Another Great Week!

Another great week!

Well, this past week we had another baptism!  It was so awesome!  Ella se llama Maria!  She has been going to the Jehovah's Witness church for the last 3 years but never felt ready in that church to get baptized. About a month ago, her sister was baptized here in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and that's when she started to show interest in learning more about the gospel!  She went to church every week, prayed everyday about the Book of Mormon as she read it, and then BAM last week she was baptized!  It was so awesome!  It could have been a disaster, because we showed up to the church on Saturday night at like 5:30 and there was no water in the church!  So, we just started filling up buckets of water to fill up the baptismal font but nothing was really working and it was making a huge mess!  But then we remembered that the other missionaries in our zone were having a baptism as well so we called them up and when Maria showed up to the church building we said, "Sorry, but we have to go to another building!"  We all got in a taxi and dipped to the other church building!  It turned out super well!  So happy! She's awesome! 

Also, this last week Presidente Moreno made a surprise visit to our house and that was awesome!  One of the things he did was he taught us some great scriptures to use while teaching to help the people understand the blessings of the gospel.  You can find these in the Book of Mormon - Mosiah 2:41 and Ether 12:4.

But yeah, all is well with me!  This week as a mission we will finish reading the Book of Mormon again and then on Friday we will start back up!  The Book of Mormon is a great book!  Read it if you haven't!  Keep reading it if you're already reading it!  If you need one, you can get a FREE one from mormon.org!!!

Also, we have another big family who we are teaching the gospel to, and they are a family of 15!  We aren't teaching all of them right now though, but today we took them an extra bed that we had in our apartment and they were so happy!  And that made me happy!

Elder Hoole

A Week of Milagros!!!

This week was a week filled with MILAGROS!!!

Well, 2 weeks ago we had an investigator who never showed up to her bautismo!  Ella se llama Lissette.  She had her interview but then never showed up to the bautismo and we were super confused and she never answered our calls so we have been super stressed out wondering about what had happened to her.  But this last Friday we finally got a hold of her at her house and it turned out that her brother has been super sick in the hospital and that she's been looking after him there. While she was telling us this, we talked with her and ended up inviting her again to get baptized the next day Saturday in the morning and she accepted!  Also, while we were there we ended up talking to her mom and we got the information of her brother in the hospital and sent it over there to those elders in that sector and Saturday afternoon they went over and gave him a priesthood blessing!  Super awesome!  So then yes, our investigator finally got baptized Saturday morning!  And another miracle...about an hour ago the APs (Assistants to the President) in the mission called us and told us that her brother who's in the hospital wants to listen to our gospel message now!  Super awesome again!  So now tomorrow at 1:00 we have our first lesson with her brother while he is recovering in the hospital!  So awesome! 

Another great story from this week is that we have another investigator who lives with her grandma who got baptized back in Deciembe.  Well, we have been teaching her for a couple of weeks but her Dad, who lives in a different part in the city and is super Anti-Mormon, wants nothing to do with us or the Church.  Well, we invited this girl, ella se llama Alinna, to get baptized this last week and encouraged her to put some faith in Christ and she accepted!  Well on Friday afternoon, we found out that she didn't have permission from her dad to get baptized and we were so sad.  So on Saturday morning we were walking to the baptism of Lissette and we decided to pass by her house and she came out and told us that she had gotten permission!  IT WAS AWESOME!  MILAGROS!!!!  So we ended up have 2 bautismos this last week and it was so awesome!  But right before the baptism started my companion had forgotten his white pants to baptize in so we had to run all the way home and yes I was low key a little bit bugged with him, haha, but it all turned out well!  This week with our faith we should be baptizing a great investigator who also happens to be a member of Jehovah's Witness.  Also, we found an awesome family of 15 people to teach and some of them came to church yesterday!  Great week!

Love,

Elder Hoole

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day Mommy!

Well, this last week was a great week!  It was awesome because well, we started it off Monday night with having a Family Night with Presidente Moreno and his wife with our investigators and it was so awesome and so powerful!  I learned a lot from him during that short little hour.  Then on Wednesday we got to go to the Guayaquil LDS temple with all of the missionaries here in Guayaquil and that always is a huge blessing for us!  But whenever we attend it, we always have to wake up at 4am to make sure we get there on time!  On Saturday, we had an entire day of BAUTISMOS!  It was so awesome!  This ward has been struggling so it was awesome to lift up the hearts of the members with the Work of the Lord!  We ended up on Saturday having 7 baptisms and it was so amazing, and also so hard and so stressful!  But we did it!  It was super powerful during the baptismal service for each of them and then on Sunday morning it was even better when all of them got confirmed members of the church and received the Holy Ghost!!  And then to top the week off, I got to talk with my lovely family by Skype! 

All is well with me here!  I'll be with my companion for at least another 6 weeks!  Should be another fun round of learning and bettering myself! 

The Church is true!

Elder Hoole

Cute little kid in my area

My neighborhood

Streets of Ecuador

Cool banners

Big Ecuador bug

Yummy food!!!

Great people who were baptized

Bautismos en el barrio

At our church

Before the baptisms

At the church building

More delicious food!!!

Love being a missionary!

Skyping with my family on Mother's Day!!!

Que no pare la fiesta!

Que no pare la fiesta!

Well this week was a pretty good week! Right now we are just really working with a few of our investigators that should be getting baptized this week so that's awesome! This last week I did an exchange with Elder Carlson my District leader.  He's from Pleasant Grove, Utah and it was fun to talk about home and work with him for a couple days!  He goes home with me so it was nice to get a little trunky with him and talk about our goals for after the mission!  We also had some interviews with a President Moreno this last week and they ended at about 9:30 so he ended up taking us home and it was fun to get to know him a little bit better and hear about his conversion story from 20 years ago!  So yeah, that's really all that has been going on in my life! 

I was thinking a lot today and I would have to say my favorite Prophet in the Book of Mormon would have to be Nephi!  That guy had some great patience with his family and brother and never lost the hope and faith in God when he had troubles in his life!  What a guy! These last 6 weeks have been without a doubt the hardest 6 weeks of my life, but also in this 6 weeks I have seen far more miracles and blessings than ever before!  God has his ways! 

Hope all is well!

Happy Birthday Sam

Elder Hoole

Here is a picture of a family night we held last week.  

We had 7 investigators!

A gift to me from a member!

My desk in our apartment

Food for us

Bought my companion and myself a pizza 

to celebrate my 19th month in the mission!

La Semilla

Well, this week was a pretty awesome week!  It was awesome because, well, first we had an awesome bautismo!!  It was also awesome because it wasn't too hot down here!  Well, the bautismo was actually really awesome because it took over 20 years for them to get baptized and finally this past week a wonderful family made the commitment, and it was also so awesome because the missionary who taught them 20 years ago came back down to Ecuador to baptize his old investigators and it was just a great experience!!!  So it really was inspiring to see how we can plant seeds of the gospel and with time they can change hearts and turn into a solid gospel tree!  Haha I sure hope that I've planted some seeds here for the next generation of missionaries and that one day I can come down and baptize some of my great investigators! 

Also, this past Sunday we had a multi-stake conference with all of Ecuador and Colombia and that was awesome! We were able to hear some really good talks from Elder Ballard.  Mainly he just talked about how we each need to love our neighbor and keep going to the temple!  I thought it was a nice message!  

Well, that's about it for this week!  In the coming weeks, if all goes right, we should have ourselves a little NOCHE BLANCA here in our sector!  Pray and pray that all goes well and the people who are preparing themselves to get baptized can feel inspired to get baptized this next upcoming week! 

All is well!

Elder Hoole

We had a party with some birthday things that my mom sent to me.

New hat

Special tags for my backpack from a local store

Another religious tag

Just relaxing in my hammock in our apartment

Beautiful sunset in Guayaquil

Awesome former missionary who came down from Utah

to baptize his investigators from 20 years ago!  Plus he brought me a package

from my mom!!!

Crazy bat flew into our apartment.

Me, my companion, and our investigator who also was baptized.