Week Eighty Three in Ecuador - June 22, 2015 - Always Improving

Hey family!

Well another week down in Guayaquil! And its been an absolute blast. Me and my companion are working crazy hard and it's been exhausting, but so very rewarding spiritually, emotionally and well not really physically cause I'm wiped out!! haha  

Thanks for your email I'm gad everybody is doing great! I can't believe Davis got home... that doesn't even seem real. I hope his homecoming goes well you'll have to congratulate him for me.  

Glad jake had a good time at EFY. And at least he's got his hopes set high by having a crush on his counselor, it's better than just settling haha :) 

That's too bad for the Williamson Family. You'll have to tell them that I always loved being around Boyd, even though he didn't talk he just had a nice light about him that I think everyone could feel.

Alright now about my week, so it's been great. We truly have been working hard, but it's been crazy because with me and my companion we have an extra companion named Elder Hunt and he is stuck with us right now because he doesn't have a companion but he does have his own ward to work in, and obviously we can't just leave him alone to work, so he always has to be either with us or we have to drop him off with a member and pick him up after. So trying to be zone leaders and work with the other missionaries and in our own area and also in his area all at the same time is super crazy, but we're figuring it all out. We had a few baptisms this week with Elder Hunt and this Saturday we're going to have a few more.

 We had the baptism of a couple that are about to get married named J and E, the crazy thing is that J is 14 and E is 18 and they are going to get married!! This week they are going to try to do it, and on Sunday they got baptized!!! It was amzing because the mom shared a story that after she had been baptized she began to pray that the rest of her family could also get baptized. And it was sweet because yesterday those prayers that she said got answered! 

We also have an investigator named C and she is an older lady who has been going to church with us for the last few weeks. She has a problem with her knees that makes her hurt a lot. I'm pretty sure she said it was arthritis, but I'm not positive. Anyways the first time she went to church she explained that her knees were killing her and that right when she left to go home she layed down in her hammock and said a prayer to god asking him if he could take the pin away and right after her prayer she felt relieved and from then on knew that the church was true and that she had to continue to go. We are trying to help her to get baptized this saturday!!! I'm stoked. 

Also in this last week, I've been talking a lot to my companion and we talked a lot about the mission, like why we are here, and what God expects from us and like what we can become in these two years if we really are diligent and faithful. And I came to the conclusion that God needs us to change! Always! It doesn't matter what point we are at in our lives, but we can't stand still we always have to be improving. A lot of times in life we are going backwards and God is the only person that can help us to turn around and start going forward again to truly change. If we don't use God and if we don't understand the atonemnt of Christ, we won't be able to change, we won't be able to move forward and the devil will have more power over us. "The only thing that is constant in life is change. If we want to have success we have to be willing to change, in order to reach our highest poential."
​God always wants us to be better and he will always be willing to help us succeed.  Ether 12:27

                                            Recent Baptisms :)

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Love you all,

 

Elder Lignell