GOD HAS PERFECT TIMING AND A PERFECT PLAN

I HAVE THE COOLEST STORY EVER FOR YOU ALL TODAY!!!!!

But before I tell ya let me just state that I am soooo exhausted!!! And it’s a great thing!! "Why is my favorite missionary so tired?" you may be asking yourself... its because its been one heck of a week and most days began at 4:00 or 5:00am!!  I’ve decided that the mission is coming to an end just way to fast.... SO I DONT GOT TIME TO SLEEP!! We had one lesson at 6:00am on Thursday, which means waking up and getting ready at 4:30am to get geared up. We went to the temple on Friday and had to drive 45min to the temple and show up at 6:00, which means waking up at 4:00am. Then just to throw the bow on top, we had a baptismal service at 7:30am Sunday morning, and for those of who know what its like we had to clean and fill up the baptismal font and church before hand.... meaning another wake up alarm at 4:30. 

BUT WAIT there’s more!! Sunday night my comp had changes to become Assistant and we spent the whole night talking cuz he was kind of nervous and we have really become great friends!! I will defiantly miss this guy!! He has been a great soldier and an incredibly hard worker, plus I taught the guy to laugh a little harder and have an even better time in the service of the Lord! MAN I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!

So on to my super incredible story right!?!

To my adoring fans who have paid such extraordinary attention to my banana and rice filled life here in Ecuador, you will all recall that last year elder Stidham was severely sick and hospitalized many days.... it really was a rough time for me because I just wanted to be in the field working and I was in way to much pain and suffering to do much... I seriously went through a million trails and learned many more life long lessons, but among my heart-ach and countless doctor/hospital visits I began to know and talk with my nurses and doctors. I actually became great friends with one doctor and I taught a little bit of the gospel to one of my nurses.

Well over a year latter our hero elder Stidham is walking down the sweetly scented trash filled streets of Guayaquil and knocks on the door of a reference. The next thing he knows is that this same sweet nurse who received a little of the gospel from a sick missionary appears in the doorway... they both look closely at each other trying to awkwardly remember where they know each other and then it dawns on them and she gladly lets the missionaries into her home!

 (Idk why this is in 3rd person lol!)

But anyways I got to teach her the gospel, the spirit testified of the truth powerfully to her that the message of the Plan of Salvation is true, AND THEN SHE FEASTED ON THE BOOK OF MORMON!! Like literally. In only 4 weeks she has read all of 1 and 2 Nephi!!

Well as I said earlier, we had a baptism Sunday morning at 7:30am.... can you guess who got baptized???

That’s right, Gevoanna Jibaja, my old nurse, was prepared by the Lord and introduced to the gospel of Jesucristo by your favorite skinny, extremely sick and insanely white missionary! (And no I’m not sick anymore!!)

Even though I’ve been joking a lot in this letter, I really can’t describe how humbled I have been to have this amazing experience! The Lord prepared me in a way that I never could have imagined becoming an instrument in His perfect hands. I am sooooo grateful of every rough day that I went through last year just to have been able to meet Geovanna. As I reflect back on how close I came to being sent home from the mission due to illness and how many tears of sadness I shed I just have the words of Jeffrey R. Holland ringing in my head when he said:

Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.

Brothers and sisters I add my testimony to those true and powerful words. God has a PERFECT TIMING FOR ALL THINGS!!

It’s been one crazy and incredible week and I’ve got another one coming up.

Elder Stoker is my new companion and he’s from Syracuse, Utah!! 

-He has 9 months in the mission

-I’m training him to be a Zone leader!

-I’ve heard a million great things about him!

-As far as I can tell they are all true and I’m pumped!!

We will be having a baptism this Saturday of an investigator who has been investigating and attending the church or over 11 years!!! Please Pray for Karina, she has done a 180 with her life in these last 6 weeks and her family has told me that they have never seen her happier!!

Love you all!!!! 

Please write and let me know how you all are!!!

Are you a Potato or an Egg?

Does that title make any sense at all?? NO! Unless you read this question that my bro Elder Withers shared with me this fine morning: 

"The same boiling water that hardens the egg softens the potato, it's about what your made of, not your circumstances" 

So that kind of struck me today because we have been seeing a lot of miracles lately and we thought that tons of investigators were progressing really well... but turns out that not everyone is strong enough to hold onto the gospel. We have been working incredibly diligently these last 5 weeks and haven’t seen much success as in terms of baptisms which is strange to me because usually we should have had several from how hard we are working and how much the ward is doing to help... but the Lord has a purpose for all things. 

We had 8 investigators who had attended church, felt the spirit, and accepted baptismal dates decide to stop investigating the church.... that’s kind of rough for one week.... but at the same time we have been very blessed and guided to several others who I believe will be baptized over the next few weeks so I’m still as happy and positive as ever!!

So let me tell ya about one miracle we had this week!!

There is a non-member couple who have a son currently serving a mission. And this mother and father never wanted to hear a word from the missionaries and love to drink and sell alcohol... well a week ago on Sunday this missionaries mom showed up at church and I got to meet her! Elsa (yes just like in frozen) sells empanadas for her job and invited us over last Thursday. We get there and start talking to her husband who also never wanted to listen to the missionaries either. But the Lord prepares his children!! We started small talk with him and talked about sports for a bit (the world cup lol) and then offered our service. He gladly accepted because they are going to move houses and wanted help clearing the land and prepping it. 

After our service we were eating empanadas again and Hno Rene asks me what do we know and believe about death? We got excited and told him a brief explanation of the Plan of Salvation and asked if we could come back another day to share more! He accepted and is progressing slowly but surly!! 

OH, AND HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO THE BEST PAPÁ EN EL MUNDO!! LOVE YA DAD!! 

Not sure what else to add besides that we had a ward activity and our lesson was on the Restoration of the Gospel. We decided to make hand-made cut out puzzles and then take 1 piece of each puzzle so they couldn’t finish them.  We related the puzzle to the gospel of Christ and that no one had the entire puzzle and that everyone was confused and frustrated without the Fullness of the Gospel. We watched Joseph Smith’s first vision and then ended with some games and food! It was a bomb activity and we have another one coming up this week!

Love you all and thanks for the support!!

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

We almost burned the house down...

So many stories to tell and no time to do so....

Anyway my companion burned the cable to out electric stove and it sent sparks everywhere and our house looked like the 4th of July jaja!!!! I valiantly took one for the team and ran into the blazing scene to rip out the stove from the outlet and was only slightly singed!!

haha oh the things that’ll happen in a small cement house in banana land!

Oh yeah! We are seeing miracles on a daily and had 9 investigators show up to church on Sunday!!! 11 have baptismal dates still.

If you want to help a brother out send us some prayers for Jipson and his family. He’s having some difficulties with drugs but wants to get baptized!!

Thanks for the love and support!

Have a great week!

Read the book of Mormon!!

1 Nephi 1:1 

13 Fechas Bautismales!!!

We are on fire here in the Pedregal!!!!

Man we are working our tails off but hope to see some huge results this up coming week! We have found our way to many investigators to be able to teach all of them that want us to!! Which is awesome but terrible at the same time!! Its great being so busy that there’s never a second wasted but at the same time its kind of rough having to choose between who we focus on and who we have to leave hanging....

We were suppose to have a baptism or two this week but they got some anti-Mormon family members who got them shook up a bit. We will work on them a lot this week to see what miracles the Lord has in store for them!

Never a dull moment as zone leader. We had an incredible zone conference with our President Moreno and his wife Hermana Moreno. They brought the spirit big time helping me understand JUST HOW DANG IMPORTANT THE BOOK OF MORMON IS!!!!! 21 months and you’d think I would know that right?! Well as always, the Lord wants me to prefect myself more than ever! We also did several practices of teaching an entire lesion in just 5 minutes!!!! And let me tell ya, ITS SOO MUCH MORE SPIRITUAL! We learned how to get down to business real quick, invite the Holy Ghost to testify, leave a commitment on the Book of Mormon and take out a return visit in just 5 minutes! 

IT HAS WORKED MIRACLES IN MY SECTOR THIS WEEK!! 

By far the best part of our multi-zone conference was when President and his wife at the end gave us an example of the most spiritual 5 minutes I’ve ever had outside of conference!

Sorry I don’t have time to talk more about those incredible 13 souls who have accepted a baptismal date but they are awesome and cant wait to see what the incredible power of the Book Of Mormon will do in their lives!!

SHOUT OUT TO MY AMAZING ABUELITO FOR 88 LONG AND HAPPY YEARS OF LIVIN LIFE AND THE GOSPEL!! Te amo bastante!!

So I have some catching up to do on the picks.... my cameras not feeling too well so I’m going to take him to the doc to see what’s up... but good news is that my comp had some picks over the last 3 weeks! Bad news is that Latin’s have a different filter mode on which makes them look "lighter" or in my case.... a whole heck of a lot whiter....

And yeah my comp is in loooove with hamburgers!!

 

Anyways do as our beloved prophet Thomas s. Monson reminded us so frequently to follow the saviors example and "go about doing good" Hechos 10:38