#26

It has been a splendid week!

I want to tell you about two miracles this week, their names are Angelica and Angel.

Angelica is a 17 year old. She started attending church in Quevedo and decided that she wanted to learn more. Her cousins gave her a Book of Mormon and she started attending church in Quevedo. She attended with her boyfriend a few times, because he`s a member, but he`s less active. But even when he didn`t go, she went. Well, she decided she wanted to be baptized so she told her boyfriend and her boyfriend told the missionaries, my zone leaders. They called us, told us to find her house (because she lives in Valencia and pertains to our ward) and schedule an interview to get her baptized! I already told you about the whole wrong Rosa ordeal (Angelica`s real name is Rosa...) but we found her and got her interviewed. She had another interview and then this Friday morning, she had an interview with the mission president. She came out of the interview SO HAPPY and told us that Presidente Amaya told her she could be baptized that very day if she wanted (and she wanted). So we scrambled and planned a baptismal service for that very day. I don`t have pictures, but I think the obispo put the pictures on facebook. She`s a doll, and on Saturday she attended Stake conference with us in Quevedo. The stake conferences are a little different here I think, and the stake president was calling on people to read scriptures and what not and asking for volunteers, and I think Angelica read three times. She raised her hand to read scriptures the second he asked for volunteers and we had to scramble to find the verses that he had indicated, because she volunteered before we had time to find them. It was so precious, she`s so excited and she always has lots of questions. SHe wants to know it all.

Angel is our other miracle. Angel is a widower with three young children. We found him contacting, and within the first 30 seconds of meeting him, he accepted the baptismal invitation. This actually isn`t a miracle, lots of people say that they are going to be baptized, but 2% actually get baptized. But we went back, taught him the Restoration, and invited him to church. He told us that he can`t work a lot because he can`t leave his kids at home alone, and his mother was in Guayaquil. The poor man hadn`t worked all week, and was really worried. Sunday morning, his boss called and told him that there was work for him that day. But he told us that he figured it was more important to attend church than work. I teared up, and we promised him that the Lord will absolutely bless him for the sacrifice he made.

It wasn`t normal church either, we had a stake conference via satellite. Elder Scott, Hermana Wixom, and Elder Holland spoke to all the stakes of Ecuador, and believe me when I say that I have never enjoyed a session of conference so much, stake or general, in all my life. The spirit was so strong!

Elder Holland had a translator voiceover for his talk, but he bore his testimony in strongly accented spanish, and I cried and cried and cried. His extremely simple testimony that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ and the Savior of the world, and that the gospel is his most precious possession conveyed the spirit so strongly, and even though it was a bit difficult to understand, I felt so strongly that he was definitely an apostle of the Lord. Elder Scott speaks spanish, and he spoke so beautifully about the Atonement and the Resurrection (I had forgotten it was Easter). It was exactly what Angel needed to hear, and he really really enjoyed church. We also invited his cousin to church, and his cousin attended. That night, we went to teach them both. The cousin, Jose, told us he had a question. He told us that when he walked into the church, he felt something in his chest, and that he felt happy, and he had no idea why, and asked if we could please explain. Our smiles were so big and we explained that that feeling he had was the Holy Ghost telling him that the church is true and that it was where he needed to be. This was all before we had taught him anything, we had just seen him outside the house sunday morning when we went to make sure that Angel and his family were going to attend and Hermana Flores told him to come to church. He told us that he had been invited to many churches, and he had no idea why he accepted our invitation when he had always made excuses beforehand. We then invited him to be baptized, and he said yes. The Spirit in this lesson was so strong I tell you! The members that were with us afterwards were just like.... wow.... okay... wow... did that really just happen?

So yeah. I`m happy. It was a good week. I`ve been a little sick, but that just means that people give me more juice and that makes me happy. Also, the members have started giving us jewelery which is also fun. Today we`re going to the 7 cascadas, seven waterfalls. Apparently it`s super gorgeous, so look forward to pictures next week! 

I love you all, share the gospel please, it`s the best.
Love you, thanks for all the prayers.