Pictures & Letter for Oct. 20th, 2014

Hey all! 

Great week this week! I saw a girl finish a mission and another leave to start her mission! Hermana Johnson finished and she was in our zone. She was an amazing missionary and really grew to love the mission! Then a girl from our ward named Erica Sanchez left for her mission in Peru, that was exciting to see!  We had her come out and work with us a few times before too, she is going to do well! 

We have a baptism this week of a friend from the Garcia family. His name is Kevin,  hes a great kid and people tell us they always see him reading his libro de mormon in his school! Our other investigator Jeremias was going to be baptized but he couldn't get to church so we had to move it back another week to get his 3 attendances in. Not supposed to only baptize kids, but these young men are awesome! We just need them to start getting their families to listen to us as well!

I'm loving the mission! don't have too much time cuz its kinda late but go ahead and read up on DC 121:36-46. Good stuff. look to how you can apply it in your life and... do it!

love ya all!

Elder Rawson:)

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS ALL DAY LONG...

                                 Birthday Celebrations All Day Long 

                                          Lunch with the Coronado family

                                         Dinner with the Jaramillo family

 A sweet member had me send her a bunch of pictures and videos of our family    telling him Happy Birthday and she combined them and made a video for him :)

And I thought he couldn't get normal candy and Reese's peanut butter cups there, now what to send him...I don't know!!!

 Hey peeps,  Thanks everybody for the birthday wishes! I had a great birthday weekend! Ate plenty of cake and everything:) The people here are very friendly:) I think I'm puttin on a little chub which isn't too good!  But anyways, this week I found out how big our ward is. A member Hermano Medina, took me and Elder Rosenthal, my district leader, around and showed us all of the area that I have to cover. Without bikes and cars it would be impossible for 2 missionaries to cover because everything is so spread out and huge!

We have spent a lot of time in a sector called La Delia which is very poor and the people are very friendly and open to listen to our message. We have liked working over there but then yesterday in Consejo de barrio (ward counsel), the members pretty much told us not to go over there because they didn´t want to help us over there with things like bringing them to church and stuff, so I´m not too sure what to do with this place.. hopefully president Riggins  sends more missionaries here to help us out with all this land. I´m doing great though. Spanish is basically comfortable, just trying to expand vocab and fluency. 

But I'll tell ya all about a guy named Luciano, he is from la Delia, blind in one eye, cant walk, lives alone, and sooooo grateful for everything he does have, its amazing! We took him to church with us and when you talk to him he always says, "amen!" and "Gloria a dios!" We invited him to come to church with us and he gladly came.  We arrived at his house a little late but he was still sitting there waiting for us. He had gone through the trouble of putting on his nice pants and shirt and everything and was ready to go. I think it made him very happy to go with us. but I don't  know what to do if the members don't want to help us with him.. But loving the mish!!

Love you all!!!!!!

-Elder Rawson:)

Week of Oct. 6, 2014

Spider-man to Superman

It looks like he's teaching the children very well over there,

 

or maybe his goofball personality is just rubbing off on them!!!!

    

Hola mi familia y amigos! 

I am getting on late today because we went to Guayaquil and went up to this big light house on the top. Got some pretty sick pics and videos, Don't know if I can attach them to emails. For some reason my email wont let me because they are too big? 

But I am definitely loving my mission. The advice I received from some other missionary at the mall right after I got here was correct! "Don´t worry, it gets better"

Hahaha

Yeah well nothing too much has happened this week. One day some members took us over to see another area that is part of our ward and it is so big! we talked to a few people over there and they are really nice. Apparently they just opened this place because no body knows the missionaries! We are going to spend some time over there! The place is cool and I feel like I'm in Africa over there. There's just a ton of bamboo shacks and lots of black people, Its awesome!

But for investigators we only have two kids Jeremias and Kevin. We want to teach their families but neither one wants to talk to us. They both are getting baptized the 25th but the family is always better. I'm in a tough area but we are going to keep searching for those people that are ready for the good word! 

My zone leader told me that I am going to be training next transfer which I think will be fun if it works out! I just hope they keep me here because I love the people here and I still feel like there is a lot of work to get done here!

I hope everyone watched conference cuz I did and it was my favorite yet! All the gringo missionaries in my zone watched it in English in a separate room:) so that was nice, except the Spanish talks, I went and watched with everyone else!

But I love you all!!!!!

-Elder Rawson:)

These dogs were nice, but I almost got destroyed by one the other day though. It was injured so I tried messing with it by pretending to pick up a rock and usually they run away, but it came after me! I started to run which is the worst thing to do and it ran faster so I stopped and got a huge rock and it ran away. It freaked me out though! Not messing with anymore dogs!

  

Well hello again my family and loved ones

Well hello again my family and loved ones. I sure hope everything is going swell. from last I´ve heard of home is the same old home so maybe I'm not missing out on too much. I feel like I can´t think of anything funny or interesting to say but I really just think I'm getting accustomed to how crazy Ecuador is. I will start keeping track of funny stories and crazy things that happen to me to spice up my emails a little bit from now on. 

But as for

missionary work, since I am in one of the hardest areas in the mission, we only really have one family that is really progressing and really interested. Its so hard to get families because there is always that one person in the family that has to talk bad to the rest of the family how they have their own religion and don´t need us. It gets frustrating sometimes. or only one person in the family wants to listen so we have to teach outside their house because the rest of the family is there. Its tough, but as for this family, its a family of one mother named veronica and her 4 girls. they are way cool except one daughter is apparently training to be a teacher in the iglesia evangelica.. So hopefully she will change her mind when her mom and sisters are baptized!

We had fast Sunday yesterday, which I love because I get to hear the testimonies of soo many wonderful people. Its really cool because although there are about 1/4 the people in the church here as there are back home, there is never a time when someone is not sharing their testimony and sacrament always goes over like 15 minutes every fast Sunday because people keep walking up. The people down here have the strongest testimonies and love this gospel so much. I love the members, Now all I got to do is make more of them!

I´m going to leave one of my favorite scriptures with you all this week, its simple, everyone knows it but its powerful.

1 nephi 3:7

I know The lord will always provide away for you to accomplish the things He asks if you are willing to give up your will for His. I also know his way His the best way and He wants to bless you more then you can think.    

Sept. 22, 2014 This place called Guayaquil is bien chevere! (really cool:)

¡Hola!
This place called Guayaquil is bien chevere! really cool:) and I am loving the mission. It definitely has its ups and downs but it gets better the more you learn to rely on the lord. They members here are probably what help get me by I love them so much. Every time I here them bare their testimonies I feel the spirit so strong its amazing to see how The Lord is working in the world today. Everybody here is so nice and friendly and it really breaks my heart seeing so many good people reject the true gospel of Jesus Christ. If only they knew what we truly were offering them. I have met so many good people and its going to break my heart when the day comes and I have to move on.

It seems like we always have more success when we work with members because walking around knocking on doors and getting appointments hasn't really been working because when we show up to appointments they never remember or just tell us how they are catholic. But I love the mish and I love the people.

For all the newer missionaries than me, always remember... IT GETS BETTER,  it truly does!! For everyone back home, I want to ask you to think of one person that maybe you haven't been getting along with and truly say a prayer and ask your father in heaven to help you to make the relationship stronger. My testimony of prayer has strengthened a ton and I know yours will to the more you talk to your Father in Heaven.

Elder Rawson

Love my happy Missionary!

Now I see why I don't get his weekly email until later in the day on his P-day!
I'm glad to see him getting to explore and have some fun!!

I think I'm not too worried about him starving by the looks of this!!! :)