Hola Mi Querida Familia!
What a week! Started out with an all day leadership conference on Tuesday. That was fun but very long. Then, I found out that one of the sisters in our district went home due to a crazy health emergency, the doctors don´t know what's wrong. So her companion was left companionless. I was aware of all their investigators with fecha because Hermana Espinoza and I had accompanied them a couple times to help them in their sector. President was just going to send Hermana Aquino to San Carlos, which is very far from her sector, and it would have been like sector suicide. So I talked with him, and we got permission to be in a trio this week to help Hermana Aquino´s investigators. It was very rewarding although very crazy. Hermana Aquino´s sector is very close to ours so we stayed in my house and worked half day in El Eden and half day in our sector, Bella Aurora.
El Eden includes the US embassy, and many Mormons work in the embassy because so many just happen to be fluent in a foreign language because of living overseas for 2 years, so we had north american lunches all week long, and talked english with the members. We also went to 2 sacrament meetings and WOW, sacrament meeting in El Eden was like being in the states. I´ve never seen so many white people here in Ecuador. This week was like the first time in forever that I had a warm brownie with vanilla ice cream, heard little kids talk english, and just entered into fancy houses. It actually got to be kind of overwhelming for me I´m not going to lie, because we had hardly any time to work, traveling back and forth and such. But the blessings are real, the Lord has seen our efforts in serving Hermana Aquino, I know it because we were able to help many of her investigators come to church.
Rocio Benalcazar continues to progress, and had her interview last weekend. Which means she is all set to be baptized this weekend. We are really excited and she is too. The members are doing a great job helping her feel like she belongs and loving her. Our plan this week is to just really focus on reading the Book of Mormon with her and helping her get even more excited for her baptism. I love Rocio so much. Rocio is our only investigator with fecha, but we also have Luis who possibly could get baptized next Saturday. Pray for him.
We also were able to teach Veronica and her kids this week. Veronica is so great, she is very humble and has seen many miracles in her life over the past couple weeks. Sadly they weren´t home when we passed by to pick them up for church, but we will be visiting them soon. I have attached a cute picture of Veronica and her kids and the bishop's wife who accompanied us to teach them. Veronica´s kids are golden. They sit quietly and pay attention to our lessons, answer questions, and fight over who gets to pray:)
This week I would just love to share my testimony about Humility. I never realized that it was something that I really needed to work on, but just because of that, it most definitely is. I was reading about humility in Preach my Gospel, and what struck me was that humility means we desire for and give all the honor to our Heavenly Father. How many times do we as missionaries get caught up with how many baptisms we have, or how many lessons we were able to teach, or any other little thing, so that we are able to say that we are excellent missionaries. The only reason we serve is to give all the honor unto our father in heaven. I love that. Sometimes when I get down, and think, well.. its been so many months since my last baptism, I´m thinking on the “me” spectrum. Not on God's spectrum. True that we must pray for miracles and success.. but we should never never never take personal credit for such success. We are only missionaries because the Lord has called us. We are called to a higher expectation of living and obedience to be able to be super sensitive to the spirit. How good of missionaries are we? How much can God place his trust in us? God trusted his only begotten son Jesus Christ with the lives of all of us because Christ promised his father that “the glory and honor be thine.” God will trust us with the lives of others, to the extent of our humility.. our ability to forget ourselves and the credit. This knowledge is changing who I am. I love the gospel and I love the sweet and simple revelations we receive through prayer and diligent study. I love being a missionary.
Have a great week everyone!
Con Amor
Hermana Powley
