Made it!

I made it to Ecuador!

The plane was delayed in Miami, and we got here really late.
I am pretty tired but super excited to be here. 

We ate eggs cheese and a tortilla type thing for breakfast. 

Today we will have a chill day and interviews with the president and dinner at his house. 

Tomorrow we will have some training and leave for our areas. 

I am having so much fun trying to speak Spanish with the Latinos. They are all really funny people.

It is really pretty here, although right now we are in the center of the city. 

I won´t be able to answer emails until next week, but I wanted to let you all know that I love you and I have never been more excited in my life!

Hasta Luego!

Elder Cloward

And we received this from Joshua's mission president:

Dear Brother and Sister Cloward-

We are letting you know that your son has arrived safely to the Quito Ecuador Mission.  We can tell that he is a wonderful young man and we are so happy that he has joined our army of missionaries.  He was assigned a trainer yesterday, Elder Sócola, who is a great missionary and who will train your son well.  You will hear more from him next Monday, his P-day.  

We would like to introduce ourselves.  We have been serving as President and wife since July 1st of 2017.  We have five children - two married, one on a mission in Texas, and our youngest two (ages 14 and 17) are here with us in Ecuador.  With our son on a mission, and our older son serving in Indonesia a few years ago, we are aware of the wonderful blessings having a missionary brings. We are excited to serve with your son.  

Attached you will find pictures of your son's arrival, welcome dinner, with us and with his new trainer.  

We thank you for sharing your son and we know that the Lord will bless him and your family for his service.   

Sincerely, 

President and Sister Barlow

Little league, exchanges, baptism, visa?

Hola Todos!

Esta Semana Era buena!

A lot happened this week.

The little league baseball fields. Pretty cool place!

We had exchanges this Wednesday, where the leader of the missionaries in the district trades with a different missionary. Last week I traded with him, but this week, he traded with my companion, and I got to be in charge of the area for a day. It was very stressful because my companion Elder Madsen is so good at talking to people, and I felt like I had to fill that role. I did a pretty good job according to the district leader. It stretched me a lot, but I felt really accomplished at the end of the day.

On our way back, we took a few minutes to check out the little league world series baseball fields. My companion was two games away from being able to come to the fields when he was in little league, so it was a dream come true for him to be able to see them. It was pretty cool, and I don't yet have a great souvenir from Pennsylvania, so I may buy a hoodie from the shop there, because I didn't pack any kind of informal jacket.

Yesterday, we had a 2 hour long discussion a guy named Lucas about discernment. He was really worried that what we had to offer him was from a deceiving spirit and not the spirit of God. He may still read the book of Mormon, but it will take a bit to help him get over his fears. 

We have also been having great discussions with a lady named Virginia and her mother Linda. They are already very strong Christians, and have been meeting with us so far to understand us Mormons better. I think they are going to be baptized if they continue to read from the book of Mormon. 

Some of our other investigators are not keeping commitments, and it has been hard to help them grow. With some we may have to drop them if they can't understand the importance of the message we share. It will be very sad to do that. 

A member ordered pizza for us. Yay!

Holly was baptized this weekend! It was such a wonderful experience. She was so ready for it. She bore a strong testimony at the end of the service of how she new that this was the right choice for her. The next Sunday (yesterday) she was conformed. That morning she couldn't find her car keys anywhere so a member of the church had to pick her up and bring her to the church. She is planning on attending the temple in a few weeks also. I'm sure she will get her patriarchal blessing soon. I'm so happy for her. She is in such a great place right now

Nicolas who has been investigating the church for a while came to church yesterday! It was wonderful to see him there. He really has a hard time understanding the English church services, so this week we are going to teach him to understand the spirit of the meeting and understand the importance of the sacrament. When we taught him a lesson on Saturday, we told him that we wanted to help him be baptized after his two week planned trip to Peru. He is planning to go to Peru for two weeks and we plan to help him prepare to be baptized after his trip. He wondered why it had to be after, and we told him how Satan tries really hard to stop people from continuing in the church in the first 2 weeks after their baptism. 

He said. "Oh, I have something for satanás (Satan in spanish)"

And he proceeded to pull a Argentinian Mauser rifle out of his closet. 

Elder Madsen and I laughed a lot about that, but it proved to make a great rest of the lesson, because the stronger our faith in Jesus Christ, the better we can fend off the attacks of the devil in our lives. I told him that to prepare for his baptism we were going to help change his faith from a pistol to a rifle or maybe even a cannon! I think he was very excited about that, and will continue to progress well in preparation for his baptism.

More on my Visa in my next post.

This mission has been so incredible, and it has only started. I love you all, and wish you all the best! Till next time, maybe in Ecuador!

Elder Cloward

Exchanges and Investigators

Hola todos!

This week has been wonderful! We did a lot of work, and found 10 new investigators this week!
It will be a lot of work to continue progressing all of them, but we at least planted some seeds. 

We had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the District leader this week. Basically we changed companions for a day. I worked in the Williamsport walk area during the exchange with Elder Ifopo. He is really fun, and together we taught a less active member and tried to talk to people around downtown Williamsport. 

I learned two things from the experience.

One was that I am very glad to be serving in my area, because Williamsport was a much slower area, meaning that less people were interested in our message. 

Two, that I need to get better at acting on my first thought. When I am out talking with people, I have thoughts of what to say or do to help them, but I often second guess myself and decide not to do it. The first thoughts that I get are good ways to help and serve people, but I am too shy to try them sometimes.  

Holly is going to be baptized this weekend! She is progressing so well, and taking in all that the church has to offer her. It is incredible!

Angie and Cindy are also progressing well, they still don't believe that they need to be baptized again, but we watched the restoration video with them and talked more about the Book of Mormon and prophets. I think they felt the spirit from our message and will continue to progress more now. 

Mark is committing to work on his struggles with the word of wisdom, which is really awesome, but he still needs to learn to keep more of God's commandments like read the Book of Mormon, pray and go to church. 

We are going to learn how to play guitar with Chris today, and teach him the restoration of the gospel at the same time. He is really enjoying our messages so far, and will probably continue to grow closer to God. 

We met a new guy named Angel Gonzalez this week. He is from Puerto Rico, and doesn't know English, but re requested a bible from the churches online website, and we met with him and taught him. He really truly believed that what we taught was the word of God. It was incredible and he felt the spirit of our message. 

It has been really hard to stay in touch and meet with a lot of the people we have found. They have such busy schedules and we have a hard time tracking them down and having lessons. If only the people knew how important our message was.

I feel like my Spanish is not as good as it was 4 weeks ago. I had a really good accent in the Missionary Training center. Now I feel like I can understand people better, but I have trouble making up my own sentences and sounding like a native. 

Hopefully I can keep working on it, because if all goes to plan, I will be leaving for Ecuador in two weeks on the 23rd of April! The visa papers have all been turned in and now we are just waiting for the visa! I have loved this area in Pennsylvania, but I am also really excited to leave the country and teach the people in Ecuador!

Till we meet again!

Elder Cloward

Snowing in April!?

Hola Todos!

What a week! 

This weekend, the entire church had the opportunity to hear the words of the prophets and leaders of the church in an event called general conference. It was powerful. The prophets counseled us to do the little things that help us grow our faith and serve others as Christ would. One part that really stuck out to me was when the prophet, Russel M. Nelson told us to discover how we can receive personal revelation from God so we can understand what he wants us to do. God wants to talk to all of us. We just need to be willing to receive his guidance. 

Another part I really liked was from Elder Uchtdorf's talk. He said that if we are struggling with anything, anything, we should "Behold the Man." Turn to Christ.

The work here is progressing also. 

Holly, Angie, Nicolas, Mark, and his son Sincere participating in watching the general conference. I really hope they received answers they needed to hear. 

Elder Madsen and I are finding so many people to teach that it is making my head hurt. 

We met two people (Rick, and Cleo) who said they were looking for a new church and were excited to see what ours had to offer. We taught Cleo about the restoration, and she was very interested. I hope she can continue to grow and learn the truthfulness of our message. 

We also have pinpointed a few different apartment complexes with Spanish speaking people in them. The Spanish speakers are very open to talking and helping us learn how to speak Spanish. I am excited to learn more from them, and teach them the eternal truths of the gospel. The only struggle is that no one in the ward speaks Spanish, so if they were to join the church, they wouldn't understand anything. We really don't have a good way to solve this dilemma. Maybe God will provide a way. 

Angie, has been progressing well. She doesn't have any work right now, so she is very responsive when we send her text messages. We can practically teach her lessons over the phone.

Mark and his son Sincere are going through a very tough part of there life, and Mark is trying to overcome his struggles with the word of wisdom. Please keep them in your prayers. 

We met a guy named Luis who had met with missionaries in his past, but had moved, and he was wondering where we were. God led us to him, and now we have the opportunity to teach him more. 

One of the members led us to this very happy college professor named Chris. He teaches Engineering at Bucknell university. He is very outgoing and loves guitars and music. He has over 100 guitars and offered to help Elder Madsen and I learn how to play on our preparation day. I hope we can gain good friendship with him and teach him the joys of the gospel.

I personally am struggling a little bit with feeling courageous to talk with everyone. I feel like I have wonderful things to tell people about the joys of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God's love for us, but I struggle being brave enough to open my mouth and declare my excitement. I find however when I do open my mouth, I am able to testify strongly of the restoration of Christ's gospel. 

Elder Madsen has challenged me to do 100 squats every day. The first few days it was really hard, but my legs are getting stronger and now I'm not completely sore anymore. Just thought I would add that in. :P

I love it here in the country. Most people are very pleasant and willing to talk. The area is beautiful, and it will be more so when the trees start growing leaves. 

Nos Vemos! 

Elder Cloward

Here's a tour of our apartment:

Our car out in the April Snow.

The front area of our apartment with weights and a treadmill

The living area in our apartment with my companion cooking fajitas in the Kitchen.

Our bedroom.

1962 record album of Johnny Cash that was in the apartment when we got there. :P

The study room. We don't have blinds yet for that window, so I am blinded by the sun every morning when we do our studies.

The kitchen. My companion is making fajitas.

The creepy stairs leading down into the dark basement!

The dark and scary basement! Monsters live down here.