A successful week. We are doing great here in Colla Loma. We
have 3 people with baptismal dates, Juliana, William and Alison for the 29th of
December. Juliana is ready to be baptized right now, but she really wants her
mom to be there for her baptism and the 29th is the first availability she has.
William is the dad of the Rojas family whom are a less active family. Alison is
his youngest daughter who is not yet baptized. They are very excited to be able
to clean up their lives and have felt the Lord's hand in helping them achieve
that. We had an appointment with them on Friday and we had scheduled to just
teach the restoration, but after we had finished talking about the Book of
Mormon, I felt prompted to talk with them about the sabbath day. It took a
while explaining it to them, but it proved a very true prompting. On Sunday
morning when we had a visit with them, Maria, the less active mom, told us of
the miracle they experienced on Saturday. They had committed to us on Friday to
attend church and keep the sabbath day holy and not work (they sell cell phone
parts and batteries in the street and make very few dollars a day), so once
Saturday came, they were determined to sell enough for Sunday too. But, at
mid-day, they still hadn't sold a single thing and their daughters were really
hungry. The mother gave them a few dollars to find something to eat and after
the girls returned, they said a prayer right there in the street to ask
Heavenly Father to help them be able to keep the sabbath day holy and sell
enough on Saturday. By 4 o'clock they had over $50 and at the end of the night
they had more than $70! They were so excited at church knowing that the Lord
had helped them out.
Elder Christensen is passing through some tough times (as is
normal for the first few weeks on the mission) but he is doing well over all.
Elder Putnam, an elder who was with me in the MTC and was in my first zone here
in Ecuador, lives in the house with my companion and I (along with his
companion). Well, he has had a few mental shutdowns and has had some
difficulties with migraines, so they sent him home to the states to get some
real medical treatment and then hopefully come back. It seems like it may be
the start of epilepsy, but we'll just have to see. He is a great guy, born in
Temecula and moved to St george. He and I passed a lot of the same newbie
experiences and grew up a lot and it was fun to have him here with me these
last few months and see how much he'd changed.
More bad news, looks like Elder Sanchez did some more
foolish things in Esmeraldas, and he may get sent home ): we went to the
offices and found him there ready for an interview with President with his bags
all packed. He was way bummed and so was I, but we got to talk a lot and I was
glad that he loves me as much as I love him. We had some of the best
experiences of our mission together in Ibarra. His family lives in New Jersey
and he has a half brother who is a US born citizen but lives here in Quito
(another crazy story) and hopefully Elder Sanchez can get sent to the states to
be with his family. I told him that if he needs anything my family is his
family and "mi casa es su casa" as dad loves to say (: I'll find out
tonight if president ends up sending him home or just repremanding him. More
crazy news, the sister missionary from my MTC group is going home on the 20th
to be home for the next semester! ahhhh! Time is going by so fast!
Love Elder Blackwelder
These are some pictures I took this week of the Volcano
Cayambe. The sun was setting one day and it was magnificent. I love how I can
see it from my shower and from the bus. It makes me so excited that I am here
and not somewhere else.
