2010_04_19 Finding New People

Week 6 Babahoyo - Written on April 19, 2010

So guess what I am still in Babahoyo and I am still with Elder De Leon. This last week has gone by so fast I can´t believe that I only have three changes left. That is 18 weeks. It is going to go by so fast. In the changes, Elder Dayton left and Elder Amaya and Elder Aucapulla. We got in place of Elder Amaya, Elder Hansen from Texas. He is fairly new in the mission. I think that Elder Olson and Elder Casas are going to train this change, but they haven´t said anything sure yet, but I guess we will see.

We had our baptism Saturday, so I ended this change with five baptisms, not bad at all for opening the sector with Elder Alvarez. We have a lot of new people that we are getting to know that we have high hopes that they will be able to progress and be baptised this change.

We have been working a lot outside of Babahoyo. We have been going to Jujan and to the Reform and a few other places to find people that haven´t ever heard the gospel. Here in Babahoyo there have been missionaries for more than thirty years, so just about everybody knows who we are and has listened to the missionaries at some time in their life. We are trying to know other places so that we can find new people and we are having lots of luck. We found a new investigator that we challenged to pray about Joseph Smith and she did it and received an answer and we are going to work on preparing her to be baptized. She just needs to come to church. Yesterday she didn´t come because she forgot about going to church until it was too late. The church here is from 8 to 11 am, so it is hard for a lot of people. They think like I did when I was young, that if I get up early all week long to go to school that I deserved a day that I could sleep in and they all use Sundays to do it. I have found out that if you get up at the same time every day even though you are tired in the morning, your body gets used to it and you feel better all of the time. Well I hope that all is going well with you out there and I am really surprised about dad’s talk. He never was one to talk much in public, but twenty minutes that is really pretty amazing for him.

Well, I love you lots!
Elder Goode

Hi Curtis,
Great to hear from you. Congratulations on your baptism. That is neat. Can you tell us more about the person you baptized?

Tell us some of the neat experiences you are having with teaching the gospel. What else exciting is happening down there? Give us a typical day in the life of a Zone Leader.

Love you lots,
Mom

I baptised an eight year old girl. She is the niece of Wendy and Sandy. Her name is Estefania Nayely Piza Arbelay. Her mom is a sister of Wendy and Sandy, but she isn’t a member of the church because she is living with a man. But they aren’t married, but it isn’t the dad of Nayely. It is another, so Nayely lives with her grandma and with Wendy and Sandy so we were able to baptise her, because technically her mom and dad aren’t members so that makes her a convert baptism so that was cool. We are having lots of success. We have been doing lots of exploring. We decide that we are going to go to a place to see what it is like and then we start to contact people. And then we ask the people for references where we can go to visit what people we can visit. And they usually tell us someone and we go visit this person and then we ask them for a reference and we go and go until we run out of time and it is time to take the bus back to Babahoyo so that we can work the evening in Babahoyo. But we have been led to some chosen people working like this. I know it is a little different how we are working, but it really helps. I also found another way to teach the Book of Mormon that is helping us to introduce the people to the Book of Mormon and they are accepting it a lot easier. We usually introduce ourselves and then talk to the person for a bit and find out what religion they are and if they assist the church and then we ask them if they like to read the bible. And if they say yes, then I ask them if there was another book like the bible that talked about Jesus Christ if they would be interested in reading it and they usually say yes they would. And then I tell them that I happen to have another book and then I start to tell them about it and they are usually really, really interested in knowing more about the Book of Mormon. For me the days are normal. I really don’t do anything differently. I get up, get ready, study and then leave to work, eat lunch, keep working and then at night I go back to the house, plan, eat something and then get ready for bed and then pray and sleep and then repeat. Well I hope that answered your questions. If not, let me know. Ok?

Bye,
Elder Goode

Well the Reform in Spanish is Reforma, so maybe that is why you didn’t find it, but Jujan is a city. It reminds me a lot of Balzar because it is kinda by itself and ghetto in that there isn’t much there. The Reforma is about five minutes outside of Babahoyo and then you have to walk a half hour on a dirt road to a place where there is about twenty or thirty houses. The other missionaries have baptised a lot of people from this place, so we aren’t having much luck there, but we got the idea to find other places where they haven’t ever heard the gospel from this place. A missionary found it and him and his companion baptised about twenty there, so we are hoping to find a place and do the same, baptise lots of people, but we will see how things go.

Dear Curtis,

How are you doing? Did you have any baptisms Saturday. My talk went really good yesterday I was to talk about 10 minutes but I went 20+ minutes. I have not been feeling very well I went to the doctor on Wednesday I was home from school 3 days last week. I’m still not feeling very well. I am really tired. Mom has been really busy this past week with her new calling. I think things will settle down as time go by. Tell us what is happening in your area with the people you are teaching? Are any more getting closer to baptism? Use your time wisely now. Now is when you will be the most effective. I will check back later. I love You!

Love,
Dad

I had my baptism it worked out really good. It was the first time that I have had to repeat a baptism in all of my mission. She was a little girl. She comes up to about my waist. When I baptized her, one of her feet came out of the water, so I had to do it again and this time I stepped on her feet so that they wouldn´t come up. So that was a first for me. I am really impressed that your talk went for twenty minutes. I´m sure that it was really good. I´m sorry that I couldn´t be there to hear it, but don´t worry mom gave me the shortened version in her letter. I love you lots and hope that all is well.

Love,
Elder Goode