"Hello"

And that is what happens when you have Latins who listen to more american music than you do or did, they get out on the mission, become your zone leaders (As you can see in the pictures attachted in a MotoTaxi that would be the way of traveling here in Huaquillas with my companion hidden in the back)  and one day say "Elder Alder I am sure you know this song" Then they continue singing Hello by adele the rest of the week and it gets stuck in your head and you try to get it out with "Called to Serve" and then it ends up as your email title. SOoooooo, Hello!

Great week. Really and truly a great week! I absolutely love working as a missionary I can´t describe the spirit I feel at the end of a day on my knees praying for just about everything or how I feel when my companion starts to pray for our investigators name by name. Or the spirit I feel when members tell us about their friends who want to learn about the gospel and we can help them feel te spirit and a desire to come to church and when they do, they say "I really liked church". Or the spirit I feel in a fast and testimony to bear my testimony that I have been in the Conference Center and the words the Prophets will say is revelation for THEM. Or the amazing feeling when an investigator tell us "So the word is the seed and I need to plant it in my heart and after give fruit no?) 

We certainly were blessed to have 3 families of investigators in church this week. I don´t know how but the members really just love sharing the gospel with their friends. Not to mention our recent converts love it even more (Maybe because that means we visit them a little more often, oops) 

But in the end, I feel love for these people. We just want the best for them. We just have to understand how they feel! 

"Put your Shoulder to the Wheel, push Along, do your duty with a heart full of song" 

Sonríen por favor :)

Elder Alder

I Love to See the Temple

I don´t think I can express how much I love being a missionary. My two zone leaders have less time then I do, so they always bug me about the down side of the house, I try not to think about it and just work my heart out! (If anyone asks, I will finish my mission in two years!) 

Well certainly the highlight of the week was friday saturday and sunday. Friday we got everything ready for the temple. Saturday at 1 in the morning, we left the house to go get on the bus! We didn´t really sleep but our double-decker bus kind of let us sleep a little bit! We got to the temple at 7ish. We didn´t have enough preisthood to help out with baptisms so we got the wonderful oportunity down stairs while 8 people recieved their endowments and one family got sealed for all time and eternity! This branch is really moving along! Even if we were bummed out to not participate in the sealing, we got to feel the great spirit of the temple and got to see the progression of a lot of new memebers in this branch. We are working really hard with the leaders of the branch and that is really helping us out as missionaries to work hard and effecitively. We don´t get to go to the temple that much in this mission but everytime we do, I feel energized to tell people how they can feel if they just follow the spirit of christ and the holy ghost that is telling them that THIS CHURCH IS TRUE.

I really don´t have words when I see recent converts fasting and paying tithing on their own and they just show their faith. Everything that is happening here is helping me to just do everything I know is right and if I do something wrong to repent immediately and keep moving foreward. Let us be perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect (3 Nefi 27:27 I think is the scripture) and not to get discouraged if we aren´t perfect. Just to know that one day we can be! 

Love you all! 

(Go to the temple more often!)

Elder Alder

Marriage is what brings us Together Today

(I sure hope everyone remembers this movie because it took me a whole week to remember what it was called) 

You may be wondering, or might not, what happened last week and what would ever have stopped us to write the week before. Well one answer is in the title. The other answer is that at 1 o´clock here in Huaquillas until 5:40 the whole city shut down. (Se fue la luz, por favor ayúdeme estoy olvidando inglés) We didn´t have electricity all of monday. So when the light came back there wasn´t enough time to write all of you so we didn´t write, did they give us time the next day to write a little bit? yes, but we got super busy, we forgot and we just kind of got (metidos?) pulled into the work. Well so last week, we spent our whole day in Registro Civil... CityCouncil ugh.... forgetting english.-  Well we helped out a beautiful family get married named the Samaniego Family. They apparently recieved the missionaries about a year ago and didn´t want to hear a darn thing. But I am sure the spirit just hit this family hard because they progresssed soooo fast and Saturday were baptized! And we were certainly shown that the adversary didn´t want this family to get baptized. (The day of their marriage, wednesday, they got just about all of their clothing stolen...) Turns out that the father (Dan, who looks a lot like my uncle adam) was baptized when he was 8 and doesn´t remember anything so the mother (Maria) and her two sons (Dan and Justin) were baptized this Saturday. The baptism was an experience that I will never forget. The branch had an activity before the baptism so we had a room full of people attending the baptism. They are also super excited to be able to go to the temple this Saturday (Which we will be doing this week as a branch and I am SUPER excited) Another thing I wanted to mention about the baptism is the two testimonies of our lovely couple. "I know that this church is true" I don´t think I have heard that from a recent convert with such power. They read the Book of Mormon a whole lot before being baptized and they prayed and even fasted to be able to feel what they felt! It was an experience that I will never forget! 

I am sure that I am forgetting a lot of information but I am just in shock with the blessings of the Lord. How do you find such an amazing family? I asked that a couple of times to myself. How do we find more families that are just ready. The answer is Member Missionary Work. We are visiting all the friends of the recent converts of this branch and we are finding so many lovely poeple. We have to work a little bit harder but we sure have met so many great people. Where do you find members who have so much faith that they ask you: "Elders, when are we going to go door knocking in my neighborhood, I am sure that we will find at least someone to listen to us?") People are waiting for the gospel. Your friends are waiting for the gospel. We just have to pray and fast that the Lord will prepare the hearts of these people and OPEN OUR MOUTH. 

I always considered myself a shy guy and not willing to talk to whoever is in my path. But the Lord helped me to follow the spirit and to not care what people think of me! (We are also blessed here in Ecuador because questions like: Do you live here? Are you married? When do you normally work? How long have to been married? And what are you going to do this Sunday? doesn´t weird people out.) 

Love this country and love these people (And not just because they give me a WHOLE TON OF FOOD)

Love you all and hope the best for all :) Mormon means Happy!!! 

Elder Alder