Week Thirty Four in Ecuador - July 14, 2014 - First Baptism in My New Territory

Hi Everyone:

Well, I had my first baptism here this last Saturday and it was awesome!

Everything is good with my new companion, Elder Garcia. We have been working hard and are going to keep working hard. We have another possible baptism for this next Saturday! Hopefully all goes well! I'll need you all to pray for him a bunch his name is Investigator A., he is 16 and he is like six feet tall and black. He is great and I hope so bad to be able to baptize him this next Saturday!

That's sweet about Jake... I am so glad he had a great time at EFY that is so awesome. I hope he was outgoing and able to make a ton of new friends! 

Anyways this week has been good. It has been a little hard because we don't have very many people to work with right now... so our biggest trial as of right now is to be able to find others who are interested in listening to us and want to progress. Our sector is well..... interesting..... it honestly is extremely dangerous. However, Mom don't worry about me, I am fine and I feel safe here. However the other day we did have a guy rob a girl under our house with a giant machete and we heard screaming and saw the whole thing go down. But luckily no one got hurt and our other neighbor chased the robber down with a giant 4 by 4 hahaha. Other than that the week has been calm and I've noticed if you just don't show fear nobody does anything to you here :) 

Then this Saturday we had the baptism!!! It was awesome!!! or as you would say here cheverisimo! haha but it was funny because we had everything set up for him to be baptized at 6:00 at night however when we passed by his house he wasn't ready so he told us that he would meet us at the church in five minutes so we left and were waiting for him. Then after waiting for a while we see him fly by passing us on a motorcycle with a girl on the back driving away from the church... haha so obviously I was thinking all kinds of things at that moment; that he didn't want to go through with it, that the girl had invited him to do something else or whatever else that could happen. haha so we ran back to his house to ask what had happened and the mom just told us that he left and she didn't know where... so I was way stressed out at that point, haha but then just as I was about to leave his house he came back and explained to us how he had to take his sister to a friend's house and that's why he left. Thern we walked over to the church together and he got baptized so it all worked out :)

And ya that was my week, (semana), I learned a lot about patience and not stressing out. I love this work and I am excited for the next week, but please keep me in your prayers :)

 

I'm attaching a picture of my Zone Leader carrying me....he is from Peru and he is a Giant! He dressed up like a ninja or something and started play fighting all of us (yes, we all turn a little bit weird here :)) and he lifted me up and my companion grabbed a picture!  His name is Elder Serpa and the other Zone Leader is Elder Westover and he is from Utah.  They make me laugh all the time.

 

 

       Elder Serpa Playing Like a Ninja (yes, we all act a little nerdy out here!)

 

 

                                Our First Baptisms in Our New Territory

 

Well I love you all so much hope this week goes well for you all!

 

Elder Lignell