The Hardest Battles You'll Ever Fight...‏

Hey all, not a lot of time this week, so, well, here are the titles of my journal entries for the last week or so:

-A Decent Day!

-A...Lousy Day

-No Package, No Appointments

-Sick

-Not Again!

-Blaargh

So yeah that was the week.

Honestly it's been pretty good, though. We're going through one of those phases where we really need to find new investigators but we're not having a TON of luck. The best part of the week is that we have an investigator with a baptismal date for the 27th! His name is Roberto Chavez. He's about 38 years old, the boyfriend of one of the members here. He's progressing well and he's a great guy I don't think there should be much of a problem getting him to his date.

On to the soap box part of the message.

soapbox/

David O. McKay once said something along the lines of "The greatest battles you will ever fight will be within the chambers of your heart."

I really love that quote and I think about it a lot. It's totally true. We all have our agency and choose what we will do and who we will become in this life. It's entirely our choice! So the greatest battles we will ever fight will be between what we want and what God wants.

I thought about this a lot because of an experience we had this week. Our ward mission leader showed us the house of some members that haven't been active in the church since they were kids - around 30 years ago. We figured out when we could find them in their house and planned to visit them later in the week. When we came and knocked on the door a lady, well into her 40s, answered the door. We talked and discovered that she was a member but it was obvious she didn't remember much at all. As we talked it was also pretty clear that, like any family, they had their share of challenges. We asked her a couple times if we could set up an appointment to come teach their family but she would somehow manage to derail herself from that idea.

My companion asked, "Do you think it's coincidence that we've come here?" He testified of the power of our calling as missionaries and that God had sent us there in that exact moment to help her with all the problems she was experiencing. I felt it. I knew it, and so did my companion. I think that although she didn't know it in the same way we did, she could feel something tugging at the back of her mind. I could see it in her face. We asked if we could come teach them and I could see what was going through her mind.

I think we've all felt it before. I've felt it many, many times. We think and think and think not because we are actually trying to figure out the problem but because we already know what the answer is. We already know or at the very least feel exactly what we should do. But we think, "I could just tell them to come back Saturday. Yeah, Saturday. I know I'll probably get late back from shopping, but I can try my hardest to get there on time." Knowing we won't. Or, "I'll just click on this page here. I know it'll be a bit risky and I might not get where I want to but it's not the worst that could happen." We try to make the decision anyone's but ours or the outcome anyone's fault but our own but we know, deep down inside, that we're deciding, that we've always decided, and that's how individuals and nations are built or destroyed.

In the end she said she'd come to church. We got her phone number, too, to call her the night before. She told herself she could make the decision in the future but she knew she'd already made it. When I called that night she pretended to not hear well and hung up. When we passed by Sunday morning her husband answered and said she was busy cooking breakfast and couldn't talk to us.

Actually, now I realize those were moments that determined her eternal destiny.

It makes me pretty sad, but I think this is one of the main reasons why few will get to God's kingdom. My companion's been sharing this scripture a lot and I'll share it here - 2 Nephi 28:30:

 30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

The Celestial Kingdom is only for those that can bring it upon themselves to humble themselves, to take that leap of faith. I read this morning about James Covel, a Baptist minister that, although having been part of his church for 40 years, was ready to do all he needed to do to please God. He asked Joseph Smith about this and the prophet received Section 39 of D&C, which tells James he needs to be baptized. But he didn't. And we read in Section 40:

 1 Behold, verily I say unto you, that the heart of my servant James Covel was right before me, for he covenanted with me that he would obey my word.

 2 And he received the word with gladness, but straightway Satan tempted him; and the fear of persecution and the cares of the world caused him to reject the word.

 3 Wherefore he broke my covenant, and it remaineth with me to do with him as seemeth me good. Amen.

Well there's my food for thought this week! I know this work is true and I know it'll keep going forward, no matter what! And I know we can all do it! Love you all!

 A picture. I didn't take much this week, sorry. This is behind our apartment.

Paraiso Week 14: In Which Our Hero Sends An Entirely Un-Inspired Letter

Well I confess I didn't think a lot about this e-mail beforehand so I guess it'll just be a status update of the work here in Paraiso. I'm two weeks into my third change here (likely my last) and it's been pretty interesting being in one area for this long. Every time I look back I notice a change. I can't stop changing on the mission - if you asked me a month ago I would've told you I'd finally figured out how to do the work and I'd finally stabilized, but it just keeps happening whether I want it to or not. Now I feel like I'm still stabilizing, still getting better. I guess that's the point, huh? The point of this life is to see how we respond to challenges - whether we respond in the way Christ would or not. If we just keep doing it a bit better each day, we'll get to salvation eventually. As my trumpet teacher Drew Fennell always said, "In music and in life, be careful around points of transition." I understood that in the musical context, but I've really come to understand the real-life context as well.

Anyhow, Paraiso. We actually had maybe 80-90 people in the chapel yesterday, which was great. Normally about 60-70 attend church. Yes, it's a ward, but it's had its share of hard times. But things are always looking up and it's the work of the Lord. As missionaries we're finally reaping some of the efforts we put in when I first got here.

For instance, we have one less-active family that's very close to being rescued - the Espinoza family. They had their interview with the bishop, have their required church attendances (3 is what the Area Presidency has established), and so we just need to teach one more lesson! Then they can really start on their progress, getting callings, going to seminary, all that jazz. We've gotten the progress started and it's been great seeing them get back into it. To clarify, it's just the mom and their two kids we're rescuing - the dad has to work a lot and we don't see him often. But one day I'm sure he'll come back to so that we can complete the family! As they were already sealed in Spain it's incredibly important that it's a family thing! I sent a picture of me with them a few weeks back I think,

Anthony, our newest member here, the guy we baptized last week, is doing well, too! He was ordained a deacon yesterday, which is great. We're just helping to solidify his understanding of the Gospel as we give the follow-up lessons and whatnot. We're praying so that his mom can open the business she wants to so they can live closer to the chapel (they're going back to Loja, where they normally live, sometime this month) in Loja and go to church every week!

We haven't been finding a ton of new investigators but we are finding some less-actives. Here our ward mission leader is super helpful because he's been a member for a looong time and was the branch president way back when, so he knows everybody and where they live. He showed us, for instance, a family of less-actives that we're going to start to teach. The husband works as a clown which gives me no end of amusement. We need more less-actives to work with because the ones we've been working with have mostly stagnated in their progress (other than the Espinozas).

We've been learning, too, how to ask for better references, and that less-actives and recent converts are the gold mine. They're the ones who are most likely to have lots of friends that aren't from the church, so they've always got better references. Elder Godoy, who's in the Area Presidency, promised that if we dedicate half of our time to "rescuing" our baptisms will double. Pretty great promise, huh? We've been putting it in practice and I'm sure we'll be seeing results.

The Navias are a couple that have investigated the church for forever and are practically members - they've just never been able to get married so they can be baptized. With Elder Equite we started the process a few months ago and they're super close. We need to stop by them - it could be that they only need the money and they're good to go! The ward has plans to help them out, so that'll be great.

Well...These wall-of-text letters are just the kind of thing Ian McCrary (Ian is Jeremiah's good friend currently serving a mission in Madagascar) hates and I gotta admit I don't find it very attractive either, so that's all you've got from me today. I didn't really prepare a good spiritual thought, but I'll tell you to go read Elder Packer's talk from last conference.https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/why-marriage-and-family-matter-everywhere-in-the-world?lang=eng

 I was reading it this morning and it's awesome. Really puts things into perspective. Love you all! I'm starting to feel really old out here because everyone from the grade below is graduating and it won't be long until I've got a year in the mission. I don't want to feel that way at all but I'll keep trying my best to work hard.

 I will never get tired of posting pictures of the things I eat.

Never.

There are five of us from our district in the MTC here in the coast, which has been really weird/fun. Catching up on all the good times. I'll be honest I rarely want to go home but I do often want to go back to old sectors or the MTC.

Thoughts of Eternity

First off, we had a baptism this week! Yay!

His name's Anthony. We first got in contact with him when, leaving the chapel one Sunday back in March, an Hermana called us over - someone we didn't recognize. Well, she presented us to Anthony and explained they had recently come here on a kind of extended vacation and that she was a member but her son wasn't and that she wanted us to teach him and prepare him for baptism. Of course we accepted the invitation!

It turns out they live near Loja, another city in Ecuador (that's outside of our mission), but they live far outside of the city and where they live there aren't any chapels, so it's hard for them to come to church. So that's why she wanted him to receive the lessons and be baptized here. So we did it!

Anthony's a good kid, and although teaching a kid (he's 11 years old) has its own set of challenges, we've helped him to read the Book of Mormon, pray, and also receive an answer that the church is true - he just felt it, and we explained that was what he needed. Maybe it took a couple tries to help him understand the math of tithing, or the meaning of the word of wisdom, but it all turned out well in the end. The greatest challenge was actually convincing his mom to let us baptize him at the time that we did - she wanted to keep waiting and waiting until he practically knew the Book of Mormon and Bible backwards and forwards. That and the fact that she had to travel to Spain for a few weeks and that all this time we've been worried, running against the clock until the time that they have to go back to Loja (they're going back next month). So in the time that we have now we need to really solidify what he knows and help him set out on a good path.

Honestly I had a lot of doubts about whether we should baptize him. Which was kinda funny - I'm sure most missionaries would jump on that, but...I just really worried about whether I was doing the right thing, if I was really trying to love him and care about his salvation. I do feel much better now and know it was what we needed to do, but it's made me think a lot. About why it's not easy, why we don't have more "success." Sometimes I look at all the wards here and the problems that they currently have and wonder how in the world it happened and how in the world we can actually continue having progress. It always seems to happen to other missionaries, you know? They always seem to be the ones that have the miracle conversion stories and it's hard to see what we've done.

The thing I do know is that it's the Lord's work! It will keep going, like the stone cut without hands, until it fills the whole earth. And we are always helping people even if we don't realize it. Today I was talking with one of my old companions - in a funny twist he left La Bota to come here. Between me, him, and my companion, we represent almost the entirety of the history (9 months or so) of the sector La Bota 2 and we're all here in the same zone. It was great to hear that some families we had all worked with for all that time were progressing and coming back to church.

I got the audio from a video where Elder Holland speaks that is really powerful. He explains why it's so darn hard.

elder holland

My only other thought from this week comes from the training that our district leader gave last Thursday. He explained that we need to help the people we're teaching understand the ETERNAL significance of what we teach, and of the decisions we take.

Do you think about that often? Do you think about the fact that what you're doing in this moment will have an impact on how you will live for eternity?

We can imagine a string that stretches out in both directions infinitely - take another piece of string and tie it around the infinite string. The width of that string represents the time we have in this life. The time we have to affect all of the rest of the string. Mathematically speaking (no, I haven't entirely forgotten math) that actually represents zero.

What we do, the decisions we take, are different when we think of it in that light. If we fail to be faithful, to live the commandments, to search God and religion, it's often a lack of perspective. Moroni 7:41:

 41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

Keep that in mind! And strive for eternal life! More than anything...remember you can do it. It is absolutely within your reach.

Have I mentioned I'm in the coast yet?

I seriously don't understand why latinos can't smile for pictures! I swear, they have nice smiles!

 On divisions with my district leader. Esmeraldas is one of the poorest parts of the country.

 

Me quedo!

Well, there were changes today, but not for me! I'm staying here with Elder Gonzalez. But I did take a bunch of pictures just in case I was going to leave, so you'll have plenty of pics today. I'm happy to be staying here in Paraiso. There's a lot of work to be done and I'm seeing fruit from what Elder Equite and I were sowing months ago. It's pretty interesting how the missionary work functions some times - it seems to me that missionaries very rarely get to actually see the end result of their efforts - at the very least in this mission, where they change us around so frequently. I should keep that in mind more. And it's rather odd for me - this'll be the first time I'll have had more than two changes in a sector. Most missionaries usually have at least one or two sectors where they're there for more than two changes, so this is one of mine, I guess.

Anyhow, I'd just like to share one experience today as I don't have a ton of time. I don't think I ever mentioned Sebastian. We first met him about three weeks ago. We've been teaching a less-active family, the Espinozas, who are making excellent progress and are very close to being rescued. One day after a lesson the mom mentioned to us that she had a friend, a non-member, whose son was a cancer patient, and that she'd (Hna. Espinoza) been feeling recently that she should mention to them about priesthood blessings. (For those of you who don't understand exactly what that is, you can look up a definition on lds.org.) We encouraged her to do so, and so the next visit she gave us the news that they'd accepted to have us come and give a blessing to Sebastian!

So, we did. We went there a few weeks ago and got to know the family and gave Sebastian a blessing. I hadn't really realized the severity of his cancer until I saw him in his bed, where he's confined, and the massive swelling in his head. He's had it for quite some time and the doctors hadn't given him much time to live. He himself isn't aware of a lot and so we mostly talked with the parents. We explained that the blessing depended on their faith as well as the will of the Lord and gave the blessing. They were very gracious and invited us to come back whenever we wanted.

We went back after a bit more than a week. While we were there I could really feel the Spirit there - I think it's that way often in situations like this. We talked with his mom. I felt to share Alma 7:11-12, and we also left the pamphlet for lesson 2, the Plan of Salvation, with them.

We went back yesterday night. We found there were a lot of people there that weren't from Sebastian's immediate family, and when we went in to his room, his dad explained to us that he was in the final stages. It could be hours, or days, but he's on his way out. The family had known this for a long time - they were very calm about it. I felt we needed to share lesson 2, so I said, "Could we share something with the whole family?" and of course they were like, "sure!"

When all the other people I didn't know started filing in I realized just what I'd gotten myself into. The other people there were family as well - uncles, aunts, cousins, and in total we had probably about 10 people crammed into his little room. I realized, in the back of my head, this is the kind of experience that people share in e-mails and homecoming talks.

Well, we taught. Maybe I didn't feel the Spirit a lot during the lesson itself and maybe a few people on the fringes found an excuse to leave the room. But what's important is that we testified of the importance of eternal families. I could testify, even if I couldn't explain and can't exactly what it is I know or what I feel - but I testified and testify that families weren't meant to last just for a brief moment here on Earth, but that they're supposed to continue after, as well. Just know that, please, whoever you are, that it's possible. Your family can be together forever. I know it, and I hope you can come to know it, too.

I could testify of Joseph Smith, that he truly saw Christ and our Heavenly Father, and that through him the church of Christ has been restored on the Earth, that the Priesthood Christ used is on the Earth and that is has the power to seal families.

I'm not sure if, in the end, any of those people will listen to the missionaries. It's an odd situation - we aren't technically teaching the family, more doing a service. But I do know we needed to share lesson 2. I hope it helped them. I think it helped some of those people there, even if they weren't the immediate family of Sebastian. I know Sebastian is going to a better place. And I do know that the Lord had placed us there in that moment for a reason.

I'm really coming to realize that I do practically nothing here. I'm nothing more than an instrument in the Lord's hands and it's His work, not mine. I just know I need to live righteously and follow the Spirit.

What I'd like for you to do, person who's reading this, is pray to God to know if what I said is true. I want you to know it's true - and He does too, I'm sure. You can know it! You just need to ask.

 Anthony, the kid we're probably going to baptize this weekend! :)

Yes, that is a coconut in my hand.

Downtown Esmeraldas.

 It rained something ridiculous this past week and the streets got turned into rivers.

A less-active family, the Espinozas, who are progressing really well and are almost rescued. The girl in the middle is a reference who lives down the road who's also been doing great - she's got a baptismal date for the 13th of June! We just need to help her family, too!

A snail. I didn't think things like this actually existed.

 

Cast Not Away, Therefore, Thy Confidence‏

Sorry if the e-mail comes out a bit funky today. The keyboard I'm using isn't great. I've already peeled off the stickers they'd placed on the keys that had been worn out so that I can write a bit better.

Calling home was great! As missionaries, for those who don't know, we get to do it twice a year - once on Mother's Day and once on Christmas. And I'll have you know I most definitely didn't cry. Nope. I don't even know why you'd think such a thing who told you I cried because I didn't.

And with that call I also hit my 8 month mark! Whaat! The mission flies by fast, people. But I think I've done a pretty good job helping people and doing what I'm generally supposed to do. I was listening to one of my Zone Leaders do his call - his last one - and he kept saying he got depressed every time he started thinking about going home and leaving Ecuador. I'm well on my way to getting to that point.

Honestly, I don't think much about you people! That doesn't mean I don't love you but it means that I'm getting the hang of this work and getting it done, too. These 2 years are about thinking about the people here, after all.

New Investigator Miracles!

Speaking of which, we've been really blessed to find a lot of new people this week! Our leaders had given us the goal of finding 7 new investigators (12 is the standard of excellence) and we actually got all 7! It's really important to constantly be finding - we talk a lot about the "weekly process" here. The point is that we constantly need to be finding new people because inevitably the people we're working with will stop listening, we'll stop finding them, or they'll get to their goal of baptism. So when that happens, instead of starting back at zero again, we need to keep finding people constantly so we always have people to work with.

Here's a cool experience. A month ago or so, maybe more, Elder Equite and I were walking to an appointment.  As you usually do here you at the very least can greet the people with a "buenas tardes!" So we passed a guy on the street and at the last moment I said hi - and he turned around, calling after us, "Hey, wait, where can I get a Book of Mormon?" Awesome! We talked, but unfortunately didn't have one on us. He didn't live in our sector so we passed along the reference.

Weeks later we ran into him again. What?? This time we actually had a Book of Mormon and so handed it over.        

Last week we'd some less-actives and were teaching them when all of a sudden this guy walks in. I did a double take. "Have we talked at one point?" Guess what - it was the same guy! His name's Alan and now he's moved to live in our sector, so we can teach him! He has great questions and is super interested. He's a young guy and really friendly. We might see awesome things down the road!

Cast Not Away Thy Confidence

My message this week has a lot to do with last week's - for me, at least. Because this week I felt a lot of the same things I did last week. It was pretty frustrating. But this highlights another important principle we can learn.

In the Book of Mormon the prophets always talk to the people and to their kids about "remembering the captivity of their fathers." I've wondered why they talk so much about that. Why was it so important that they always remembered that stuff?

In Helaman 5, Nephi and Lehi (who were named as such so that they would always remember their ancestors of the same names) work some pretty marvelous miracles among the Lamanites. There's this whole deal with a cloud of darkness, angels, all of them being encircled with fire that doesn't burn them...pretty crazy stuff. But here's something interesting in verse 49, after all this happens:

 49 And there were about three hundred souls who saw  and heard these things; and they were bidden to go forth and marvel not, neither should they doubt.

That's what I've had to realize this week. We won't always be encircled about with fire. We won't always have angels talking to us. We won't always have a constant confirmation from the Spirit. If God did that, it'd be too easy. What he wants is for us to exercise our own free will and make our own choices.

The point is: after we've received personal revelation or confirmation of something, we can't afterwards doubt in what we've already received. We have to keep moving forward.

I needed to apply that this week. Many times the Lord has told me, "You're doing fine, don't worry, keep going."  But I've doubted! I've forgotten the captivity I was led out of and I forgot the many things the Lord has already shown me. Hours or minutes after receiving the comfort of the Spirit I've gotten impatient again and started to doubt that what I was doing was what I needed to do in that moment.

This is why it's so important to write down the impressions we've received - it's partly why I keep my prayer journal thing. So that I can remember what the Lord's promised and move forward, nothing doubting. I've got a little annotation on my patriarchal blessings of a spiritual confirmation I received some months ago about exactly how I should put in practice a promised blessing. I haven't received a confirmation since that that interpretation is correct, but I was smart enough to write it down in the moment. So I should keep going!

Anyhow, don't doubt! Go forward in faith! If you know you've received an answer the church is true, don't cast away thy confidence! The confirmation WON'T always be there, but you received it once. Now comes the hard part. Just stay true to that!

1. We have to buy a lot of water in the coast. I finished this in about 2 days.

2. My shoes are coming apart hilariously.

One Rough Week

Leading a sector isn't a lot of fun! For those of you less-familiar with mission parlance, every once in a while we receive different companions. So of course the companion that's been in the sector for a while has to take over for a while and show the new guy around - usually for a week or two - until the new guy knows the sector well enough to really start to contribute in the daily decision-making. And of course there's a period of getting used to each other's quirks and teaching styles and whatnot. Communication is incredibly important. And it can be really rough!

So it was with my week. A little bit about my companion: Elder Gonzalez (there are two Gonzalez in the mission and now they're in the same zone here) is from Chile, from Talca, about 3 hours from Santiago. His been out for a good long time and this is his first time in the coast! He was pretty happy about that because he was in Quito for 14 months. He's been in every single zone in Quito. Anyhow, he's also the trainer of my second trainer (so in mission vocabulary that makes him my step-grandpa or something) so we already knew a little about each other. He likes soccer - pretty darn good at it - Dragonball, drawing, and playing drums. Another thing he likes to do is let the newbies learn by doing a lot on their own - which is helpful and frustrating at the same time. Honestly up to this point in the mission I've really relied on my companions a lot - and this time it's been different. Of course he helps a ton, but just in different ways, and as he was getting to know the sector it's been really hard for me because I've had to do a lot of the decision-making.

That's why this week was so hard! I don't have a ton of confidence in my own ability to do that decision-making - and I had to do a lot of it. And there were quite a few appointments that fell through! Problem upon problem seemed to pile up - I wrote down a phone number wrong, our family that was progressing towards marriage don't have the money to do it and no plans to get said money, I let my fear get the best of me and didn't contact in the park, I couldn't understand some people...lots happened. What's worse - for me - is winning the confidence of the members. Being social can be hard for me and especially in a new language.

But the week ended with a ton of blessings on Sunday! First of all, we had 11 less-actives attending church. (By the way, here in the coast that's where we do a lot of work. With less-actives.) That's the most I've ever had! The standard of excellence of 9. Next, two references fell out of the sky - we found them as we were leaving the chapel and they were like, "hey we want to come here now but didn't know what time church started." Wow! And finally, a member invited us to lunch - we didn't have anyone to give us lunch that day.

But what was most important was an experience I had in the last lesson of the week. We were with a recent-convert family (I sent a picture of them a few weeks back) and I was feeling a lot of what I'd felt during the week. I saw that my companion won their confidence faster than I did, I felt that maybe they didn't love me as much as many other previous missionaries that had passed through the house, and as I tried to share a scripture (we hadn't planned for the lesson because it was a backup plan that came to our mind at the last moment because - guess what! - another appointment had fallen through) in Spanish, I felt I was talking in circles and not pronouncing very well. I tried to finish up as best as I could and handed off to my companion. He pulled out Ether 12:27.

 27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

As he shared it something stuck out to me I hadn't realized before. It explains that if men come unto the Lord, He will show their weakness unto them. I flipped the words around a bit. I realized that sometimes, if we are more conscious of our weakness, it's because we're coming unto Him!

And I thought about later on in verse 37. Sister Richardson shared with me a few months back the amazing promise in that scripture. Because we have seen our weakness, we will be strengthened!

All of this showed to me that...I'm doing fine! Uncovering my weaknesses is a part of becoming a better missionary. If I don't see my weakness, I can never progress. And because I'm seeing them...I'm actually doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm not sure if I made myself understood completely, but I do know that His grace is sufficient. I know God loves us and has a perfect plan for each one of us. I know He exists without doubt and that he will help us through the hard times.

After the lesson, I asked my companion why he'd felt inspired to share the scripture. He said, "Well, it just went along well with what you shared at first." So...I can do it. And I know you, whoever you are wherever you are, can do so as well!

1. Our zone has a tradition of putting birthday cakes on the floor. We do it because it's one of the few zones that doesn't have sister missionaries, so we can actually get away with it.

2. Some people marching around on Labor Day (May 1st here). I'm not sure why. But it was peaceful and all. My companion said the marches in Chile aren't very peaceful.

3. I still haven't learned how to take selfies properly. But anyhow, here I am with shawarma. Who would've thought my first shawarma I'd eat here in Ecuador? It's pretty popular. Also I realized just how much I look like Dad :)

Sometimes Things Happen!

Frankly I don't even know what to say in this e-mail! Our district leader came to our house this morning to tell us we had transfers. We weren't at all expecting that - transfers aren't technically for another 3 weeks. Sometimes this happens - they suddenly have a spot open in one companionship or they need to shuffle some people around and so there are intermediate changes. My companion and I were both super sad, but...I've heard good things about my new companion, so I'm not worried. We'll just keep working normally! He's coming from Quito and my companion left for Quito in the morning - the zone leaders have had to drag me around all day.

...Yeah I seriously have no idea what to say. Sorry, people.

More than anything I've been learning the importance of following our leaders this week! Sometimes I feel bad for the Zone Leaders and District Leaders - they put a lot of work into the meetings they have with us Thursdays and afterwards it seems like the rest of us just leave and forget all about what they said. But more than anything we have to accept that our leaders in the church have been called by God. It's the basic mechanism of the church - revelation. What a blessing it is to have that, too!

It's explained simply in Articles of Faith 5 and 6:

1. We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
2. We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

And so that's how it gets done! Sometimes it seems like the leaders are off their rockers or just talking in circles, but if we accept that God has called them there has to be a reason and we have to learn something from them.

So I've been trying to apply a bit better the things our leaders tell us to do. I'll tell you all how it goes but I guess the answer will be obvious - everything will turn out better.

I know this is the truth! I know the Book of Mormon was true and as a result I know that Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God. I know there are prophets on the Earth once again. And I know this is the best work we can be involved in! Get out there and do something good instead of dreaming of your mansions above. I'll try to do the same. As we apply the gospel in our lives God will make of us something far greater than what we could have made of ourselves.

Some awesome artifacts that one of our less-actives dug up north of Esmeraldas. Sorry for the poor quality.

Me trying to pretend I'm Asian while eating chifa (Chinese food).

                      Us in the terminal this morning.