Monday, October 20, 2014

Week 42 - NEW AREA - Quito City - Bella Aurora - 20 Oct 2014

Hola Familia y Amigos!

And so I have been changed to Bella Aurora 2 in the Zone Quito Este!! It's gonna be an amazing time here. Hermana Dillman is my new companion and she rocks! She hails from Spanish Fork, Utah, and Utah State University. My first North American companion. Its gonna be weird to talk in English, every now and then, I also don´t think she eats a whole lot. Hopefully she doens´t judge me, I really like to eat. She seems really great and I´m excited to get to know her a little better. To start out my letter, I would just like to give a quick recap of Central 2, with our investigators. And I would like to say how grateful I am to have been to be with Hermana Torres. She has been such a good help´for me and a great example. We really ended up being close friends despite being together only 3 weeks. She´s going to train this change! Wahoo! shes gonna rock. I am so grateful for her faith and hope that she spread through our prayers in order to see miracles. I am going to miss Ibarra so much. I loved it there. We had 2 investigators with baptismal date. Jhony and Malena.

 Jhony was a miracle de verdad. I contacted him and his wife on the bus a couple weeks back, and turned out they lived in the sector of the Hermanas from Ejido. And so we passed the reference. A couple weeks passed by. We were outside of the capilla yesterday waiting for investigators to show up, and then, this special couple Johny and Nichole, passed by and asked us what hour started the meetings. We told them ya mismo! and then we steared them into the sacrament room. I didn´t recongize them at first as the couple I had contacted, but later I asked them if we had met before, and they did remember. I was filled with such a great joy, that I had made a small contact, almost insignifant that led to grand things. Turns out, they moved and now live in our sector!! Blessings or what? Jhony, we went to his house later that evening to teach him, and he accepted baptismal date, we gave a camino de fe, book of mormon, and have a family home evening planned with him and his wife (who actually is a less active who moved from the Oriente) with a member on tuesday. Its so sad that I won´t be able to be there to help them progress, but I know they are in good hands.

Malena, still has baptismal date for the 8th of November, she has great desires to repent and be baptized, but sometimes school projects on sundays keep her from going to church. I hope we can really help her understand the improtance of keeping the sabbath day holy this week (slash, Hermana Torres and her new companion will help her)

As for Betty, she was not able to be baptized this week, because of work conflicts and she wasn´t able to reiceive her interview . Then we passed by her house sunday morning a couple hours before church, and she was getting ready, doing her hair, wearing a dress and everything ready to go. But she didn´t show up to church. We have no idea what happened. Keep praying for Betty, that we will be able to solucionize her problems that our still yet a mystery, We have full hopes that she will be batpized this weekend if we can contact her. But then again, here I am in a new sector! SO with full hopes in this new sector we will see miracles too!

Anyways these 6 months in Ibarra have been teh best. I have grown so much and learned the importance of honor. When we truly honor God and his plan and his commandments, there is power. One cannot exercise the power of God without honoring his name. Every object on earth honors Gods word, and for that God could create it. If we honor Him, he can transform us into being what we need to be in order to reach ultimate happiness. But what does that mean, honor? What do we honor, on this earth? Sometimes we honor more what others say, how many baptisms someone has, how well they speak the language, how much service they do. But when it comes down to everything, is the one we honor most, our very own father in heaven? I hope so. Because only then, are we given power from on high. Even though I don´t posess the priesthood, I can feel its power.  I am so happy. I know that the Lord is watching over us. And I know that he is protecting us. Everytime I read the BOok of Mormon, I know that I must continue to be fiel, keeping every one of the commandments and mission rules with exactness, even with love. I had a huge realization this week. We must act and obey, not just because we fear God and we know the commandmetns are right, but because we love God. I realized that prayer is the most powerful when we recongize the true love we have for our Father thanks to all he has given us. If we love God with all our heart, mind, and might, we have a clear way to return to His presence. This was my week, I hope the week that comes serves to be just as wonderful:)

Con Amor
Hermana Powley