So we had our conference with all three missions in Guayaquil on Saturday. I had to lead the music and I was flippin. I was so nervous to lead music for an apostle!! But when we got there, turned out Elder Oaks didnt make it. Something happened with their flight in Florida. So Elder Waddel from the seventy was there and spoke, along with all of the mission presidents and their wives. (ours are the best of course) and Elder Vallejo. I think he´s a seventy too. Anyway. It was incredible. Hermana Vallejo read Alma 26:27 and it made me cry because 2 nights before, I was super discouraged and I just wanted to give up and go home. Hermana Waddel talked about how they welcomed home their first son from his mission and she was bawling so it made me think of mommy crying welcoming me home and it made me cry some more. And Elder Waddel talked about how Elder Oaks had called him telling him he wouldnt be able to make it but to send us his love. And as he was sitting there on the stand listening to the other speakers, a thought came into his head saying, do you think the Lord didnt know that Elder Oaks wouldnt be at this meeting? Of course He did! So why would He want the three missions in Guayaquil gathered without Elder Oaks? He told us that the city of Guayaquil is the city that bapitzes the most in the whole world, but we need to become the city that baptizes the most, retains, and activates the most as well. We shouldnt imagine our investigators in the water, but kneeling at the altar being sealed as a family. Baptism doesnt do much good if they don´t complete the ordinances of the temple. The priesthood is to create eternal families, not just to baptize. He also talked about how the way we measure our success is by looking at the kind of person who gets off the plane at the end of our missions, not by looking at how many baptisms we have. In the parable of the talents, it didnt matter how many talents they received, but what they did with it. He told us how his son went 7 months without baptisms on his mission but during those 7 months, he learned about the atonement of Christ because he worked his hardest and did everything possible to improve and complete his purpose. When he said that I was like ummm AMEN!!!!!!! That has been the past 2 months of my mission!!!! OH and he said (2 times) ¨something being difficult is an excuse that the Lord won´t accept. He didnt accept it from His Only Begotten Son when He asked to remove the bitter cup and He won´t accept it from us.¨ We will always have trials that are hard but like it says in 1 cor 10:13 we wont be faced with something we cant handle.
Anyway there was a lot more but I don´t have time to write it all. But it was incredible and exactly what I needed to keep on keepin on in this sector!
the first picture is of hno and hna bohorquez, the yepez family with their crazy children (the youngest one looks like a minion from dispicable me) and tania, one of our investigators.
the second one is me, hermana ynoñan (my daughter), hna arizala (hna ynoñan´s daughter: my granddaughter and step daughter), and other hermanas that arent part of my family. hahaha
and the last one is the grace family. ohhhh my heck they are the cutest. they feed us lunch every monday in their restaurant and always give us food throughout the week. the hermano has a million health problems but just keeps on going in the gospel. they are the fmaily we visited with presidente torres.
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