I know how to kill and prepare a pig now

Hola Amigos!

We had a lot of great successes this week.

First, Luis was baptized.

It was so special to me to see him come out of the water, look up and laugh joyfully for the decision he had made. I felt God's presence really strongly there. Luis is going to do lots of other great things now that he is a member of the church.

Maria, the shy girl we are teaching passed her baptismal interview and will be baptized on Saturday. It's exciting!

Her aunt Daisy came to church this week and has been reading. It's a little difficult to teach them because when we visit there are a lot, and they sometimes feel nervous to answer our questions because they don't want to mess up in front of their family members. 

We weren't able to meet with Griseidi this week but we have made plans to meet with her this week. 

Overall, the district here is doing well with a lot of people preparing to be baptized in the upcoming weeks. 

Lastly, we went with some members of the ward to kill and sell a pig on the farm they had. It was really quite cool to see how it all worked out. We got there at 6:30 to kill it, and by 9:30 it was already almost all sold. I have a few videos, but I'm sure you guys won't want to see some of them, so I'll just send a short of of them blowtorching the pig.

That's all folks.

Elder Cloward

Have you ever been stung by a caterpillar?

Hola Amigos!

This week was pretty solid. We found a few great new people and have a lot of people that are preparing to be baptized, but a lot of them still struggle with coming to church.

This week while in divisions, my companion met Jazmin and her son Alex who were references from the family of the branch president. The missionaries who were here a while back wrote the information in the area book but never got in contact with them. They really have liked the church when they have visited it and are interested in learning more. 

Also we taught Griseidi about repentance this week. We bought a packet of fruit juice, and took a small amount of bleach in a bottle. When we told her about sins, we put the juice in the cup and told her that our sins make the water dark, but Jesus can clean it out like bleach. She was amazed by how the water changed colors so quickly with the bleach.

This week we also had to move the baptismal date of Daisy who is a family member of Juan Pablo. She wants to get baptized to help her family but has a hard time coming to church.

Maria, Juan Pablo's cousin, is planing on getting baptized next week, and said that she was a little worried about going to church because she didn't like going to Young Women's. She's rather shy, and doesn't like making new friends. We told her that as a young woman, she goes to that class to better serve the other young women in the ward. I think she understood that God needed her to go, not that it was just a church rule.

Luis passed his baptismal interview, so we have a baptism this weekend too. It's a little crazy how many we have lined up.

This week while teaching a lesson, I felt something crawling on my neck. It was a spiny caterpillar, so I quickly grabbed it and threw it off, but I think I should've just flicked it because it stung me and the rest of the week my fingers were swollen. Have you ever been stung by a caterpillar?

Well that's all for this week. We had changes, and we are both staying here. But a really great young man from this ward left today to go to Chile in his mission. Here's a photo when we said goodbye.

Elder Cloward

PS - Don't forget that you can email Elder Cloward directly at the following address:

joshua.cloward@missionary.org

Seeing the prophet!, and a baptism! (zoo)

A lot went on in the past two weeks that I couldn't write, so I'm going to load this email. 

We had an incredible opportunity to hear from God's prophet this week. In every dispensation, God calls a prophet to direct and bless his people. This week we saw Russel M. Nelson and I felt the Spirit stronger than I had in a long time

After wards we had a zone conference where a couple with specialty in stress came and gave us advice with how to mannage it. I didn't feel like I understood everything that they were trying to say, but they sure were excited to teach us. One thing I did understand was called a burn journal. In one side of the page, you write all of the negative thoughts and fears that you have and on the right you write the positive thoughts to combat them. I tried it and God taught me a few things about the errors I had in my thinking.

Also this weekend we had a baptism!

Juan Pablo was baptized and his family were all there. This sunday, they took up the whole back row! His cousin and aunt (Maria and Daisy) are also working towards baptism. When it was time for Juan Pablo to bear his testimony, he said "I know that my sins have been forgiven." It was really powerful.

Also, we met another kid from a family like that named Luis. He has a lot of energy and was about to get baptized but his mom sent him to spend vacations in the jungle. Now that he's back he wants to get baptized. It's exciting!

Lastly, there is a less active family that were really strong in the church in Quito but haven't been in a while. They live here now, and their 9 year old daughter (Griseidi) is in the baptism line too. I feel blessed to play a big part of the lives of the people in Puyo. 

Here are a few pictures. We went to a zoo today for preparation day. They had lions and leopards and some pretty silly monkeys. I was happy to see God's creations.

Nos vemos!

Elder Cloward

We had a service with machetes. Fun!