Semana 46-One Year!

Hi everyone! I hope you`re all doing great! This Wednesday I reach the year mark!! The time goes by super fast. It`s all down hill from here. This is when it`s extremely important to give it all you`ve got.

To help us gain more trust with Bishop, on Thursday morning we and the other companionship made a ton of breakfast burritos then gave them to the Bishop. He was super happy and invited us all to his house this Thursday for lunch. Yesterday, we saw the fruits of our burritos: He`s a lot more helpful with us and he trusts in us even more and has a desire to help us.

Friday morning, we received short notice that a third companionship was going to be coming to open up a sector here in Chillogallo. We waited for a while at the bus station then showed them to their new apartment. We had to make changes in the boundaries and our sector is smaller now, but that`s okay because we`re going to be able to focus more on areas more closer and not lose time traveling far distances. In these next few transfers, a ton of missionaries are going to be coming from the MTC, later this year, every ward and branch in this mission will have at least three companionships. With 6 missionaries in every ward, the work should progress a ton. The Lord is hastening His work and that`s why He`s sending so many missionaries here. 

We`ve been worknig a lot to find new people to teach. J doesn`t want anything to do with the church anymore and almost everyone else except a few aren`t progressing. We`ve had to drop a lot of people. The other companionship here as well has dropped almost all of their investigators. Now that we`re getting a lot more support from the ward leaders and other members, we should start getting more references and have more people to teach. We`ve made some plans to participate more with the members and we`re really excited to start working more with the members. The best missionaries in the scriptures passed for times when they didn`t have people to teach and a lot of times were rejected. The Lord promised them that if they remained diligent and faithful and encouraged to work, then The Lord would give them success and guide them to the people that are prepared to receive the Gospel. I know the same is true with us. Other times in the mission, I know that the Lord guided us to find families that were prepared to receive the Gospel, (like the Family G and the Family G). So I know that if we keep doing what we`re doing, and always trying to work even harder each day, then the Lord will give us success and help us find these families and people.

Well that`s about all for this week. have a great week everyone and stay safe!

-Èlder Gòmez

Sè que Jesucristo vive y Su Evangelio es el camino para llegar a la felicidad. Amo ser misionero muchìsimo.

Semana 45

Hi everyone! I hope you´ve all had a great week this week. This week is the last week of President Ghent. On Friday President Christensen will be coming here and starting next week, he will be taking over the Ecuador Quito Mission. We had a final zone conference with President Ghent on Friday to say goodbye to him. It´s sad to see him and his wife go, but we´re excited to start working with President Christensen. He will do very good.

Well J didn´t get baptized as planned. His brother called him from Colombia the night before his baptism and told not to get baptized and to wait for him to come to Ecuador to get baptized. But his brother won´t be here another few weeks or even a month. Then two days later he had some bad seizures and bruised and cut his face bad and didn´t come to church. We´re going to try to help him out and pray for him to help him finally reach a baptism date. 

Our investigators didn´t come to church yesterday. Elder Batista and I today made a list of all the things we´re going to do this week to improve and have more success in the week. Sometimes in the mission, we pass through a lot of trials and difficulties. It can get really hard at times, but I know that the Lord is always with us. If it wasn´t easy for Jesus Christ to perform the atonement and carry out his mission, then why should we expect our mission to be super easy? The Lord gives us these challenges to test our faith and if we can endure them well, He will bless us with greater faith and success in the end. I´m almost at the year mark, and from there it´s all down hill. This last year, I need to serve like I´ve never served before. 

Hope you all have a great week this week. Stay safe and pray for opportunities to share the Gospel, because the Gospel is the only way to find happiness.

-Élder Gómez

Amo ser misionero :)

Semana 44

Hi everyone!! Hope you`re all having a great day and that you all had a great Father`s Day.

I can`t believe that tomorrow I turn 19 years old and in two weeks I`ll have a year in the mission. How the time goes by...

Well it looks like I don`t need rabies shots!! yay! We went to the Health Center and they said that we just need to watch the dog for 10 days and if it`s still alive and healthy after the 10 days then I don`t need the vaccine. We even showed them the dog the and someone from the healh center examined it and said that the dog is healthy. How lucky, because the vaccine is 10 shots in the stomach! Ouch! Other than that, my leg is healing well.

Today for P-Day we went in the mountains as a zone and hiked a trail to a water fall. It was really cool! It was a lot of fun but now I`m sunburnt. Haha

Well J didn`t get baptized on Saturday. He realy wanted his family to be there for his batism, but because they couldn`t come he wanted to do it the next week. So this Friday will be his baptism. He`s super excited to get baptized and to share the Gospel with his family. We taught his friend and she wants to asist church, but didn`t come yesterday because of Father`s Day. 

We taught an investigator named L who has been asisting church for quite a while now with her aunt who is the wife of one of the couselors in the stake presidency. Her dad is a return missionary but went inactive and she never got baptized. She was living in Colombia with her mom for a long time but just few months ago decided to come live here with her Dad and her aunt has been teaching her about the church and she wants to get baptized. Her Dad remaried also and his wife wants to get baptized too. It`s going to take some time though because we want to reactivate the Dad but he works so much and hardly gets time off and he wants to make sure that his daughter and wife have a firm testimony before they make the decision.

Well, it`s World Cup time and I think this is going to have an affect on the Latin America missions and everywhere else where soccer is huge. In our ward, church attendance is normally about 180. But yesterday was Father`s Day and also Ecuador played (they lost) and attendance dropped to 120. Elder Dalin H. Oaks came down here last week for a YSA conference and talked to President Ghent and told him that under no circumstance are the missionaries allowed to watch the World Cup. That`s good, because I think the World Cup is distracting some missionaries.  But we`re still working diligently and are focused on our work. We know that we`re here for a reason and a purpose to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive His Restored Gospel.

Well that`s about all for this week. Hope you all have a great week and stay safe and happy. Can`t wait to hear from you all next week!

Happy Father`s Day to all you fathers!

-Èlder Gòmez

Amo ser misionero

Semana 43

Hi everyone! I hope you`re all doing great! Things are going great here!

I got attacked by dogs on Saturday. One of them bit me on the upper leg and it was bleeding. Thankfully everything is all good now, but I`m probably going to have to get rabies shots because the owner said the dogs aren`t vaccinated. The owner of the dogs are the parents of our mamita, so we`re gonna have to go back everyweek. Everytime we go, I`m going to come prepared with rocks, ready to defend myself if it happens again. Don`t ever trust dogs! 

This Saturday we`re going to have the baptism for J. He had his interview last night and everything is all good to go. He`s progressed a ton and we`re excited for him. We`ve seen a great change in him, and that`s the most rewarding thing to see as a missionary; seeing the mighty change of heart in the people that we teach. That`s what the mission is about: it`s about changing lives and helping people come unto Christ by receiving His Restored Gospel. J is nervous to tell his family though because he`s afraid they`re not going to support him. I know though that they will support him. When we have the desire to live the Gospel, the Lord prepares the way so that we can do it. Sometimes there are sacrifices, but there are always blessings by living the Gospel. 

My new companion Elder Batista is really good. I miss Elder Tzun but I really enjoy working with Elder Batista. He`s really humble and diligent and I know we`re going to have a lot of success this transfer. He`s really funny too, especially his accent. Sometimes I don`t understand what he says because he has a Portuguese accent and mixes in Portuguese words sometimes. 

We`ve been trying to work more with the members and it`s been working. The members always help a ton. If we`re working diligently but not with members, then we`re not working effectively. We need to work with not only our feet, but also with our brain. We`ve been trying to put that into practice more here and we`re seeing results. We`ve got more people progressing and we`re gaining the trust of the members. 

Well, that`s about it for this week. Have a great week everyone and watch out for dogs!! 

-Èlder Gòmez

Se que Jesucristo vive y este es su obra. 

``Recordad que el valor de las almas es grande a la vista de Dios.``

Semana 42-Transfer Week

Hi everyone! I hope you´re all doing good!

I´ve got 11 months now!!! Almost at the top of the mountain, as they say. Then in two weeks I´ll be 19 years old. Unfortunately in this zone, when someone has a birthday or finishes their mission, all the missionaries in the zone whip them with their belts. One Elder turned 21, so we all took turns giving him a whip until we got to 21. Then two Elders finished their missions this transfer, so we gave them 24 whips. So I´ll probably be getting 19 whippings....

Today we had transfers and I´m staying here with Elder Batista. He is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese, so he´s been learning Spanish but he speaks very well. He´s 25 years old and has 3 months in the mission and just finished his training. He´s really good and has a great attitude about working hard so I´m really excited to start working and I know that we´ll have a lot of success this transfer.

We were in the bus station for a few hours today and while we were waiting we were able to see a lot of missionaries. I was able to meet up with some of my companions that I haven´t seen in a long time, including some of the companions that I trained. All of them are doing good and it was great to hear that. I also heard a little what´s happening in my last area; Pelileo. A lot of the people that I started teaching there finally got baptized, including the Family G!!! That made me really happy to hear that. I´ve learned that a lot of times, we work really hard and are diligent and obedient, but sometimes we won´t have success or baptize. That doesn´t mean we´re doing something wrong or not working. Sometimes the Lord gives us times of difficulty in the mission to test our faith and it allows us to become more converted to Him. Also, many times we´re only there to plant seeds and to prepare the area for future missionaries to have success.

J came to church yesterday! He has his baptism on the 14th of June and he is really excited for his baptism. He´s progressing great. Even though he has epilepsy and also was in an accident years ago that affected his brain, he still understands everything we teach him, and the Spirit has been working through him, testifying that these things are true. The only problem is that he drinks coffee every now and then. He knows that he needs to stop drinking and even his doctor is telling him to not drink coffee because it´s messing with his nerves and can cause problems with his epilepsy. He´s trying to stop and he´s made progress. We just need to give him a lot of support and help and daily visits to help him to stop drinking.

We have another family that that came to church named the Family C. We´ve taught them a few times, but they always say that they just want to learn more and don´t want to get baptized and don´t want to find out if this is true. We told them that if they never pray to find out if this is true then what they´re learning is just information and won´t help them at all. After that they realized that needed to find out if this is true, and showed up to church on Sunday! My companion sat with them and I wasn´t able to talk to them after, but I really hope that the Spirit was able to testify to them in the fast and testimony meeting. We have an appointment with them this week and we´re going to see if they read and prayed and invite them to baptism. If we never read, pray, or asist church then we´ll never know if this is true. You can´t learn for yourself if something is true unless you live it. You can´t say that pizza is delicious unless you eat it. That´s how the Gospel is. You can´t say it´s true or not unless you live it, then ask God if it´s true.

We´re really excited to start working this transfer. We´ve been working hard to have success, and even though we haven´t had all the success we wanted, I know that we´ve been preparing the area and that Chillogallo is ready to be harvested. ´´The field is white and ready to harvest.´´

Sé que Jesucristo vive. Amo ser misionero y amo servir a mi Padre Celestial y a Jesucristo.

¡Tengan una exelente semana!

-Élder Gómez