Email - January 28, 2012

Thank you all for your love and confidence, here's how my new week went!

It is different serving here now. But your plane of people to serve expands and your desire to make the best use of proselyting time is multiplied. We are working so hard in so many areas. On Monday we went to 'Salinas' (5 hour round trip) on Tuesday to my crib... Portoviejo (8 hour round trip) and Wednesday to Los Ríos (4 hour round trip) to do some errands with President. We are with him a lot, we talk a lot and I am learning so much on how to be a better leader and disciple to influence others to do the same.

This week we have a few big trainings with all the Zone and District leaders in the mission and then the new missionaries and their trainers. It is a blast being in these trainings. We try to leave at 4 each day to teach, we want to baptize like crazy and we have seen some miracles, the chosen people and falling in our path. It's not always easy, and we get rejected a lot on street contacts and tracting, but we have met a few chosen people and are preparing a few baptisms for February. We have to take good care of the people we teach here, Satan works really hard and someone can fall really quickly in their desires or hopes. But last night was funny... we had a lesson with a referral from a recent convert that went like this...

Hello, how are you?

Good! I want to go to your church.

Why?

I like God and feel the need to come to Him.

We attend Sundays at 9, will you come?

Yes.

Will you be baptized?

Yes.

Is the 18th of February okay?

Yes.

Here's the Book of Mormon... will you read it and ask God if it's the Word of God?

Yes.

Well... see you Sunday!

Haha, it was the fastest, yet most spiritual guided lesson I've had in awhile. His name is Andrés. He lives out of our sector, but his friend doesn't. Even if we don't baptize him, someone will and he will be content. The Gospel is so simple... Faith in Christ, Repentance Daily, Get Baptized or Renew what we promised weekly, Receive or Follow the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End. It is so simple and so necessary. We should never get off the path and we should never declare anything but THAT path to be saved. That testimony has been strengthened daily here, don't waste time... plant good seeds in search of the chosen. There are many.

I love this mission, I love being here, I hit another missionary who jokingly told me I had 21 weeks left. That is NOT what I want to hear! Haha. I love you all and invite you all to get a piece of paper tonight and write impressions that come to your mind as you pray. God is a Being who speaks, do we listen? What does He have to say? As you pray tonight, pay attention, write things down, review them every now and again and you will come to know God more than you thought you could.

Elder McGinn