The importance of the sabbath day

Hola amigos!

We had a great time this week. Although we slacked a little bit in our diligence and I got sick, we still saw a few great miracles.

 Two weeks ago we had a chapel open house, basically a tour of the church building. Most of the people who came and live within our sector live a little far away. But we went to visit one of them, a young family. Johanna and Henry Caiza. Henry is a less active member of the church and Johanna isn´t a member yet. We went to teach them about the sabbath day because they didn´t come to church last week when we invited them. 

We taught that Christ suffer all of our pain, sins, temptations, difficulties, and so much more when he was on the earth and because of that, in him we can find peace, comfort, and repentance. We go to church every week not just to learn more about God, but to remember our hero Jesus Christ who saved us from every bad thing that comes from living in this world. When we takes the sacrament, we remember that act, and can be cleansed again  and again. 

When we taught them about that, Johanna started crying, and said that she always wanted to join the church, but her parents didn´t support her. Just recently, her parents started to support her and even want to learn more about the church. What makes things better is that marriage dropped in price. It used to cost 85 dollars to get married but now it only costs 45. Think we may have a wedding soon!

Henry at first was making up all kinds of excuses for why he wasn´t reading in the Book of Mormon or praying frequently, but he taught me about humility. After about the third time of bugging him about it, he said, You are right. I´m not doing everything I can to be a good father of this family. My wife is putting in a lot of effort to get married to me and join the church, but I´m just relying on what I used to know from when I went to church earlier. I need to work harder to keep progressing and help my wife in this process.  It impressed me soo much how humble he was to recognize his mistakes and decide to change. I love this family!

Well I think that may be all I´ve got for today. Here´s a picture in the cool lighting that a bus had. 

Elder Cloward

Angels

Hola Todos! 

This week was great! But we are going to start with some sad news. 

A lot of the people we were visiting and were preparing to be baptized haven´t been able to come to church, so they´re baptismal dates need to be moved. Our mission president is going to talk to us this change about the sabbath day and why we need to keep it holy. This will help us a lot with the people here who aren´t used to going to church more than 2 times a year. I´m excited to hear what president has to say.

However at the end of the week, we met the nonmember father of a recently returned missionary. Elder Lindo, or Oscar gave his return address this week and his dad joined him there. His Dad loved the church and says he wants to keep going. He told us that he would be willing to join the church after attending a few more weeks. It was incredible. Oscar is helping him a ton!

 

This week I learned about angels. In the scriptures it talks about angels as, resurrected beings, people who have died and haven´t been resurrected, people who haven´t yet been born, and righteous (I really forgot how to spell that word) people on this earth. 

If you have the chance to meet resurrected beings, you are very lucky, but maybe you will have the chance to feel the presence of relatives that have passed on or people waiting their mortal life supporting you in your efforts. Mostly, we are going to meet angels in all the people around us, who teach us and help us to become better. Have you been touched by angels? I´ll send a photo of one who helped me this week in divisions that we did. His name is Elder Lainez.

Well that´s about all we got for the day. See you all next week!

Elder Cloward

The importance of prayer with real intent

I don´t really have a lot of time to write, so I put my letter to the mission president in google translate. Sorry if there are errors.

On Friday we saw some miracles. But when we started planning, all the appointments fell through. The sheet was white, then we continued with our studies and at the point of leaving the house I prayed. I asked with more intention that God would guide us by his Spirit. And he did. We were able to visit our neighbors who are very interested in the message. And then we went to a person, who had a baptismal date, to visit him and we told him that we were going to print a baptismal plan for him. When we left the cyber, my companion forgot his backpack and we had to go back. Then we went to the appointment and we shared with the brother. Upon leaving, we found ourselves right with some contacts we had before and we were able to invite them to the open house. I think if my companion had not forgotten his backpack we would not have met them. At the end of the day, we passed by some old investigators who weren´t really progressing well, but there we found a person visiting them who had listened to the missionaries a long time ago. We were able to show them all and invite them to the open house as well. I learned how important prayer is. If we really talk to God, and we do not just pray, He is more willing to help us.  

I´ll write more next week.

Elder Cloward

Changes, stronger relationship with companion, service, great people

Hola Amigos!

This week really FLEW by. This change really FLEW by. 

So we had changes, and we are going to stay here, but the zone Ambato was cut in half to Zone Oriente and zone Ambato. Instead of 26 missionaries to watch over we only have 14. So we will lose contact with a lot of missionaries, but we will be able to focus more on the ones we do have in the zone.

I was a little nervous this change because Elder Sánchez and I were just getting closer in our relationship. Luckily, or by divine design, we are still together and are now able to keep working harder and becoming greater friends. He has already helped me out a lot and I am infinitely grateful for him.

This week on Wednesday we had a service activity with a family in our sector. The wife is from here in Ambato but owns a Tex-mex restaurant, and her husband is from New Zealand. His name is Paul. He isn´t a member of the church but is really faithful. The only problem is he can´t get his papers to get married with Heidi his wife because they are in New Zealand. But he is super awesome and friendly and will become a strong member of the church. In June he plans to go back to New Zealand and will be able to get baptized and bring his papers back. 

We spent the week inviting everybody to church and nobody came. Even the people that have baptismal goals weren´t able to come, but we were able to give a date to another person this last week. His name is Richard. He is from Venezuela and all his family is out there, so he is here alone and often sad, but he really enjoyed church last week and wants to work towards baptism. 

We didn´t get to meet with the Ortiz Pico family this week, but we plan to meet with them and other members this week.

Well I believe that that´s all folks. 

Ya estamos aquí otra vez

Hola amigos!

The weeks are really flying, and this week was craAazy!

On Tuesday we had interviews with the mission president, and apparently last transfer they were on Wednesday, so, due to some bad communication on our part a district of missionaries ended up getting late. I was just happy we were all finished getting the interview in Good time.

On Wednesday we had Zone conference and our mission president talked a lot about self esteem. When we have bad self esteem it is a lot harder to have success. Some things that help me when I feel down are read my patriarchal blessing and the letters from my family.

Also later on Wednesday we did divisions with the assistants and I learned a lot from Elder Fillmore. Most of all I felt his love. Together we found a Venezuelan that is really interested in following the message.

On Friday we did divisions again and Elder Bezzant and I had a really great time serving God together that afternoon. He is our district leader and only has a few months left in his mission but I can tell has grown to be more like Christ. I hope I can stay here in Ambato with him.

On Saturday we had a Book of Mormon activity in a park and did an open chapel activity in a city called Baños. We weren´t in our sector at all that day.

Lastly, on Sunday we set a family up on baptismal date. Famliy Ortiz Pico has been struggling a lot because their family is really mean to them. They want to change but have a lot of opposition. They are trying to do there best and I am very proud of them

Well that´s all folks

Here´s a few pictures of rock climbing records we did this week.

Just a bunch of pictures

This is my goofy old companion Elder Gomez. He´s in the same ward as I am. 

This really big spider crossed our path in Pelileo. It was super cool

We had a baptism. Juan Cobo was super excited. God has blessed him a lot!