Elder Devan Alder: King Lamoni

Hola Familia y mis amigos! Man the days keep passing by faster and faster I can hardly keep up! But I`ll try to remember everything I can :)

So I guess I didn´t tell yall about our other sector! It´s called Saraguro! It´s about two hours away from Loja in the mountains in the middle of nowhere I really don´t know how it got there. There are about 10 members who live up there so my companion goes up there on Sundays to give them the Santa Cena (sacrament, but I guess techicnically sacred dinner) So Jueves are for Saraguro, once a week we go up there to preach and teach english! The picture is of the first class that we had! About 10 little kids when we started and now we have 24 people and the adults wanting to participate! The only reason we are even allowed to preach up there because we befriended the president to the little city. So sometimes I feel like Ammon teaching King Lamoni, in this little poor city, the big difference is we only get to be up there once a week and I can´t speak politics in Spanish, haha, but I can bare my testimony!

So this part of this area is quite an adventure! But at the same time is hard because we are split between two places. On sundays, I am here in the branch hopefully strengthening the branch and gaining their trust! Kind of difficult but I am learning super fast! let´s just say that are branch had 70 people there yesterday and that has to be a record! (average here is like 20)

Temporal: Loja weather is a lot like in Utah summer weather. Hot somtimes, with wind all the time, and bipolar rain showers! I really lucked out! A lot of things are americanized here, Por ejemplo, I had a hot dog for lunch today! There are tiendas literally on every corner. Buses do not stop as you are getting on or off the train. And since things here are in american dollars, everything is either super cheap (like I can buy 30 eggs for $3) or overpriced to the max (Shampoo is like $20 in the American sized)

Spiritual: I guess I should start doing an investigador report!

Biatris Lima:50ish Lady that runs a little tienda and loves to talk about Christ. She says that all the matters is Christ. Which is a pretty good start! We are working hard to get her to church and read the book of mormon. Not to mention she was a reference from our converso Juan Cordero! As the missionaries say here: "¡Esò!" (It just means like YEAH)

Gerardo Chimbo: 23, went to go meet with his dad who was an old investigador. Dad moved far away and he said he wanted to make changes in his life, Boom Gospel.

There are some in saraguro and others that are progessing a little slower pero no hay tiempo! My scirpture for this week (the thing the seventy said in conference. Yeah? in Spanish it was meditizar, is it ponderize or something?) is The one about small and simple means. For example, on sunday we ate at a members house and the mother asked for a blessing. The son is the missionary leader, so we assumed he would do the blessing. My companion annointed, we looked at him, and looked right back at me. First blessing of health I´ve ever given in Spanish..... And appartently it was 10 minutes long! Was the blessing perfect? Absolutely not. But the Spirit used what spanish I knew to bless this lady. Maybe not a big thing for most but I was certainly humbled.

This isn´t just another church. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ. This is His church. His work will go on even if we don´t. Do the simple things. Read, pray, go to church, do what you know is right and life suddenly becomes easier to bare!

Elder Alder