovel and broke in. luckily the dog didn’t attack him and he was able to get the door opened.

This week I did an interview for a 20 year old guy that was deaf so that he could get baptized. The plan was that his sister was going to translate for me so the 3 of us went in the room and started the interview. It wasn’t long before I realized that the deaf guy didn’t even know sign language. I would ask a question and his sister would open a picture book, find a picture about whatever the question was, point to it, and then point to him… then with a very confused and nervous look he would nod his head and his sister would tell me, “yes he believes” or “yes he understands”. It was clear to me that he didn’t understand because he couldn’t communicate. I didn’t know what to do because I had never had a situation like that. I asked for a few minutes to be alone so that I could pray and ask the lord if he should be baptized. They left the room and I got on my knees and started praying and asking what I should do. Everyone in his family wanted him to get baptized and the missionaries wanted him to get baptized…. Even I wanted him to get baptized because my district hadn’t had any baptism yet this month… but after praying for about 10 minutes I just didn’t feel right about it so I asked them to come back in. I talked to his sister a little more and eventually explained that I didn’t feel like he was ready to get baptized. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty hard to say know but I had to do it because I knew that it was pretty to offend man than to offend God. The next day I called president Sloan and told him about what had happened and he told me that I had done the right thing and that made me feel better. Its pretty hard to tell someone that they can’t get baptized. I wonder what it would be like to be a bishop and tell someone that they couldn’t go to the temple or something like that. Hopefully I’m never a bishop haha.

We had changes today. My companion elder Brailsford got sent to Otavalo and I’m training again for the 3rd time. I still don’t know who my companion is. The new missionaries get here tonight or tomorrow and we’ll get paired up on Wednesday. I’ll let you know next week who my companion is.

Anyway that’s all for this week. I got a package from grandma and grandma Messer. Thanks a ton! Talk to you next week! I love you!