1st Change Done

Hello everyone! Another week in the books… This week was kinda boring haha not too much happened.

Tuesday through Friday: So during the week, we went to Otavalo every morning for some kinda meeting because of changes and a ton of new stuff from the new manual and other changes that our president is making. So every morning we started with that and that always took up to lunch. After lunch we would do a little bit of planning and study then head out to teach because our week was packed with citas. We taught so many people!

Saturday: So, Saturday was by far the best day of the week! we had an early cita in the morning with familia Gomez. They are a family of three. (Luis, Alicia, and Andres) We have been working with this family for about 3/4 weeks now and we tried to put a date for baptism with them, but they didn’t feel prepared… Anyway during this lesson (Plan of Salvation) we only taught up to our life on earth and kinda focused on our purpose here on Earth to prepare and qualify to, one day, live again with our Heavenly Father in the Celestial Kingdom. I shared a scripture and asked them again to take a date. We asked how they each felt. It went super awesome! Each one of them gave their testimony of the Book of Mormon and our church. They can already see a big difference in their lives. The mother and son took a date for the 19th of October!!! So, we have two more scheduled for baptism. The dad is very conservative and does not like to change without a full assurance of what he is doing. He, also, shared his testimony. He shared how every time he entered our church he feels this wind come over him. He feels at peace and that our church is true already. He still feels that he needs more time before he is baptized, but I am confident the Spirit will continue working on him because they are actually progressing and following our invitations. We felt really good after that lesson, but the day was not over. After that, we were late for a huge ward activity! They ward mission leader set up this huge activity where the whole ward came and played fútbol. We had a lot of investigators, and got completely destroyed in our two games hahaha! (us gringos aren’t capable of competing… maybe Chris or Ryan… but ya not me or Ahrens). Our first game we lost 11-4 but wait wait, i scored two of the four goals and I was the only gringo on the team haha! The second game, ya we lost 7-2 so not great… I wanna play real football with them and see how it goes then haha! After that they fed us and we left back to our house. We showered and then had a great lesson with a recent convert. After that we had a lesson fall through, but we found a few new people to teach.

Sunday: Church was really awesome! We had 9 investigators come to church! The family we had just put a date with invited more of their family, they are so awesome! Anyway so two weeks ago we baptized some older people named José and Rosa, but that Sunday they didn’t come to church to get confirmed! We were really worried because they came late, but they came! We finally sat down, but then one of the councilors said we were going to do the confirmations!!!! My comp has been out 15 months and had never even done confirmations because usually the members do that! Anyway We went up and Ahrens did the first, then I was up. I would say I was super nervous to do a confirmation in front our whole ward after only speaking Spanish for 6 weeks, but I’ll be honest I didn’t have time to be nervous haha! I went to put my hands on José’s head and I did just fine. I did everything good, but my leg was shaking the whole time from the nerves haha. On the way back to the seat I kinda let out a sigh and, our good friend, presidente Chamorro (Elder’s president), laughed haha because he loves playing with my Spanish since we eat with his family every week. After church we ate lunch with a less active actually and encouraged her and her family to come to church. After that we went to visit the family with a date with the whole bishopric, which was super cool. Then we had to go all the way back to Otovalo to to a tarde de ministracion. The whole zone came and we went on splits with members to visit some inactives. I was nervous to leave my companion and be with a Latino for a few hours because I have a lot more Spanish to learn haha. Anyway I went with a rm named Jonathan. He served in Peru. He’s been home for three years and he’s been studying business economics. He had a companion who actually lives in Queen Creek!! I din’t recognize the name, but I’m sure someone from the family would. Anyway I literally had like a perfectly normal conversation with him and it was awesome! The lesson went perfectly too! I was a little frightened when he told me the inactive was a returned missionary, since I am still new, but God’s laws don’t change depending on experience. The Spirit was definitely present and tears were in the room as he shared experiences of doing the same thing on his mission. He’s gonna come back to church, so it went great! On the way back to the stake building, I told Jonathan I had only been out for one change, and he didn’t believe me. He literally thought I had been out for a year! That made me feel awesome! I love Spanish! Its not been easy, but its always good to see your progress, and still realize how much more I need to learn! That night we had a lesson fall through, so I made myself 8 french toast and ate all of them!

Oh ya we had changes and I’m staying in San Pablo with Elder Ahrens.

Thank you everyone for all of the support and prayers!

Elder Curtis