June 23rd, 2014

I gave birth this week to a 130 pound Peruvian baby boy. Haha I recieved my new companion wednesday, His names Elder Alcántara from Lima. This first week has been super fun...I am still learning this area cause its huge and I havent been here long, so weve been getting lost a lot ha. But ya it was pretty wild the other day when Ecuador won. We were walking down the street, past literally every house was out on their porch watching the game, and the streets exploded at the same time, there were fireworks for the next 3 hours and a mob of no joke 50 motorcycles went up and down the streets screaming till 9 at night. Ha Freaking crazys.

We started the week pretty well, had a few investigators that started to progress. But yesterday they all dropped us. One because her "Christian" mom got angry and almost hit her cause shes listening to us. Another because she feels pressured by us and her husband whos a member, because we told them to pray and read together. And another, who had a solid date, attended church and everything, we had to give to the sisters in our ward cause we found out he lives in their half of the ward. So ya were starting over again, completely brand new basically.This kind of stuff is usual, but I dont know it bugged me a lot more, it was like one right after the other yesterday.

So I prayed hard last night that I could just forget what happened and just go out and kill it this week. And I got a huge help today as I studied in Moroni 9, I swear it was written just for me in that moment.

In Verse 4 mormon says. Behold, I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with asharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they bharden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased cstriving with them.
6. And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor adiligently; for if we should cease to blabor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God.

Ya that me good, Im not gonna stop trying, nor have bad thoughts about the people, nor put my head down, were gonna find those who are not gonna anger or harden their hearts. This work of the mission is important and this church is true, those who deny it will regret it, but were not gonna regret trying to help them. amen.

Elder Crisp

to my left is Elder Alcantara.

June 16th, 2014

So not much has been happening here in the area- our only investigator who was gonna be baptized this Saturday, Luis, couldnt cause he didnt pass the interview, and without going into too much detail its not likely he ever will be. So that was a bummer- me and Elder Sanchez have been looking for new investigators with barely any luck, and we cut basically all of our investigators cause no ones progressing. Were basically starting over from scratch itll be fun.

Another cool thing is that Elder Sanchez had transfers this morning. Haha its cool cause I basically have one week in this area and I really dont know where anything is haha. I also found out that Im pregnant. Wednesday Im gonna be training! Im pumped honestly. Cause up until now i havent felt challenged, Ive been trying to self evaluate where i am as a missionary and I really don´t know yet. So with this brand new area and brand new start with finding investigators and brand new Elder, I think itll be a good test. I know its gonna be hard, but its gonna be a blast.

So thats really all I have. This countrys in a state of depression from the loss yesterday, were gonna cheer em up with the message of the restoration. So ya well see how it goes with this poor new missionary whos stuck with me wednesday. I hope you all have a delightful week read the scriptures ok.

Elder Crisp


A one photo summary of Ecudor during World cup
Despidiendo a Elder Sanchez

June 9th, 2014

"New Stuff"

So its was pretty crazy this last week. Tuesday, at like 11 in the morning I got a call- you have transfers be at the offices at 1. I was wondering the whole time why am I being transfered on a tuesday, but then i remembered that President has less than a month so he does whatever he wants. haha. No but seriously what happened is the assistants forgot to call 3 transfers....so ya now Im in Milagro! Im in a ward called Bella Vista. My new companion is Elder Sanchez, a Chileno. So far so good with him, theres a bunch of chilenos in this zone it has made me realized what country has the worst spanish accent. Chile wins.

When I came he said we really dont have any investigators right now, they all fell last week. So that was kind of disappointing were starting new here, but weve already found some good investigators, from referrals. The members are a lot more helpful here Ive already seen. We had a really cool experience thursday, our plans fell through and we were about to start contacting, but we were like na wait man lets go get some empanadas Im hungry. So we started walking to a bakery, we pass a teen and he runs up to us. Told us he listened to the missionarys a while back but rejected them, but said he wants to start listening again. So we talked to him right there, set a date for this coming saturday, everythings good with him hes super excited. His mom is super christian, and they usually dont like mormons, but she was super excited to here hes going to be baptized, were trying to find a time to teach her too. So out of the blue we found 1, his names Luis.

We had a huge mission conference, the majority of the 3 missions here in guayaquil were there and we were told an apostle was coming. It was supposed to be Dallin H Oaks they told us, but he couldnt come his plane was having problems. So instead came W Chris Waddell from the quorum of the 70 it was awesome. He first told us, I was thinking right here what to speak about cause it was short notice, that why would Elder Oaks ask the 3 missions to gather if God knew he wouldnt be there. What do these missions need to hear. He said he realized what we need to know. That right now this city is being converting from the highest baptizing city in the world. To the highest retaining and activating city in the world. The main focus now for these 3 missions is to get people in the temple, something we have lost apparently cause everyones inactive.

The whole talk was awesome, one part he said that can apply to all of us not just missionarys. That Christ willingly accepted to come here, like we read in Abraham 3. But that doesnt mean he wanted to suffer like he did. But of course he did do the will of the father. The same with us. We chose his plan we chose to come here, so difficulty in this life is NOT an excuse to fall or lose faith. We need to take up our cup or cross or whatever and stay faithful. He said a bunch of great stuff really my whole mentallity has changed here. So Ya new area, good success here, everythings going well.

Love Elder Crisp

June 2nd, 2014

"All is well, all is well"

We have continued to work with Diana for her marriage, really nothing is happening with the papers no one in the government wants to help, so we went to a lawyer whos a member who can speed it up. We went through a bunch to get his help (that was friday), and we go to her house last night- she tells us now there are problems in the relationship, she doesnt want to get married. Man that was fun to here. She was super emotional, so hopefully she was just upset at that moment, and she still wants to be baptized, so theres still hope, but still it was like why couldnt it just work out when we first started working with her...more than a month ago.

So ya because she was the only real investigator that we had, we worked a bunch to try to find new ones this week, but with basically no success. I dont know if this is just a busy time of year or what but we dont have much luck finding anyone, but I know theyll come...

We came across a family very interesting this week, we knocked their door and the dad let us in right away. He brought out his son and wife, they told us the son 18 is super sick mentally, can barely leave the house or do anything. They are super catholic, and the mom is hard as a rock - for example every scripture we share she says ya i read that yesterday i already know everything about the bible. They say that they have brought him to preists to heal him and what not but hes been sick for 2 years and nothing has changed. So we told them ya if you come to church we can have the bishop give a blessing from the real priesthood. After a lot of humbling they agreed, they came and recieved the blessing after what I think was a very impressioning sacrament meeting, I think they might be something, especially if the son improves. So theres one family weve been teaching at least

I was reading in the conference talk form Robert D Hales, there was a part I liked a bunch, he says why did the followers of Satan choose satan when they knew they would lose their earthly body? A similar question we can ask ourselves is why do we choose sin when we know the consuqences? The answer is because we are deciding to LOVE SATAN MORE THAN GOD. Really when we deny the promptings of the Spirit and choose somehting bad, we are making the same exact decision that third of hosts made, we are denying eternal blessings. Luckily we have a chance to regain those blessings, unlike them, but still we need to remember to follow God in all moment if we love him.

Thats all I have, enjoy the week, with love , Elder Crisp


my new nesquik goggles
celebrating kids day which is for some reason a holiday here