What's up everybody, another week in Ecuador. Honestly this week was probably the coldest, well "coldest" it's ever been here. We were walking in the streets with a member and I felt I needed a jacket because it was dusk and pretty windy and chilly. It was a very weird feeling.
We are still seeing miracles left and right this week. Sadly, not at church but finding people and talking to people in the street. I'm very grateful that people are open to talk about God and the Savior Jesus Christ. We talk to a lot of people who at first may or may not have been very interested but talking about the Plan of Salvation are very interested and want to learn more about the Plan God has for everyone, and our families.
This week was a rough week for people coming to church. We invited what seemed like a lot of people to come to church and they said they would then come Sunday morning that no one came to church. Well we had some show up, but the ones we were really expecting didn't come to church sadly. We were still able to see miracles and have our eyes opened to see the Lord's hand in this work.
To start we found Alan, a younger 14 year old kid who was interested in learning more about Jesus Christ. We went back Thursday, weren't there, but then we passed by Saturday and his brother Elkin opened the door and was pretty nice to us. We saw his big scar on his forearm and asked him what happened. He then tells us about his moto accident that happened in the middle of the night on his recently deceased father's birthday. We both didn't really know what to say or how to help but we gave him a very brief message about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and thanks to His sacrifice that he did for every single one of us we can have the hope of seeing family members again. We also were walking around and a man came up to us asking about the Book of Mormon and asked if it was written by Joseph Smith. We started talking to him and he showed us his house and invited us in. It was a pretty funny experience because he was talking all over the place and talking in English, Spanish, and Italian.
We were also able to go to the Temple this past week which is always a very cool experience to go from the streets of Guayaquil, cars and dogs being super loud. To then enter the Lord's house and feel the Spirit of the Lord. The temple is always an awesome experience!
But that's all for this week, there was a lot of contacting or finding done this past week and probably much ahead!
Love and miss all you guys
Elder Roper
