Querido Familia,
Looks Iike I get another 6 weeks with Hermana Madrid in Iñaquito! We had cambios today, and we had to help Hermana Gomez páck and leave, there was a lot of waiting at bus stops and such. But we luckily had a little intermediate time to visit Quicentro, which is a really fancy mall here and I found a yoga mat!I´m singin Hallelujah in my head right now, because now I can do yoga in a more sanitary way in the casa. We are supposed to be barefoot on the floor... Any way it was a lot of fun, but we didn´t have time to write, well the other sisters did, but there were only 2 computers. So now. I have permission from the President to write you, but since its after 6, I want to get to work. So I´m sorry this letter won´t be very long.
This week has been so great! We found a young man contacting, and we´ve been teaching him this whole week, His name is Francisco, and his parents are Catholic. There are a lot of things that he doesn´t quite understand especially about the hypocritical ways the Catholic church seems to run. He said that the priests used the tithing money in order to have bigger grander houses and cars. He doesn´t agree with this, and hasn´t been going to church for a while. When we taught him the Restoration in our first lesson he accepted the baptismal date if he would recieve an answer. He has been reading the book of mormon, and came to church with us last sunday. He participated in sunday school, and has made friends with those in the elders quorum. We really hope that he recieves an answer soon, and we also are planning on teaching his brother this week! I really have faith that the Lord is going to place his hand in Francisco´s scripture study, and he will recieve the answer he needs.
We also met Andres this week. Andres is from Haiti and is living with his cousin. They own a little restaurant, named The Negrita becuase they are both black. When we taught him the restoration this week, teh spriti was so strong. And he generally asked questions that meant he was earnestly listening. He has a very close relationship with God and when we contacted him we felt that we should give him a Book of Mormon. When we met him agian, he had read a little,a nd had a lot of questions. He has had several miracles occur in his life, for example there was a point when he his legs did not work, but after many prayers, he was miraculously healed. We hope to work with Andre more this week!!
Also we met Juan Pimienta, once in the street when we were contacting, and again on the bus. Two completely different days. Juan is a personal trainer and he always has good advice for how we can eat more healthily, and the other day he taught us a little bit of personal deffense. He is an immigrant from Columbia and lives alone. When he was yougner, he was a rebel and did not lead a very great life. He told us that when he found God, in a Christian church, it changed his life and he has a very close relationship with God right now. THe only problem is, he thinks that all the religions our right, because God loves us all. This is a common problem we are faced with here. The only thing we can do is teach the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ, and pray that they read the book of mormon in order to recieve a testimony of the truthfulness of the restoration. With Juan, he has a bad addiction to coffee, because he says its the only thing that really gives him energy in his work. But he was able to make a commitment to try one day without coffee when we taught the Word of Wisdom. I hope Juan has the faith to persevere and complete this goal!!
I love you all so much and I want to get to work, so I will write again next week.
Love Hermana Powley
