This week was SICK

HELLO TO ALL MY BELOVED FRIENDS AND FAMILY

This week was a beater, all 4 of us missionaries here in Baños got sick. I had a sore throat and cold, Elder Gutierrez had a really bad cold, Elder Murdock was suffering with the new gringo missionary sickness, Double Dragon (fire coming out of both ends), and Elder Piraquive had a cold too. But, we're all good now and we're gonna go back to work like some machines this week. 

A funny story: Elder Gutierrez and I are teaching the nephew of a member and he's super solid. His answers are always perfect and he likes what we share, so we decided to invite him to be baptized. Elder Gutierrez did the invitation and said, "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized on the 31st of February?" The member looked at my companion and said, "Elder, there is no 31st of February, there's only 29 days." We all died, it was hilarious. We then invited him to be baptized on Feb 15th, and he said yes! We still have to talk to his dad though, so keep him in your prayers please! His name is Antony. 

We had a mission conference with Elder Holland this week, but since we're so far away from Quito, we had to watch it by broadcast. It was a bummer, but I still loved it. He said something that really stuck with me. He was talking about the progress in our lives and the journey we take here on Earth, and he said "You didn't come this far, to only come this far." There is no point in our lives that we will be perfect, that we won't have more to improve. If we remember that we can always progress, it makes it easier when it feels like we're stuck. 

I bought a ukulele this week. It's a lot of fun and I'm going to be fluent in ukulele when I get home. 

That's it for this week because I want to talk to my family. 

Love and miss you all!! Please write!!

Elder Spangler

Sorry, I took no photos this week, just this one. 

Satan is a Jerk

HELLO EVERYONE HOW ARE ALL OF YOU

Not gonna lie, this week was a little rough. The adversary was working really hard against us and was trying to make us disheartened and unmotivated to work, but he failed. In your face Satan. 

The reason I say that this week was rough is because almost all of our lessons didn't happen this week, we met a ton of people who just wanted to argue with us, and it rained every single day. BUT, the miracles we experienced outweighed all the bad by so much, so this week was actually a great one. 

First things first, we met with La Familia Diaz Flores again this week, and the lesson went super great. We read from The Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 11 and talked about the importance of baptism, then invited them to be baptized on February 15th, and all 3 of them said yes! The dad gave the closing prayer and it was amazing. Three years ago, missionaries had tried to visit them, but he was 100% completely against it. In his prayer he asked for help to be able to be prepared and told God that he was going to be there to set an example for his two children and that he was going to do all he could to help them, the spirit was so strong. Please keep them in your prayers!

I ate my nightmare meal this week. As you all know, I don't like fish or pretty much any type of seafood. This week someone served us a meal with fish, shrimp, and shellfish. And I actually kind of liked it, the flavor was pretty good. If there are people praying for me to be able to like fish, please keep doing it because it's working. 

Another cool miracle: A missionary who was about to finish his mission sent us some pictures in the mail because he had served here in Baños a year ago, and he wanted us to pass the pictures out to some members. I knew all of the people in the pictures except one. I had never seen the woman before and had never heard the name, but I was determined to find her. On Sunday, I brought the picture to church to ask all the members if they knew here, and most of them recognized her but they weren't sure where she lived. Later in the day, we were walking to an appointment with a member and a lady walked past us and the member said hi. I asked him who she was, and he paused and said, "Elder, that's the lady in the photo!" We ran back to her and I gave her the picture and she almost started crying because she was so happy. She then said, "Oh thank you so much Elders, when can you come to my house to visit me?" It was an awesome miracle, the Lord really does put people in our path. I'm really starting to realize that there is no such thing as coincidences, everything happens for a reason. 

I started the Book of Mormon over again, and I love what it says in the Title Page. It talks about the purpose of the Book of Mormon and says, "...And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations..." The only purpose of that book is to help people come unto Christ, so if you want to know your Savior better, read the Book of Mormon. Simple as that. 

That's it for this week! I have some photos too, so please enjoy. Miss and love you all!!

Elder Spangler

Milagros (Miracles)

HELLLLLLOOOOOOO EVERYONE

This week was so so awesome, hard work pays off, 100%. We saw some awesome miracles and great lessons, being a missionary is the best. 

Some things from last week that I didn't get to share:

On January 1st, we had a lesson in a little village place like 5 miles away. We took the bus to get there and the lesson went great. We got on the bus to come back home, but the traffic was so insane that after 30 minutes and only moving a half-mile, we got off and started walking. We walked 2.5 miles, through tunnels, hills, rain, and crazy drivers, before a guy gave us a ride back to Baños. He was a cool guy, his best friend is a member of the church and already knew a ton about what we shared, but wasn't interested in having us visit him. Bummer.

The other day after doing a service project, we asked the Hermana if she knew anyone we could visit. She told us that her sister is a returned missionary, but her husband and kids aren't members and that they might be willing to listen. We went to go visit them, and the mom, Hermana Berta, came out and we talked with her. She told us that she recently had been praying because she wanted to start coming back to church, and that she had made a goal this year to help all of her family get baptized. She said that right when she saw us, the Holy Ghost testified to her that she was going to find her answers through us. It was a really cool experience, I love being a tool in the hands of the Lord. We were able to visit the family and they were super receptive and seem open to hearing, La Familia Díaz Flores they're called. 

We had another cool miracle on Friday. We were excited for the day because we had 7 appointments set up and we were going to find a bunch of new people and invite some people to be baptized and it was going to be a great day. We went to the first house; weren't home. 2nd house; weren't home. and so on until ALL 7 OF THE LESSONS DIDN'T HAPPEN. We were pretty bummed, but not discouraged. After the last lesson failed, Elder Gutierrez said, "Let's go sit in the park for a second." I was fine with it because we had been walking all day, so we went and sat down. 4 seconds later, a 5-year-old kid came running up to us and said "HERMANITOS!"  We were like, "Who is this kid?" so we asked him if he knew us and he said yes, then he said, "My dad is home right now, do you want to go talk to him?" We were so stoked. He showed us his house and when we got there, we realized we had knocked the door like 3 days before and the kid had come out, but we didn't remember him. We talked to his dad and asked if we could share a message, and he said yes, so we went in and started talking about his religious background and then he asked us, "What happens to us when we die, where do we go?" We were able to talk to him about God's plan for us and it was such a good visit. We're going to keep working with him too, his name is Jorge. Please keep him in your prayers!

My Great Uncle Mel's Pancakes have become famous here in Baños. All the members are asking for us to come and teach them how to make them and everyone loves them. It's so fun.

I hit 11 months today. Amazing.

That's it for this week, hope you are all doing well! Please write or at least send pictures, I'd love to hear from all of you!!

This computer is really slow so I only have this one picture to send, but next week I'll send more.

Elder Spangler

2020 BABY

HELLO EVERYONE, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVEN THOUGH I ALREADY SAID THAT LAST WEEK!!!

I forgot to review my journal and note the stuff I wanted to write about this week, so let's see what I can remember. 

First, we had a great New Year's Eve, it was awesome. New Year's is one of the biggest holidays here in Ecuador, so it was super crazy. The traditions here are wild and would probably be illegal in the USA, but I love it. One thing that they do here is that all the men dress up like viudas, which means widows, and they go out in the streets and dance and ask you for money and if you don't give it to them they kiss you and hug you and won't let you go until you hand over the money. The story behind it is that their husband, which is the year 2019, has died and they need money to be able to support themselves for the new year. Thankfully they didn't bother us, we were in the house pretty much all day so it was all good. We did go to the Branch President's house and had a big lunch and played games and talked and it was a grand old time. 

We had transfers this week. I'm staying in Baños with Gutierrez and I will also be the district leader. I'm excited.

Elder Gutierrez accidentally froze his Coca-Cola and wanted to melt it, so he put it in boiling water. He went to flip the bottle over, and the bottle exploded and boiling water and Coca-Cola went all over the room and Elder Gutierrez burned the back of his head. He then went to reenact what happened, but the floor was still wet and he slipped and hit the floor so hard, I cried from laughing. 

Gosh darn it, I really can't remember anything else. I think I'll just end here and send lots of photos.

Love and miss you all, have a great week and don't give up on your goals!!

Elder Spangler