Por Fin

So. Here are weekly highlights...day by day.

Tuesday. We contacted a guy who turned out to be a Jehovah´s witness and was just in it to contend with us about what God`s name is. I will be forever confused as to why they are so stuck on that! Every Jehovah`s Witness I`ve met here asks me what His name is. God, I tell them. "Nope!" they respond with a smirk. "Jehovah." Firstly their interpretation of the Old Testament is entirely off, and secondly I don`t even understand why it matters. Talking to him broke my heart because he has zero hope for a life of bliss after death. Everything he was talking about sounded so miserable. Sorry, but if I have to suffer in this life I sure as heck better have the promise of eternal life without misery after this. 

Wednesday. Javier Calle had his baptism interview and PASSED! He had to overcome lots of things in his life to arrive at this point. he made a complete 180 to repent and change to follow the Savior. The atonement works. We can be clean, no matter what we`ve done. Christ loves us and wants us to be happy, and the only way to true happiness is when we`re not carrying a giant load of sins or guilt or anything that weighs us down. When we go to Him in sincere prayer, we`re handing over to Him every heavy thing we`ve been packing around so that we can carry on in our adventure to arrive at eternal life. I learned from Javier that it doesn`t matter what we`ve done. The past is the past and we all have the chance to move on and get better. If we`re willingto give Him all our worries, all our errors, and all our weaknesses...and most importantly, if we`re willingto put forth the effort to overcome those weaknesses in our lives...He will make us whole and we`ll find inner peace and lasting bliss. There is no substitute.

Thursday. Every day we eat lunch with a member of the ward. Thursday we were supposed to eat at a restaurant owned by one of the ladies in our ward, but we  arrived too late and they had run out of food. So I was secretly stoked about it because that meant I had time to cook! I invented a new pasta dish made of whatever I found in the cupboards and it was delish. I wish ther was amission calling to be the mission chef with a gourmet kitchen. I would gladly accept that assignment. 

Anyway...that night we worked and worked and a thousand appointments fell through. So then at the end of the night we decided to stop by the neighbor`s house and see if they would receive us. An older lady named Maria answered the door and we introduced ourselves. And then the most delightful thing happened! She invited us in! She told us about her family and we helped her make these car window towel things. She is such a sweetheart. We taught her about the restoration and she cried when we talked about families. I think every day that goes by my testimony of the importance of families grows. It might explode by the end of the mission. 

Friday. Nothing really of note happened because every single appointment we had fell through. Kind of a downer day, but those happen sometimes. 

Saturday. We went to teach the familia Chuñir. We sat down and were just talking about the chapter Pablo read in the Book of Mormon and asked if he had any questions for us. He looked at us way serious and said, "Well. Yes. I would like you to explain the 2nd commandment more thoroughly to my mom." You`d think after teaching the commandments a bunch of times I would remember the order of them by heart. But my companion and I just sat there for a second, cluelessly hoping the other would chime in to answer the question. Luckily we finally remembered. Honor thy father and thy mother. So we watched this way old school church video about families. I remember when I used to think church movies were lame and cheesy. Now I can`t get enough of them. Anyway, hopefully it helped them realize the importance of doing things together as a family (praying, reading scriptures, eating meals together, doing activities together, etc) and resolving conflicts with love and patience. 

Also the big event of the week: Javier Calle finally got baptized! It only took one failed interview, lots of baptismal dates, lots of lessons about the atonement, lots of patience, and finally one passed interview and one blissful baptism night. He was super nervous all week and wanted everything to go perfectly. We had some difficulty finding white clothes for everyone because last second we found out that an 8 year old from the ward was getting baptized too. So it was kind of a zoo right before the baptism. The pants we found for Javier were about 10 sizes too big so we had to use our missionary tag clips to fix them. It was way classy. But it all worked out. I spoke on baptism and how it is a chance to leave our old selves, including habits/errors/sins/imperfections, behind and start fresh...like when Lot`s family left Sodom. The Lord counseled them to "look not behind thee" and he counsels us to do the same when we take a step in the right direction. Continually move forward, constantly improving, without looking back. 

Anyway so we also sang Màs Cerca Dios de Ti, which happens to be my world`s favorite song. All 4 hermanas here in ourward sang and it was way poderoso. Also for the first time in my life I successfully sang alto. It was a miracle I think. 

My favorite part of the baptism? Javier`s reaction afterward: "por fin, hermanas! por fin!"

Sunday. Pablo Chuñir (age 16) promised he would come to church this week, which is huge because he works from 3am to noon 7 days a week. So we also invited his 13 year old sister to come...which required her to bring the 2 baby siblings because she babysits while the mom works. Weshowed up at 8 in the morning to pick them up and out walked Mayra with the two little ones all ready to go. They were absolutely adorable. But the bad news? Pablo was still at work. 

we went and called him but his phone was off. So we walked up this mountain to his work (he processes chicken to sell at the market). And we had to cross this soccer field right in the middle of a way intense city league game. So imagine this: 2 missionaries, 2 tiny kids, and a 13year old girl wandering across the field right in the heat of the game. Good news though...we didn`t even get pegged by the ball. And even better news! Pablo got permission to leave work and come to church! It was awesome. Plus even after all of that somehow we managed to arrive on time and we got to see Javier be confirmed and all was lovely.

Also today after church we ate with one of my favorite families in the world - familia Pintado. They are hilarious. they wer telling us about their love story and how they dated legitly for 6 days. They met in the mission and the rest is history. They`ve been happily married for 15 years with 3 kids. Hermano Pintado spoke so highly of his cute wife - how even though they`ve been through some crazy hard things she always supported him, and how he still thinks she`s the most beautiful thing on the planet after all these years. Love them. (But no...don`t worry. I don`t ever plan onfollowing their whole 6 day courtship example)

They also told us some pretty intense things regarding offense in the wardand how hard it is to come to church somtimes because of it. I wish everyone would just go to church to come closer to Christ. If we did so people wouldn`t be jerks and others wouldn`t get offended. Bt the truth of the matter is that the gospel is perfect...people are not. 

So. That was my week. Hope yours was full of happiness and health. 

My words of advice for the week? Never eat soggy waffles. Always find something to laugh about because life is way too boring if you`re serious all the time. Eat lots of really spicy food. And sing at the top of your lungs when you`re driving in the car.

Love you all more than an Ecuadorian loves soup and rice.