Elder Kyle Reynolds: Keep Looking for the "Why"

Elder Reynolds and his companion, Elder Villacorta!

Teaching "Chicks" in Ecuador!!!

Wow so this week was another great week! I am so happy that I am companions with Elder Villacorta. It is a privilege to be with him! This is his last change so I feel so privileged that I get to learn from someone that has about 2 years under his belt. It's like a cheat sheet to me! lol Definitely I am still learning humility. He knows so much about the scriptures and about everything gospel related. so we made a deal, that I will help him get jacked physically and the he will help me get jacked spiritually lol.

Our investigators are...interesting haha. We received revelation that here in Santo Domingo the work here is a bit different. Usually in Quito, it is hard to gain new investigators or people that want to listen to us but here it is just about the complete opposite. Everyone wants to listen to us! Which is a good and bad thing! We have so many more investigators that we found this week and I just want to testify that the hand of the Lord is in this work. It is a bit weird and funny but every planning session it is like a mini council where we talk about each investigator and their progression and we make a decision according to the spirit as to work with them or drop them. Man, does it hurt to drop them. After having developed a relationship with a person here and it just hurts to stop visiting them because I know that if we had more missionaries we would be able to spend time with these people! But we know that there are other people prepared for us and that they are just waiting for us! It was a really special experience as my companion was sick this week and I gave him a blessing of healing and it said in the blessing that many people have been waiting for him! I have a true testimony in the power of the priesthood. It is a way to show our humbleness before the Lord and submit ourselves to the will of Him who knows everything. I am definitely growing so much. Unfortunately, that also implies in my stomach...hahaha. The food here is SO good! I don't know what they do different but it is absolutely delicious!

We have had some major changes in the mission as usually we always call our leaders every night to tell them what we did that day and to make sure that we are working and our health is okay. Usually those calls last about 10 minutes but now President Barlow asked us to shorten these calls to about one minute conversation solely about if we are doing good physically and how our emotions are. After the visit from the 70, he said we have a mature mission and that he wants to see more growth individually so he wants us to realize the "why" of everything. The work to me seems so much different now as I realize we aren't doing this work to please the leaders of the mission or President Barlow...to please them with good numbers...but for the real reason which is to bless people's lives with baptism and this wonderful message of hope and a new start to every single person! I always have these duhhh moments in the mission hahaha. I am sorry if I bore you with them but I am a slow learner lol. I love you all and keep pushing forward and looking for the "why" in everything! It changes the perspective and the love we have for the people! Definitely a blessing of God!
Elder Reynolds

We taught a lesson in English this week to a guy from Ghana. The guy is volunteering at an elementary school. It was quite the experience to teach in English! It was literally like I had to translate everything in my head back to English. I was quite frustrated with myself because I couldn't talk fluent English haha!!!