Ooops...

Yeah sorry family and friends! Another week of 20 minute writing session. No worries, I am alive and doing absolutely fantastic. I am really having a wonderful time here! I get to sing in a choir in MY mission! When I heard about the Christmas choir, because Presidente Torres has done this for the length of his presidency, I instantly really wanted to be in it! Apparently you have to email Presidente first before he will consider you but I didn´t know that but I´m in it so it´s all fine! So no worries! But really this is a wonderful opportunity that only 10 missionaries a year get a chance to do! 

I guess I can explain a little more of what we are doing, So we have practicing this week everday 8 songs for Christmas! Great songs! Powerful spirit! And now we are going to travel the mission and sing for every missionary in the mission (except galapogos, qué triste)

But don´t worry I am fine and I´m reading all the emails that are sent to me so keep sending them! 

Love you all! 

 

Elder Alder

No Hay Tiempo (Again)

Hola familia y amigos!

First off! Love you all! I hope everything is going well! This week is going to be short, sorry. And here is why:

I have been traveling in a bus all night Sunday because I had my first "cambios". Bye bye Loja. Right now I am in Guayquil dying in the wonderful heat! Sunday was a day of mixed feelings. Our baptism fell through the roof but this cambio made me happy because..... I{m in the Christmas Choir!!!! 

Super excited and that is why I do not have any time!

Love you all again!

And if you have time this week read John 6:66 to 69. And ask yourself if you are going to turn back from Christ or continue following him! 

Elder Alder

Thank you Loja for watching over Elder Alder!

Baptism in the River (Not mine though) :)

(The baptism was of the zone leaders but I got to see it because my companion was in saraguro, entonces, it was just something cool this weekend. You should´ve seen this guy. He was in the water before we sang the first hymn, it was great and that´s the photo attachted)

But let´s talk about Ecuador. I don´t think I have mentioned this. If I have, I am truly sorry. But my favorite temporal thing about this country is there is a bread store on every corner! Where you can buy... guess? BREAD. ¡Pero pan ricisimo! I absolutely love it! (My companion thinks they tempt me, but I save my money, no worries!) (But the milk doesn´t taste the same, I have no idea why...)

Yeah, the important stuff.

I don´t think I have told ya´ll about the expectations of this mission. Or at least not all of them. Baptimal goal monthly: 600. and one of my favorites is Invitations to be baptized. How many do you think daily we are supposed to invite to be baptized?.... 8, boom. (haha and everyone was so scared in the CCM to invite people to baptized in the first lesson) 

How crazy but it really pushes us as missionaries! So when you don´t have success, it really bugs 

because normally everyone around you is. So we worked really hard this week to invite 8 people to be baptized everyday. And what happened? Through the grace of God we have 8 baptismal dates! Just like that. Obedience with exactness brings miracles. And with a miracle we will have a baptism this Sunday! Saturdays and Sundays are probably the hardest day because you are doing everything you possibly can to get people to come to sacrament! But sometimes, they show up to church by themselves and that is the biggest blessing ever! 

But things are going great here, just have to work harder every day!

Scripture for the week: Mosiah 2:17. The one we all know. When you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are only in the Service of your God.

But one tid-bit of spanish. Fellow-beings in Spanish is semejantes. Which literally could mean in English "comparables". Especially at the start of my mission, I thought that every person I passed was a beloved child of God. And they are. This week, I plead with all of you to look at the people around you and service them as your "comparables" They are just like you with problems that you can´t see. Everyone is struggling. But this week if we serve your fellow men as yourself. We all service God and get closer to becoming like Christ. He is our Savior. The least we can do is be in His service!

Love you Guys!

Elder Alder

"It´s not that hot, a little bit of a kick and then it´s done for the aji pepper."

The Attack of the Grapes

Every week just keeps getting better and crazier!

I think I mentioned last time that my father (trainer) was dying! We had to travel to Guayquil over night and then back with my new companion! 18 hours in a bus is absoluetly...fun... But we made it and are living great! My new companion is... Drum Roll.... Elder Garcia! (Photo attached) He is from Mexico! (Esó! First Latin companion) He is absolutely hilarous! He loves to talk and he tells me stories of Mexico, rats, and iguanas. (Yeah he is a little bit crazy) He doesn´t know any English, so my spanish is improving a bunch! I don´t understand everything he says but he is certainly helping me with my listening skills! The funny thing is, he has 5 more weeks in the mission... You can just call me the send off missionary man! Take 2!

I remember how nervous I felt the first couple of days because he is definiately letting me learn by experience. I felt more of the responsibilty of taking charge in our teachings! It was definitely a gift from the spirit because now we are working super hard! It´s great!

The great thing this week was we had 3 investigadores in church! (1 in Loja and 2 in Saraguro) Everyone said that the mountains are hard and they are but with work, anything is posible! Like, remember the drunk man from last time, he came to church 30 minutes early! (That´s where the story of the grapes comes in. We went to go bring him to church, wasn´t there, went to the market to find him, billions of people in the market, police passed by in a truck, people were not happy with them, so they threw grapes at them and missed and hit me....) But he came to church and will soon be baptized! (Not to mention he is also taking anti-alcoholic clases)

Scripture for the week: Moroni 7:33. Más o menos dice: "And Christ has said, if you have faith in me, you shall have power to do whatsoever think that is expiedient in me" (How was my translation of scripture?) And in Doctrina y convenios 8 it says that without faith, we can´t do anything. Maybe that´s why (from Moroni 10) since faith develops into charity, without charity we are nothing. (Sorry for the spider web of scriptures and ideas)

But it´s true! without faith, we can´t do anything. Without out faith, this man addicted to alcohol will not reach baptism, but with his faith and actions, he will! And I have faith he will and can!

Les quiero Mucho!

Elder Alder

La Fe, orando, y Padre

Hola a todas las personas en Estados Unidos y en el mundo. (I think)

Great week of learning here in Loja! Tough but absolutely wonderful!

I heard it was Halloween (I almost forgot!) Hope the world was a little more sweet this week-end! Sorry for the sarcasm! But one thing about Ecuador, they don´t celebrate halloween, they just go vacation, or in this case, walk with the virgin to another city. I know we all have silly tradicions and I´m not trying to offend those who worship the virgin. I just wouldn´t walk a bunch of kilometers following a statue for my halloween celebration. Hahaha. Just know it says in the scriptures that Mary did advise us to follow her son (She must of knew something)

Investigador report:

This is where the rough part of week was. No investigadores came to church, that means all our progressing investigadores are now not progressing anymore. It´s quite hard. And just to protect the identity of this people, I am going to start changing names (Unless I baptize them, then i´ll tell you :))

But for now I think it´s better to keep the names secret. Just in case one of them like this week, we found drunk in front of their door. It was quite sad and I have all the respect for this wonderful child of God, so we are going to try harder (Well I am going to try harder my father (trainer) is dying (going home) because this person is a child of our heavenly father and they need the gospel more than ever.

We have definitely been praying a lot for this person and fasting and I have learned a lot this week about how God answers our prayers.

And the spiritual topic I want to discuss is La Fe. 

Faith is so vital to our salvation. Elder Neil L. Andersen exhorted all the preisthood with this topic and one line that I think is for the world. "Your faith is either getting stronger or it is getting weaker" My scripture for this week is Alma 32:21, it says that faith isn´t a perfect knowledge but a hope for things not seen. But in 27 it says that we must experiment on these words and ACT by our own free will. Then in 41 it says we have to cultivate with "gran diligencia y paciencia".

And that´s the key. Everyday we need to cultivate our faith in the gospel or it won´t be growing.

And especially! We need to be patient with this groweth, Its like the groweth of a plant.

Love to all

Elder Alder

Elder Barney (Devan's trainer (father)) is returning home soon