La Concordia; Round 2

HELLO ALL!

This week was fantastic, miracles for days. 

I have officially finished one transfer in Ecuador, although it feels like I have been here for 8 years. The days are starting to feel longer because we just go non-stop and have no time to rest. It´s the best. 

All Ecuadorians know at least some basic English, so it´s not uncommon to hear things like "hello" or "do you like movies?" while we´re walking on the street. The other day, we were walking to visit someone, and I hear, "Hello mister, how are you, where are you from?" and I was really confused so I turned around and saw a man looking at me. We went over and had a little conversation in English, and then he said "Come in and share with me your religion," so we went in and taught him and his wife the Restoration!  It was a solid lesson, and we´re meeting with them again this week. Haha all I know is, we probably wouldn't have found him if I wasn´t a white missionary. 

This week in our Zone Meeting, our Zone Leaders challenged us to set at least one baptismal date. Elder Azabache and I had a lot of people in mind we could set a date for, but in all of our lessons, it never felt right. Yesterday, the last day to meet the goal of one baptismal date, we had a lesson with Ramiro and his daughter. They hadn´t even been in mind for people to put on date, but at the end of the lesson, we felt prompted to invite them to be baptized on August 31st and they said yes! The spirit is real. 

I don´t have much more time because I want to talk to my family, so that´ll be it this week. Please please write me, even just a simple message is always the best to receive. 

Hope all of you have a great week!!

Elder Spangler

Happy 5 months!!

WOWZERS this week was jam-packed and super eventful, it was so great. 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK: We had 2 baptisms! Nixon and Fernando were baptized this week on July 13th (which happened to be my 5 month mark) and it was so great! I had the opportunity to baptize Nixon and I will definitely never forget that experience. I felt the spirit confirm to me that what he was doing was the right thing and I know he felt it as well.

My family all knows this, but when I was younger I hated calling people on the phone. I had thought I had gotten over that, but then I had to do it in Spanish. As a missionary, we have to call a lot to confirm appointments or set up things, so that´s fun. It normally goes okay, but this week we were calling some people we had contacted in the past and of the 5 people I called, three hung up because I couldn´t understand them and I wasn´t responding the way they wanted, 1 hung up because we were missionaries, and the other guy just breathed really heavily into the phone the entire time I was talking, and then hung up. That was an anomaly though, I promise my Spanish isn´t that bad. 

Ecuador has some of the most beautiful geography I have ever seen. After spending the last 10 years of my life in Texas, I was deprived of seeing the beauty of nature, but here I get to enjoy it every day. I love this place. 

We had a cool experience this week teaching the Restoration. I was on an exchange with Elder Cox, my District Leader, and we were visiting a family of Venezuelans that we had found a week earlier. They are all really interested in our message and always have great questions. Even though Elder Cox and I are both gringos who don´t speak the greatest Spanish, this lesson felt like one of the best I have taught since coming to Ecuador. I didn´t stumble over my words, I was able to understand everything clearly, and Elder Cox and I went back and forth really well. The Spirit was really strong and I could tell that something had changed in the minds of this family. I don't know what will happen with them, but this experience was a testament to me that the Gift of Tongues isn´t just for the people speaking, it´s also for the people listening. I love this work, it´s the greatest thing I have ever been a part of. 

WELL, unfortunately that is all I have to share today. Thank you to all my friends and family who email me, I always love it. Be a blessing in someone else´s life this week. 

Love and miss you all!!

Elder Spangler

4th of July in Ecuador isn't a thing

WHAT'S UP IT'S EVERYONE'S FAVORITE ECUADORIAN MISSIONARY, ELDER SPANGLER, BACK AGAIN WITH SOME EXCITING NEWS!!

(I hope that sounded like a YouTube video intro)

ANYWAY, how is everyone? I hope everyone had a fantastic 4th of July celebrating the creation of a nation that I miss. I drew a firework next to the date in my journal, that was about the extent of my celebration. 

I love Ecuador. The missionary work here in La Concordia is just awesome and I love being a part of it. This week we taught so many lessons, found 9 new people in one day, and had 2 people pass their baptismal interviews.  Miracles everywhere. 

I realized the other day that I haven´t given a Spanish update in any of my letters, and I know all of you are dying to hear if I am still completely incapable of communicating. I am happy to report that The Gift of Tongues is a real thing, and it is evident in my life every single day. We introduce ourselves to new people everyday, and they always ask how long we have been in Ecuador. Everyone is always surprised that I´ve only been here for less than 3 weeks, at least that´s what they say. All I know is that Heavenly Father has blessed me so much and I am able to communicate in a way that people understand. The hardest thing for me is understanding, because here on the coast, they talk really fast and often don't pronounce their S´s so it sounds weird. I´m getting better though, that´s for sure.

A cool tender mercy happened to me this week. I have been missing General Conference talks a lot. I was able to read several every day when I was in Portland, but here I don´t have the opportunity to do that. Yesterday I was looking in all drawers to see if I could find a rag to clean the kitchen, and I found a huge stack of General Conference talks. After looking through it, I realized there were several of my favorite talks in the stack, as well as talks that addressed subjects that I have recently been pondering and studying. I also saw a lot of notes written on the papers from the missionary who had printed them off in the past. Upon reading the notes, I realized the missionary had printed and left these talks for other missionaries to find and read. I was really grateful for this missionary who had taken their time to put this together, and I was grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who inspired this missionary because He knew what I was going to need. I know Heavenly Father is mindful of us and our needs, and oftentimes His hand isn´t always as apparent as it was in this story, but I know He is there, watching us and guiding others to help us. 

Well, that´s all for this week folks!  Make sure to hit the Like and Subscribe button below! Hahaha I´m dumb.

Anyway, I hope all of you have a fantastic week; try to look for the Lord´s hand in your life this week, I know it´s there! If you have a cool experience, share it with me because I love hearing about stuff like that!

Love and miss you all! 

(We went to a waterfall for P-day today, it was sweet.)

I turn 19 on the Ecuator

HELLO EVERYONE IT'S ME ELDER SPANGLER BACK AGAIN

Holy cow the weeks here are insanely packed and it is just nonstop craziness and I LOVE IT. I am having so much fun and learning so much and it´s just the greatest time. I definitely miss Portland a lot though, that place was the best. 

Okay so last week I didn´t really get a chance to explain a ton about my area and some of the things we do here in La Concordia. So first, my apartment doesn´t have hot water so that´s fun. Even though this is a really hot area I still would have liked hot water. It´s all good though, it wakes me up in the mornings. We also have these things here called Moto´s and it´s essentially a taxi, but instead of a car its like a 3 wheeled golf cart with more horsepower. The streets here have a lot of potholes and the traffic laws are like nothing so these moto drivers just whip and swerve around. I swear I´ve almost been in so many wrecks but they always boot scoot boogie out of the way before we die. It´s so much fun. Um the work here is pretty much just street contacting and knocking doors. People are always open to meet up, but when the day of the appointment comes, they either reschedule or don´t answer. We still teach quite a few lessons a day though which is awesome, I love it. 

I turned 19 on the 28th and it was a fantastic birthday. The beginning of the day was pretty normal and I honestly had forgotten that it was my birthday. We went out contacting after lunch and met this lady named Carmen that said she wanted her daughter to learn about the things of God... in English. (Long story short, a few days later we taught a lesson in English and Spanish; I would say something in English, then Elder Azabache would repeat it in Spanish. It was sick.) We had a lesson with a guy we had found earlier in the week named Alexis and it was a great lesson. He´s super smart and understood everything really well and seemed really intrigued by what we shared. Unfortunately, he´s out of town for 3 weeks so we´ll see what happens with him. After our lesson, we went to a restaurant owned by a member and Elder Azabache bought me dinner. Then Hermana Mendoza brought us some free ice cream cake and it was delicious. The first time I met her she said to me, "here in my house you are at home," and it definitely felt like that. When we got home, the lights were out and the elders we live with, Elders Hinton and Medina had bought me a cake and decorated the apartment with balloons. It was awesome. We had a little party and ate a bunch of cake and I felt like a real live birthday boy. The end.

Dang I hate only having 2 hours, I want to share so many more stories but I have no time. 

I finished The Book of Mormon this week. At the end of the book, a prophet Moroni gives the readers of The Book of Mormon a promise, and I have read it many times, as a missionary we share it daily and I have it memorized. When I read it this time, I tried to really take it to heart. I said a prayer after my personal study and asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon really was true. I felt such a strong peace come over me and just felt very reassured that this book really is the word of God. If you haven´t read it ever or if it's been a few months, I invite you to pick up a copy and just read something from it. It can and will change your life if you let it. I know that the Book of Mormon is true with my whole heart, and I am so grateful for it. 

Well, that´s all I have time for today! Thank you to those who emailed me, I'll try to respond! Love and miss you all!

Elder Spangler