Now I can finally tell you about life lately! Woot woot!
So, first off, I'm lovin' the offices! It's really fun to be with 3 other elders practically all the time. Our house is the "Mission Hotel" cause all the missionaries that come and go stay there, and it has like 15 beds, but it's really close to the offices so it's fun to get to know this part of town.
Learning all the things I need to has been like drinking water through a Firehose (like how to stop house owners from stealing money from the mission), but I know it'll come with time and practice. I'm especially excited because I'll be able to be here to help with the New Mission President transition here in June or July when President Christensen leaves and the new one moves in, so it'll be a great opportunity to help him and his wife adjust.
I like it here. It's definitely warmer, but it's kind of a cool, downtown feel. I forgot to tell you guys but like 2 Sundays ago, Ecuador had it's second round of elections for President (the first ones in Feburary went undecided) but the guy who won is named Lenin Moreno. A lot of people were upset about it and, there's even been a recounting of votes due to suspicion of fraud. We've actually had protesters walking right by our house in a giant police-led parade and blowing horns and carrying flags just about every night around 9:30pm-ish. It's kinda funny cause sometimes we'll just watch from our building and we'll see members we know that will tell us to come and join the march. I'm just grateful that none of the protests have gotten violent yet.
So I do have to include that before the transfer, the Familia Torres (see pic below) came to church again! We were so excited that they're finally starting to progress and see the fruits of our labor. I'm really going to miss that family. The mom didn't really seem to trust us the first lesson, but recently she'd been making us promise to call her just to make sure we got home safely after the lessons.
And now we have a great family here in my new sector who just needs to get married, but are very ready for baptism! Because our sector includes a big bus station in the middle and the area can sometimes be a little dangerous, the Mom and kids walk us down to the bus station after the lessons just to make sure we get there safely. I'm so grateful, first off, for wonderful humble people that are willing to change their lives to comply with the truths of the Gospel (their faith literally amazes me), and also for their love and concern to watch out for and take care of us missionaries.
I just want to finish by talking about a little tender mercy from this week. So one night we were all pretty tired and sleeping well, but then we woke up at about 1:05am to see one of the missionaries standing in the middle of the room and making panicking noises. We flipped on the lights and quickly realized that he couldn't breathe, so one of the missionaries did the Heimlich Maneuver, which seemed to open up something in his lungs. I'm not exactly sure how he started suffocating like that, but I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father preserved his life. I know that Heavenly Father protects his servants, missionary or not, and that he loves each and every one of us so incredibly much.
I'm also so grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who we will celebrate especially tomorrow during Easter, and the sacrifice that he made for us. He is the Son of God, and I know that he not only saves us physically through the resurrection, but also spiritually, and because of him, we have a way to return to the Father's presence. Also because of him, and what he did for us, he knows how to have empathy to help us on our good days and bad days, and to help us overcome our trials that we have in this life. When we put our faith in him, we can have Peace and happiness through the difficult things we live through, cause we know there's someone who's already lived through them, a Prince Of Peace.
Have an awesome week and a spiritually renewing Easter! Love you guys!
Love,
Elder Stolle
P.S. Here below are pictures from my old zone and new one. During Zone Meetings we were talking about the new #PrinceOfPeace video, and we all put our favorite names for the Savior.
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