First Baptismal invitation!

Genealogy line of Trainers!

Right to left: Kyle and his trainer, Elder Jacobs and his trainer and his trainer!

Another week in the books!! haha This week unfortunately wasn’t filled with a whole ton of missionary work... This is how the week went in a nutshell. Monday was obviously P-Day and had tons of fun! Didn’t get hurt at Mr. Joys so all is good. Then on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we had meetings for Visa Information, Verifications for all new missionaries, and Zone /District meetings, respectively. All these meetings took the whole morning and into the afternoon. For the Visa's, we didn’t get back to our house till about 7:00!! Ugh so I am here to tell you that it is not just America that has problems with DMV paraphernalia...ha we walked into the government building and got our numbers. We looked at the screen and it was on number 13...We were number 74. Yeah that was a depressing moment haha. Man out here I am learning patience whether or not I want to! lol But it was good because other missionaries were there and I got to make some new friends and talk to someone other than my companion. Not that I don’t like my companion...but after talking to somebody for over 4 weeks you kinda run out of stuff to talk about. Ha So it was a nice breather.  Also on Thursday when we had verifications I got to see Elder Philpot again! So that was great! Still goofy as ever. When we get together we have a great time. I also got to take my first taxi!! Literally in the mornings the buses are so crowded that I don’t think even flat Stanley could fit in there. Our bus came and there were people hanging out the windows holding on for dear life. So we decided to pass on that and take a taxi. It is obviously more expensive to take a taxi. I now know why missionaries don’t usually take taxis haha But it was a good experience! We got a contact out of it too! 2 for one! I’ll take it!! So like I said not much missionary work this week because most of our appointments fall in the mornings so we had to call everyone that we had scheduled and tell them we couldn’t make it. It was kinda sad for me to do that because some of the people literally could only do it on those days so we couldn’t meet with them for a whole other week! Dangit!! Patience.... lol

So I had my first baptismal invitation this week!! That was so so exciting! We have been teaching her for 2 1/ 2 weeks now meeting about twice a week. The amazing thing about this woman was how she was Catholic and she was so confused at how many churches there are. So we explained the whole restoration with her and man if you could highlight my first change into one instance it would be her face when I was holding the picture of Joseph Smith and the First Vision and my comp was reciting it. Man if you could’ve seen her face when she heard that you would just feel so alive and so excited!! After that lesson she told us how beautiful our story was. lol that is kinda funny to me.. our story ... ha But then we invited her to pray and receive her own answer. She has been really struggling with that which is why it has taken so long to invite her to baptism. But finally this past week we were teaching her Lesson 3 and I was able to invite her to baptism!! Seguirá  el ejemplo de Jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguien que posea la autoridad del salcerdocio de Dios? (Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone that has the authority from God?) I was reciting that in my head that whole morning and when it came out. It actually came out correctly!!! And she said yes!! So her baptismal date is set for March 4, if everything works out just right...but she didn’t come to church this week so we have to push it back...dangit.. But man what a rush I got just from inviting someone to Baptism!! I can’t even imagine the feeling of actually seeing or doing the baptism of one of your investigators!

We also have another progressing investigator that is close to baptism. We didn’t find this guy,, almost all  the missionaries in our zone know who this guy is because he has taken all the lessons probably 10 times but still hasn’t committed. So as you all know I am not the greatest Spanish speaker but he wanted me to teach the next "class." Haha He calls the lessons "classes." So this "class" was on baptism!! I was pretty dang nervous for it. While I was preparing I was trying my hardest to follow the spirit so I could plan exactly what he needed. So the lesson plan was to read John 3:5 then discuss  D&C 20 for the baptism qualifications and then after that have a big long discussion about what he felt and is impeding him from baptism. Then share Helaman 12:1-2 and to put all of our trust in the Lord. So while we were planning, I just got this thought about how I was asking him the same thing Heavenly Father is asking me or us in general! How I am inviting the same thing that God has asked me to do my whole life. I don’t know if that makes sense but it really hit me how important it was to be obedient because how hypocritical would it be for me to ask him to change his job and I couldn’t even keep the rules of the mission. His problem is he sells religious Catholic things. Which is really popular here so he is actually really rich:) But it just hit me how important it was to have a testimony of everything I am teaching.

So lots of crazy stuff has happened outside of missionary work...I cut my finger this week. I was trying to shorten my jump rope and my knife slipped and sliced my finger. My knife is pretty dang sharp! I was pretty proud of how sharp it was and how clean the cut was haha But I went over into the sink and ran it under water and our sink doesn’t drain that well so it looked like I was butchering something! haha My comp wasn’t too happy because we had some dirty dishes in there so now we had to buy crazy disinfectant so we wouldn’t get whatever diseases I have.. haha which is hopefully none but who knows!

There was also a Valentine's dance that the ward put together that we stopped by for a little bit.. It was so funny! They were hyped in there!! Our ward isn’t that young but if you walked by the chapel that night you would’ve thought that it was pretty legit! lol It was so funny seeing the older generation dance to regatone or hip hop. But it was so great because they were just having the time of their lives just dancing the night away like they were teenagers again. Ecuadorians really know how to have fun! Oh my gosh and they take games seriously!! Every Sunday night there is FHE, noche de hogar, and we have a lesson then we have games! Everyone gets into them!! There is a really popular game where you each have say a fruit, like you are a banana, and he is an apple, and the other person is a kiwi. So there is someone in the middle that calls out a fruit and you have to change seats. So kinda like musical chairs. But everyone gets into it! Old or young it don’t matter. For example, there was this one 16 year old guy running for a chair right alongside was a probably 50 year old guy and no joke the 16 year old pushes the guy into the wall and he hits the wall and falls down. He hurt his shoulder but he kept playing! ha and just this last night this little kid lost his tooth because he fell and hit his mouth on the chair! haha and they just found the tooth, got some toilet paper for him and went on playing!! crazy right?!!! But the reason is because they have penintencias. or punishments for 3 people who lose 3 times! The best punishment was Elder Alanoca...they poured water down his pants from my comp Elder Jacobs!!! It was so funny because he got soaked! His whole pants were soaked. Man the wards here are crazy! So yes I fit right in! lol So those are the funny stories for this week.

For the lesson for noche de hogar (FHE) it was on la voluntad de dios. (The will of God) It was a video by Elder Christofferson about the gardener and how he pruned the tree so it would grow even bigger. But the bush didn’t know why but of course the gardener knew what he was doing. And how they applied it to us and how when we have setbacks in life, it is for our benefit. I love the section in D&C 121 and how it says our trials are for our good. Man it is so hard to trust the gardener but in reality he knows how to get to our fullest potential. And literally that is the only way to reach our fullest potential is doing the will of God. It is so not the easiest thing but if we want to reach our potential, we have to be humble enough to let God shape us. The video explains it so much better so just watch the video lol That’s why Elder Christofferson is an apostle and I am a missionary! Well that’s it folks! I hope your week was great and this coming week is filled with Love for Vday and happiness!!! I love you all!

Elder Reynolds   

                                 

 

Ward Valentine's Dance

Ecuadorians really know how to have fun!

An Active Volcano

Ouch :( Hope he remembers the Neosporin packed in his suitcase...somewhere!

Ecuadorian fruit called Achotillo

Kyle didn't say what kind of fruit this is, so I had to google it! It says it's Achotillo (Rambutan)

This little fruit has a sweet, slightly sour flavor in its clear-white gelatinous flesh. The spiny/leathery skin peels of quite easily, but inside there is a large pit to which the flesh clings very stubbornly, so you kind of have to gnaw at it.