Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Week Twenty Nine In Ecuador - Monday, June 9, 2014 - Guayaquil Baptized More People Last Month Than Any Other City In the World! I Also Got Robbed Again, But This Time, It Wasn't So Funny


Hey Family:

Okay so this week was great! We had a lot of interesting stuff go on.

First off the week started out normal. We were searching for a lot more people to teach because we didn't have very many and we were working extremely hard. Everyday my feet would just kill at night because we were walking everywhere. But anyway, Wednesday morning we woke up, did all of our studies and stuff then we went out to work. And I swear it was 115 degrees outside but we didn't care because it's like 105 everyday anyways. So, we were searching for houses of the members that we didn't know and we didn't meet anyone new. And we were getting sort of down on our selves. My companion said, "Hey let's go to one more house before lunch to see if we can meet someone." So as we're walking for the last house I was praying super hard that we could find the member and then as we turned a corner a kid about our age yells "elders" so we turned around and were about to keep going when he yells "Oh so I guess you guys don't stop for anyone." So ya we felt like we had to go say hi to him. And then right as we got to him he says "give me everything you have"....... yup we got robbed. After him another kid showed up. They stole our phone and both our watches :( and so ya that stunk pretty bad but I got over it fast... he didn't do anything to us so don't worry.   

So that was hard and at first, I felt like we didn't really get the blessing that we deserved for all the work that we did. But wait that's not all...

So on Saturday we had our baptism!!!! And he is so great!!  However we didn't have the chance to be in his baptism because we had a training meeting that was suppossed to be with Elder Oaks and two members of the seventies... however only one of the seventies showed up.. Elder Oaks and the other one couldn't make their flights. however the training meeting was with the three Guayaquil missions sooooo I got to see Braydon Hanks!! And I gave him a giant hug!!! I was so happy and the training meeting was sweet. And guess what?? The city of Guayaquil baptized more people for the month than any other city in the entire world! Pretty cool huh?

Ok so that was great I was so happy to see Braydon and I learned a bunch at the training meeting! 

Then on Sunday we met two new wonderful people who accepted to be baptized the 5th of July!

And I'll quickly talk about one of them. 

Okay so everytime we went to talk to Investigator A. our friend who just got baptized Saturday we always encountered this lady that works at his house and she always looked super unhappy that we were there and would grumbly go look for Investigator A. when we would ask for him. But then the other day a member of the church was talking to her and asked her to listen to the missionaries. So we went over to their house not expecting her to be very open but then as we started sharing the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ you could see the Spirit working inside her. She started to smile as we were talking to her and we asked her how she felt. She said she felt calm and happy! She explained to us that she knows that Jesus is her savior and that she wants to learn more about him. She said she wants to go to church with us and is excited to have us over again. Then as I explained to her what baptism is and why it is necessary and you could see that she was interested so I just went for it. And asked her "will you be baptized the 5th of July" and she said she would love to! I then bore my testimony and you could really see that she felt something different. I had never seen her smile before the way that she did in the lesson and it made me think about how the Spirit and the Gospel make things like that happen. The Gospel brings more happiness to us than anything else in this world can. The Spirit testifying is one of the most joyful feelings I have felt and I love that we can help others to feel it too.

All in all this week was good! It doesn't matter that we got robbed because we recieved so many blessings at the end of this week and I am so greatful for them! I love this gospel and I love sharing it. I love you all and I wish you the best in your summer :)

Oh and about your seasons questions for Guayaquil. No. They have one season.... it's called hot!! Sometimes they tell you that March and June are cold but it is a lie :) It has been hotter this month than ever before. But oh well.... it's only two years :) 

 Love you all,

Elder Austin Lignell

                                           Our recent baptism :) :) :)


 

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