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