Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Well this week was pretty good. On Tuesday morning we got a call from one of the bishops in our stake saying that the river by his first councilor’s factory had overflowed and that he needed out help to get all the water out. So we hurried and got dressed in our service close, went and rounded up the other missionaries, and went to help. Let’s just say it was the dirtiest service project that I have ever done. There was mud all over the place and in some parts it was almost up to our knees. We just started scooping it up with buckets and dumping it into wheelbarrows and talking it back out to the river. We all got mud all over us (I`ll try and send a picture next week) but luckily when we finished they had a high pressure water gun and sprayed us all off and we went home soaking wet instead of covered in mud.
We had a baptism his week. Geovani Maiwa got baptized. He’s a 17 year old indigenous guy. He was basically more than golden. The missionaries contacted him in the street about 4 months ago and then never saw him again until he came to church 4 weeks ago. We started teaching him and he got baptized on Saturday. He says that he wants to go on a mission. Hes probably the strongest convert that i`ve had on my mission so far. The indigenous people are very loyal. When they decide to join the church they don`t go inactive very easily. I guess its just part of their lamanite blood.
On Sunday night we went to visit the Mantilla family with our bishop. All are members except for the dad and one 12 year old daughter. They live WAY out in the mountains in a little village called Topo grande (Big mole). They don`t speak that much Spanish so the bishop just started talking to them in quichua. After about half an hour of not understanding anything the bishop turned to me and asked if the dad and daughter could be baptized this weekend. I said that if they passed the baptismal interview that they could and gave the baptismal interview questions to the bishop. He then proceeded to verify their knowledge in quichua and said that they knew all the questions expect for a few commandments. The problem is that the dad works in quito all week long and is only home on Saturday nights and Sundays. So this Saturday at 4 we`re gonna go with the bishop to teach the rest of the commandments and at 5 they`re gonna have his interview and on Sunday morning they`re gonna get baptized right before church and then get confirmed. The dad used to be a drunk. A few weeks ago we ran into him in the street and he was wasted off of his rocker. But apparently y hasn`t drank since then and is really repented and wants to get baptized. Hes been coming to church for over a months´. Long story short we should have 2 baptisms th¡s weekend if all goes well. We didn`t even really do anything to deserve these baptisms because we can`t really even communicate that well with these people. All we did was set up the appointment and ask the bishop to come with us and he did the rest. Our bishop is really good. He’s probably the best bishop I’ve had on my mission. Hes way rich too. I think his house is bigger than ours.
I think I forgot to mention it last week but our mission has been doing really good lately. We had 256 baptisms in March which is a new mission record. And until this point we have doubled the number of baptisms from last year. I`m pretty sure we are the best mission in the area right now which is incredible because we used to be one of the worst. Hopefully we can keep it up in the upcoming months.
Well that’s all I really have for this week. Thanks for all your support. I love you all! I`ll try and send pictures next week. This computer won`t let me do it this week.

Love,
Brandon