Nov 4 2013

The week has been the craziest yet! Ill start off with the bad part. I had to teach Gospel Principles class yesterday for an hour and wasn't informed of this until five minutes before. It was not the most confidence building experience ever, but oh well now for the good. First off we had our first baptism this week! His name is Nelson and he was actually my very first lesson ever. We committed him like 10 times to be baptized but he always said no. But we had a lesson with him like 2 week ago that was unbelievable! Both Elder Mendoza and I walked out just totally in shock and we both new that it was not us doing the teaching for that lesson. He accepted the baptism date and completely changed everything. He read all our pamphlets and is reading the BOM really consistently. The day of his confirmation he wasn't at his house when we went to pick him up and we were so worried. But we got to the church and I was already there like half an hour early. Muchos milagros.

As good as that is it gets even better. We have been teaching an atheist (which is so rare in Ecuador) and have been teaching him a lot about the spirit. He comes from a very religious family and became an atheist because he felt nothing when he prayed. Teaching him has made me think so much about why we choose to either believe in God or not and also my own experience with the spirit. I have remembered my very first time feeling the spirit and now realize that my belief in God really is all based on that first experience. Teaching this atheist has been hard and I don't think he will progress because he says he has no desire to feel the spirit. But I have learned more from him than anything else my entire mission so far, and because of him this week I felt the spirit stronger than I have in a few years. I don't think we really choose to believe in God, we just choose to accept that He is there.

Also this week Elder Mendoza got transferred to Santa Domingo. I was really not expecting that because he has been on his mission for only 4 months and in Vista Hermosa the same amount of time as me. So I am now the missionary with the most amount of time in Vista Hermosa and I am expected to know what we are doing and where we are going at all times. My new trainer is Elder Villca from Argentinia and he is awesome. I can tell that I am really going to enjoy working with him. But holy crap today has been hard. I hope I get the hang of this soon or my brain is gonna fry. Love you all and thanks for the mail! I almost cried when I opened up grandmas package and saw gardettoes.

Familia,

Dad- Price Elder Durrant. I like the sound of that.

Mom- I have decided I want letters, pictures, and gardettoes in my Christmas package. If there is anything else you think I might like then feel free. But I really don't think it is necessary to send it so soon. Tu español esta mejorando

Audrey- The Aliciaism made me laugh this week

Ian- Do you where anything besides my clothes?

Alicia- Keep being funny

Isaac- What did you get for your birthday?

I miss you all and pray for you everyday.

¡Yo sé que el Evangelio es verdadero!