Carnival in Cuenca - Fun for Everyone Except Missionaries

So this week was awesome!  I really loved everything everyone said last week and really tried to put it all in practice and really was able to focus myself and feel the spirit so much more this week!  It used to be if I heard a song I liked it was a challenge to not dance and sing along, now I don't even want to.  It also was hard to want to study sometimes and I found myself getting distracted but this week I found myself ´feasting upon the word of the Lord´and it was just the best.  I have decided now to take being a true disciple of Christ and reaching my goals of who I want to be, one day at a time, and then hour by hour.  Telling myself that ´TODAY I am going to do my best, to follow Christ.´ still anything but perfect or even close but IMPROVING!!  YES!! 

We saw so many miracles this week too!  There is a family that was baptized 4 years ago and there are still memebers of the family that haven't been baptized yet so we went to visit them.  We are really working on starting our contacts better, and using the principles of Como Comenzar Enseñar mejor,(Getting Started and Teacing Better) and it has been amazing!  We taught a great lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then found that one of the members of the family had a real concern about where we go after this life.  I have learned that when someone has a really deep question, and a real desire to learn, it is so much better to give them materials to read and learn and then the challenge to pray.  Then afterwards, have a discussion about what they learned and answer any of the remaining questions.  We did that and WOW!!  The next time that we met he had read the whole pamphlet, then prayed, and when we asked him to be baptized, he said yes! That he knew it was true!  WOW!!

We also saw another miracle!  So the other week we were searching for a few lost members on our directory and while we were searching had a few good contacts. One of them was a lady named Patricia.  She had the same name of the lady we were searching for and because she was busy I asked if we could come back on Tuesday.  I could see in her eyes that she was about to say no, but it was like the words got caught in her throat and she couldn't.  She then accepted, rather bewildered it seemed.  When we went back it turns out she has been searching for God´s truth for a very long time and has been going from church to church to try and find it.  She has three kids and two ex-husbands, one of which is just the worst.  She really has been looking for support and help for her kids, and for her spiritually.  Maria, a member in our ward, was in almost the exact same situation when the missionaries found her and really has some WONDERFUL parenting advice so we went back with her the next day.  Her testimony was so key and helped Patricia so much, it also helps that she is the primary president and was able to help excite the kids for going to church too.  She also accepted a baptismal date and said that God had sent her angels. when we went to pick her up yesterday she told us, "I am not going anywhere today. NO!"  But then we testified and my companion, who was an investigator too at one point, bore her testimony, and she decided to come!  And it was awesome!!  Please pray for her too!!  CHURCH IS AMAZING!

(Also when we were coming back from that lesson we were sooooo late, and Maria was trying to halar el dedo, hitchike, back to the city, and then gave up and raised her pants to show her calf, and finally a taxi turned around and came and picked us up. I may have died laughing, especially when she asked the taxi driver if he had picked us up because he saw her leg and he responded, of course, it was shining! jajajajaja)

Also this week is Carnaval which means that we as missionaries, have not really been able to leave the house since Friday night.  I kind of thought it would be a nice break to just study and get all the things done we never really have time to do.  THAT WAS SUCH A LIE!!  We have been basically under house arrest for 3 days and I am going stir-crazy!  You just feel so pointless if you can't leave the house, even if you are doing good things like cleaning and studying, and painting an abstract tree of life on an old black table (it is really quite fabulous I must say). But carnaval really is a HUGE deal here!  Everyone has been throwing water and maizena, and silly string, and everything at us.  It looks like a lot of fun haha :)  But yeah! T hat is Ecuador and missionary work!  THE BEST COMBO EVER!! 

Love you all!!

Hermana Wride