#14

 We need more people to teach! 

We have had to knock on doors this week, just trying to stay busy, and it is the worst! We didn`t notice a few days ago when we went to knock on a door that there was a big sign on top of the house. That big sign was for an evangelical church. So we accidentally contacted a evangelical pastor who really wanted to fight it out. He started out by asking us if we were saved and we said that we have to keep doing good things the rest of our lives to be saved, and then he told us that he was already saved and that we don`t know what we`re talking about at all and we don`t know God because we don`t even know if we are saved. We ended the conversation as soon as possible. This is why we need member referrals. Knocking on doors never works haha.

  This week was a little odd though because we got contacted quite a few times. People just walked up to us in the street and asked us who we were and why we are here. We don`t really trust people that talk to us first for the most part haha. One guy gave us free chifle (fried banana chips with onion and mayo and stuff) and then we had a little mini lesson with him in the street, and in the course of our discussion Hermana Chil asked him what he wants out of life, or what is his purpose in being here. His answer was that he wants a spouse. We did not schedule an appointment to teach him more, but we invited him to church. Same thing with two other people that started the conversations with us. It`s important to note that all of the people who made initial contact with us were men. I don`t think that was coincidence.

 We did return to visit one guy who asked us why we were here (with a member). He`s a young Colombian refugee (if I understood correctly). We`ll see how that goes, but mostly we are just hoping that we get some references!

 We were out in an area called Margaritas, which is a neighborhood of casas de caña. Google it. Neighborhoods of casas de caña are more dangerous and the people are poorer than the people that live more in the city in concrete houses. Also, it`s been raining a ton all night, and most of the roads are flooded and we have walked through some of the thickest, smelliest mud ever. Anyway, because people that live in the casas de caña are generally poorer, most of them aren`t married, just living together and unwilling to make the sacrifices to get married. Also, we can`t stay out there past like 6 o clock, so we haven`t worked too much in this area. We were visiting some less active members and on our way back to the bus, we saw a guy working outside of his house, with two little kids. We were in a rush because it was getting dark, but we offered help (he refused of course) and we talked for like two minutes and went on our way. But as we left, we saw that he had a wedding ring. Anyway, we went back a few times to visit and see if we could meet his family and if they would be interested in learning more, but they were never there, until yesterday! Just the father was home again, but he saw us from his window and waved, so we stopped and he came outside and talked to us. We found out that he is legally married (rare in Ecuador in general, even rarer for people that live in caña) and that he has wondered why there are so many churches. We couldn`t sit and teach him because his wife wasn`t home, but we taught him how to pray and Hermana Chil offered to say a prayer right there with him so he could read the folleto that we left and pray about it. She asked if there was something specific that he would like her to pray for, and he said that his father had recently passed away and he wanted to know that everything was okay with him. That of course made it very easy to testify of the plan of salvation, and we told him that he was really going to like the message that we have to share, and that we know that he will see his father again. So yeah. We`re pretty excited about that. We set up an appointment to teach him and his wife and kids. Teaching families is the best, so we really hope everything works out! Plus, I like being in the casas de caña, they are way cooler (temperature wise, as well as the other way).

This weekend was stake conference, and Presidente Amaya came to speak. His talk was awesome, and he said some things I really liked, but one thing I really liked was that the Lord didn`t hasten the work by calling 80,000 missionaries, He hastened the work by calling 15 million. It was a lot more eloquent in Spanish, but you get the gist.

Yeah. That`s all I got.
Things are great, I love you all, thanks for the prayers and support!

The title of this photo is

Don`t Trust Cloudy Days in Ecuador.
It may look like dusk, but the sun is still there in all it`s fiery wrath.

It doesn`t even matter though if I put on sunscreen, I sweat it all off before I even leave the house.
I`m going to have the weirdest tan lines when I get home jaja