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!