Week 38

Everybody-

I know I always say this: I had an interesting week, athough I think this week it has more merit than any other week I´ve used this phrase.

The best news first! Javier Jojoa (Ho-ho-a) and Johana Pineda will be getting baptized this week, on Saturday to be exact. They are both doing so well, and really capture everything we teach. Javier seems to have grasped tithing and even had the tithing forms in his hymnal. The bad news is that they are both moving to Guayaquil September 15th for work. I´m so glad they will be getting baptized before they go. I´m going to miss them both so much though, they are some of my favorite people. Johana´s husband Kenny is on the road to reactivation in the church, which is great because he really does help us so much in all of our lessons.

Marisela is also doing really well, she´s has just about killed her smoking habit. I think she might have depression though because she is always so sad. She always says we are a relief. Hopefully we can help her with the gospel because that´s about all that we can do. Domenica is totally ready for Baptism. She loves everything about the Church. I think Octavio Borja will be coming up to do the baptims, after all Marisela is a reference from them.

Speaking of the Familia Borja...They totally surprised us yesterday by coming to visit my companion and I here in Ambato. Huge shock, the best kind. They had just been to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Talk about your golden family! I can´t believe how lucky I am. I totally cried when it was time to say goodbye.

We had another big shock yesterday. Elder Calderón of the Area Seventy visited out Ward yesterday. Just a normal day. We have a few problems in our Ward, I won´t bore you with the details, but it was basically a shape-up or ship-out talk. Just kidding, it was great, he really said some things we needed to hear.

We have a new investigator that I really just don´t know how to teach. Her name is Lorena and she is a Hare Krishna. Pretty hard-core too, she was a missionary for 5 years and everything, lived in the temple. They have a lot of the same beliefs that we do. Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and such. Some of it is pretty different. Her Spiritual teacher is coming this week to Ecuador (which is a big deal- It´s like an Apostle) so I´m not sure we´ll be seeing too much of her. I think she is looking for something more though, otherwise she wouldn´t be talking to us. We are invited to have vegitarian cake with her on Wednesday for her Birthday. She made my companion and I a Yoga book because she says it will give us peace.

Everybody keeps writing me about their diets. So I thought I would tell you about mine. I call it the: "Take ye no thought for your nourishment" diet. I found it in the Bible and the Book of Mormon and since they are the word of God, I decided to try it out. So far in 11 months I have lost 40 pounds. Haha, take that you crazy people using injections. Although, I don´t think it works for everybody, my companion has gained 30 pounds in the 4 months she has been out in the field...

Love ya,

Your Favorite Missionary