Week 64

Happy Halloween! I´d honestly completely forgot about that until somebody reminded me today.

This Saturday we got to go to a Multi-stake activity celebrating the 50th anniversary of the church in Ecuador! It was cool. There were a TON of people. We sang I am a Child of God as the Ecuatorian pioneers came in. It was all recorded. Not sure where that footage went, but Elder Arratia and I are definitely in it!

Juan´s baptism was miraculous. We didn´t start filling the font until 4:30, and the font takes 5 to six hours to fill. When it was 7:30, Juan and some other people showed up, and the water wasn´t even up to our knees. When it was 8:00, we thought he was going to have to do the baptism sitting down or something, but somehow the font had filled up enough for the baptism to be done normally! And we had Elder Torres come and sing a special number (He was on The Voice of Peru right before the mission), so it all just turned out really nice. Sadly, we had some baptismal dates fall through because people went away to visit their dead this Sunday. So yeah.

We had something called Colada Morada. It´s this purple liquid with a ton of random fruits in it. It´s really good. Aaaand, that´s about all for this week.

Elder Arratia says hi.

Elder Najera

Week 63

So basically I´m in the same area, just the other half, haha.

Elder Arratia and I are doing great. We were able to set a baptismal date with Juan for this week! He had his interview, and everything´s good to go! Another investigator, Fatima also attended and we were able to extend a date for the 14th of November. He accepted :) We found a less active member who hadn´t gone to church in forever. We visited her, and she went this Sunday. Along with her 8 year old son, who also wants to be baptized. So yeah. A lot of good things are happening here.

ALSO, Jefferson and Moroni (From my old ward) Were baptized this week :D It was awesome. They felt so good, and both of them bore their testimony.

This Saturday there is a multi-stake conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the church in Ecuador! We´re allowed to go to that, and we´re super excited. So because of that, Juan´s baptism is going to be on Friday.

That´s pretty much all for now. I´m doing great. The water in our house went out twice this week and I shaved without any water or shaving cream for the first time in my life. So that was fun.

 Love you all!

Elder Arratia and I

Yes, that´s a pink chicken.

Jefferson got baptized :D Future missionary!

Moroni got baptized, too!

Week 62 - Transferred 2 Blocks Away

So yeah. Carla was baptized and confirmed! She´s doing fantastic. Jefferson´s going to be baptized this week, and Moroni´s going to be baptized on the 31st, and Katherine on November 7th :)

 Sadly, I will only be able to attend Jefferson´s baptism because I have been transfered. I´m now with Elder Arratia from Bolivia. He´s cool. He used to be in my old area with Elder Criddle who trained him (My old comp). I´m still in Monte Sinaí, just in a different ward. My current house is literally two blocks down from my old house, haha. But yeah.

Things are great. The phenomenom of "El Niño" is supposed to be pretty intense this year, so that should be fun. We´ve been feeling light earthquakes every now and then. So that´s nice. Aaaand, we killed a mouse in our apartment. So yeah. That´s all for now :)

Elder Najera

Week 60 - General Conference was Amazing

Welp, General Conference was amazing. I loved like, every single talk.

It was nice to hear from the new apostles as well. I think my favorite talk was Elder Neil L. Andersen's about how faith is a choice.

We were able to take Carla and Carmen to three of the sessions, and they absolutely loved it. They´re way converted. We´re going to ask permission on Sunday so that we can take them to the temple at the end of this month so that Carla can do some baptisms for her ancestors :)

Jefferson´s doing super well, too. He wasn´t able to go to general conference, but he´s still progressing. We talked with his parents, and they´re really nice people. They agreed to letting us watch Meet The Mormons with them on Thursday night.

Alexandra´s no longer progressing. She now has a job on Sundays, and she´s not putting in her part. We´re going to see if we stop visiting her this week.

I´m doing fantastic. Last Pday we bought a family size Hawaiian pizza and watched movies at the house. So yeah. That´s our life. I love you all!

Elder Najera

Week 59

I was gonna send another voice recording, but it didn´t want to work for some reason.

There are some kids playing Halo here in this cyber... Anyway, things are fantastic. This week we had hardly any time to work in our area, but we still had success. First, we went to the temple for a mission conference on family history work. It was nice. President said in next week we´re going to have multi-zone conferences and we´re going to receive further instructions on how the mission is going to be using family history work a lot more.

Then on Thursday, we went to the temple. President asked us to focus on the covenants we were making during the ordinances. I had a great experience. Then on Friday we had to do weekly planning at the church so that our zone leaders could make sure we were doing it correctly. Afterward, we had to stay in our house while they fixed the lighting. So yeah.

Alexandra isn´t progressing anymore. We taught her about the Word of Wisdom, and she committed to live it... but then the next day she drank coffee without even thinking about it. She also didn´t go to church. Not sure why yet. We haven´t been able to find her in three days. She also hasn´t been reading her assignments. She lives with some less-active members who also drink coffee. So we have to convert them if we want to convert her. That guy who has the problem with drugs isn´t doing so great, either. Something always happens to keep him from going to church. We´re going to visit him a few times this week to see if we can help him or not. We´re also working with a young man named Jefferson. He´s super cool! He loved church, and accepted a baptismal date for October 24th. He´s read every single assignment we´ve left him. He said he wants to serve a mission in the U.S., haha. I showed him how to pray in English We´re also working with a woman named Carmen, and her 19-year old daughter, Carla. They´re also super cool! They went to a baptismal service on Friday (a family of 5) and loved it. They also saw their confirmation on Sunday. Carla´s preparing to be baptized on October 17th. Carmen wants to be baptized, also. But she´s not married to her husband. But when her husband gets back from a trip he´s on, she´s going to talk with him about marriage :) So yeah.

We´re looking forward to general conference. I´m doing great. Things are good.

I Hate Shopping

Week 58- Voice Recording

So every time I go to write I forget a bunch of stuff that´s happening. So I´m sending this voice recording I HOPE works. I  know this really is the Lord´s work, and I´m grateful to be a part of it =)

Click on Play Arrow above or on link below.

Voice recording

Week 56 New Area

Well, Elder Conde and I have been kicked out of Daule! Apparently the mission is really short on missionaries right now, so Elder Pat and his companion stayed in Daule and now Daule is back to having one pair of missionaries. But, Elder Conde and I were able to leave behind two baptismal dates for them. ALSO, I bumped into an Elder at the bus terminal at Guayaquil this morning who said, ¨Hey, a lot of the members in Tarqui have been asking about you, and say hi"

Elder Walker is going home tomorrow, and I bumped into the Elder who has been his companion there in Manta for the past three months. He told me that Vicente (An Investigator that was going to be baptized a week after I got transferred out of Manta) is an active member of the church and is doing great! He also told me of many other people that Elder Walker and I had been working with who had joined the church or become active in the church, and it made me really happy :)

Anyway, I´ve been put with Elder Morales from Argentina. He´s fantastic. We´re opening up a sector that was just closed. Not just any sector, either. The biggest sector in the mission! Seriously, it is ridiculously huge. We could fit at least 15 Daules in it without exaggerating. It´s fantastic. I´m super happy to be here. It´s super hot, and it´s super dusty, but I´m way excited!

Oh yeah, it´s a place called Monte Sinaí. I think It´s part of Guayaquil, but I´m not entirely sure yet.