First Week in the Mission of ALL Spanish!

"How can I be better each day?"

Hello Everyone!!!

So this week was a looong but short week. It is weird how it works like that. I am definitely experiencing the refiners fire lol. But like the scriptures say, if we endure it well we will be exalted on high. Man am I clinging to that promise!! So this week was the first week in the mission of ALL Spanish... My mind is pretty much mush right now.. Buuuut my Spanish has gotten so much better!!! I am very glad for this opportunity to learn. I feel like this type of learning is when you throw a kid into the swimming pool and that is how you teach him how to swim but its all for the better. My companion is a great teacher. Even though we can't communicate well, we work together well in a companionship for teaching investigators. I keep asking myself "how I can be better each day?"I figured that if I pray for the gift of tongues that I should have enough faith to just open my mouth! So I have been trying to do that more and more and I can feel the Holy Ghost work through me. I just have to be patient. Definitely a Christ-like attribute I need to work on. 

So it was pretty crazy, from Monday to Saturday we had new investigators every single day!! By the end of the week we had 12 people on date for baptism!!! Although only 4 came to church on Sunday so only 4 have baptismal dates...but still! Elder Saldana reminded me of my purpose here and that is to invite! So that's what we have been doing. From the very first lesson inviting people to read the Book of Mormon and to prepare for their baptismal date. What I like about Elder Saldaña is he is very good at gaining the people's trust, by not going straight into lessons but getting to know them and their interests. I have always wanted to teach that way but I felt I never had a sufficient knowledge of words to convey what I was thinking.. But like I said my Spanish has improved a lot in one week!! We found a family that is pretty much golden. On our 2nd lesson with them they invited 5 other family members and friends to attend church and to sit in with us on lessons! How awesome is that!!? It really is true when the Lord says in scriptures about how people are being prepared and we need to find those that are prepared. I think that's definitely what we did here. Well we didn't find them, it was a reference from a member! Man how references are so much better than plain contacting on the street! So help the missionaries by giving them references!! I like to think of it as we train every day to be able to teach, just like as an athlete you train everyday to be able to perform at your peak... And now we just need people to teach because we are ready! It feels good to be ready. Speaking of always being ready....I experienced the first of what I think many missionaries are so used too. So we were about to go to bed Saturday night and we get a call from the bishopric saying that I am giving a talk tomorrow in sacrament meeting..... What the?!! haha Church starts at 9:00 and we have meetings at 7:30 so there wasn't any time to prepare but it was nice because really my whole job as a missionary is to be ready to teach the gospel at any time!! So it wasn't too bad. It was funny, as I was going up to give my talk the bishop whispers to me, please make it short...and I was like pffff..very funny. Surprisingly I gave a 10 minute talk! Although I think it was mainly because when I was reading scriptures I struggled on a lot of the words... But it was good! 

This week I learned of all the traditions of Easter here in Ecuador. First off, every night of the week or during the day there was something going on from one of the different sects here. So that was cool to see all the churches doing something. But from Thursday all the way to Monday or today everything was closed!! I couldn't believe it! It was like the town got robbed and everyone left! But it was good for us because everyone was home and it seemed like a lot of people were nicer to us. So on Saturday we had a ward celebration of Easter and they have this soup called Fanesca. I honestly have no idea what was in it but everyone has been talking about it for the week coming up to Saturday and if I have ever tried it. So finally when the day came to try it they would not stop giving it to me!! Literally I felt like I was going to throw up haha. They made about 70 liters of this soup. It was actually pretty good! Although there was cilantro in it and I am not too fond of cilantro..... But I think I contributed 10 liters of consummation to their total 70 liters.. NO joke I had a ton. They kept on giving it to me like there was no tomorrow! It was good, but I must say I am kind of glad Easter only comes around once a year. And of course when we went to lunch on Sunday, they asked if we wanted Fanesca to take home and we were like yeaahhhhhhh hahaha. But its all good.

We also had the opportunity today to listen to Elder Christofferson!!!! We barley knew about it until this Thursday! haha It was funny cause they were like, oh yeah Elder Christofferson from the 12 is coming so we are going to go listen to him. I was like what !!!!!!!!! It was very awesome. I didn't know he knew Spanish either!! It was cool to hear him speak in Spanish. He talked about how the most important doctrine we can teach is repentance. That it is that that changes a person. And really it is true. Baptism does not change a person, it is an important ordinance that needs to be done, but repentance is truly where we change. We got to shake his hand too and how special it was too feel a living Apostle hands like the ones we teach about from the scriptures.. Amazing!!

Funny story this week...So I am not good with directions for those who know me. But I am almost positive I knew this street where one of our investigators lived but I took the wrong turn. We ended up walking an extra 10 minutes, but a less active called out to us and we were able to visit them and give their  three children blessings!!!! Because they were really sick. I guess the spirit works in mysterious ways! But the funny part is that we sat down to wait for her to show us her house, and when I got up and put my hands down to push off from the ground I felt the ground move a little like I was pushing on playdoh.. Yep right into poop!!!! And I couldn't wipe it off because I didn't want her to know that I had poop on my hand! hahaha So we gave blessings all the while I had poop on my hands.... I don't know if the people knew but I knew because it reeked!!!! Ohhh man..... But it was a really good experience.

I love this work. I am so glad to be apart of it. This week was hard, but like always Heavenly Father came through. In Alma Chapter 27 or 28 I was reading and it says "and thus we see the great calling of those who preach the gospel"..I am summarizing it but I am so happy to be able to help people and most importantly bring them to Christ and allow them to have joy!! There is no other work like it. I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!

Elder Reynolds

Elder Reynolds and Elder Jacobs (first companion)

Do I want to know what he's doing?!!

~Crazy adventures of Elder Reynolds in Ecuador~