Feliz Dia de la Madre!

¡Hola! 

Well it was really awesome talking to my family yesterday and hearing from my big crazy family! Technology is so amazing that we were able to have 8 different connections on our skype call, pretty cool :) Thank you for always dealing with me and sending me your support, I love you all!

Well, I have to say that this was a really long week in the mission for me. I am sad to say that yes at times I got a little discouraged and thinking that I must be doing something wrong for all of our appointments to be falling through. But, I was able to keep moving forward and I am excited and looking forward to another week. I am really happy that me and Hna Stoneking will be staying together and we are going to be able to keep putting our efforts into this sector and we hope to start seeing some fruits of our labor! Now, don`t get me wrong, I still love the mission, I love the work and honestly I am so grateful for these trying moments that I have in the mission, because it keeps me growing and improving. I learned a lot about focusing on the Spirit and learning to keep moving forward even when the disappointment comes. I was reading a talk about the Fourth Missionary again this week, and it mentions a lot about a 3rd and 4th missionary. They are both obedient, righteous missionaries, but the 3rd one does it out of obligation and the 4th one does it out of desire to do the right thing and out of love for the Lord. Though at times I was discouraged I kept going, because I wanted to do the work I was called to do. I wanted to keep giving people the chance to accept the gospel, even if they kept repeatedly rejecting us. There is a quote that I really loved from this talk; "Just give up. Surrender your will to Him. Unconditionally. Withhold nothing. Turn it all over to Him; all of your desires, wishes, dreams and hopes. Be true and faithful in your head and in your heart, not just in your behavior. Trust in Him. Trust Him who knows all thing. Trust Him who has all power. Trust Him whose love for you is perfect. Trust Him, who alone suffered, paid and atoned for you sins, and for your weaknesses as well. Trust Him that He will make of you, immeasurably more, than what you will ever, ever, in all eternity, make of yourself. He will create of you a masterpiece. You will create of you only a smudge. You will create an ordinary man. He will create a God." (Anyone who would like to read this talk, just shoot me an email and I will forward it to you :) ) And the best thing about this quote is it applies to anyone and everyone, whether you are a missionary or not. If you give it up to Him, He will shape us into the person we need to become. I truly love this.

A cool experience was yesterday we had a lesson planned with a family that we contacted a couple weeks back. In the contact the husband was very contentious and just kept telling us that all churches have been formed to confuse people and that unknowingly we are following Satan. We testified to Him that are purpose isn`t to confuse but to help people to understand and we never try to convince only help people to know for themselves. After a little conversation we were able to set up a time to come back. That time kept changing, but yesterday we finally were able to visit them. I was really worried yesterday morning for this lesson, because I didn`t want a lesson where he is fighting and we are desperately trying to get him to understand our point of view. I kept a prayer in my heart as we went into this lesson making sure that the spirit was going to be teaching that lesson not me or my companion. A couple of months ago I would have gone into that lesson, ready to whip out whatever scripture I had that would prove him wrong or whatever point I had that would should him what he needs to change, but I would have walked out of that lesson feeling frustrated and drained from not having the spirit. But, yesterday we testified simply instead of trying to prove. We testified that this gospel is a gospel of truths and enlightenment and through this gospel we don`t have the confusion from the world anymore. Now we didn`t even get to really teach a lesson, but we let him feel the spirit and we were able to set up a second visit. That strengthened my testimony that if we testify rather than prove we are going to help the lost sheep more than if we tell them they are wrong and they need to change now. We need to guide them to change we can`t push them to change. It was a faith strengthening moment for me the importance of focusing on the spirit. 

I hope that you can all take a minute to think about how you can even more give up your will and surrender to the Lord. We can all work on this together. I know that this is the way of the Lord and that this is the way to true happiness. Don`t let the world convince you that giving in and surrendering yourself to His will makes you weak, because in reality it makes you strong. I love the Lord and I am so grateful for the patience and love that I know He has for me.

I hope you all have an amazing week and know that I love you!!

Hermana Cordon

Photos: My pensionista family, they are seriously the greatest family and my family here in Mira Flores. We even bought our pensionista a mothers day gift and they always call us their daughters :) I love them!

Crazy Old Man

¡hola!

So I have a funny story for you. Well its pretty obvious as we are walking down the streets here in Guaranda that we are two gringas, we are both tall and we are both white and I am blonde. So yesterday we were contacting, and we just started contacting this one lady in front of her house. But, like 2 seconds after we started talking to her, this old man started talking to us, he asked where we were from so we politely answered him and then that started a conversation up with him. He started out by telling us how beautiful we were (keep in mind that this is like a 65 year old guy) and then he asked if we have the Holy Mass in our church, when we responded no he was shocked. We said that we are a different church so we don´t have mass. Then he started asking if we had the bible and we said yes that we always have the bible with us. Then he asked if we could have a bible. We said that we didn´t have any bibles to hand out to people. He then started saying how I could give him mine, but then I said that it had my name on it and that he wouldn´t want it. He then said, well I would like to have something to remember your name so I don´t mind. But, I then tried to return to the lady that we had been contacting, but she then said she had to go inside and said goodbye to us. Then this old man was trying to convert us to the catholic church. He said "I have a proposition for you guys, just join the catholic church, it´s really pretty." A good argument, but I think that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints has a prettier ring to it :) He then insisted on keeping talking to us, no matter how many times we tried to leave and stop talking to him. Then he invited us to join his church again, and then started talking about how we need to pray for him so that he might come to our church next week. And then he kept telling us how gorgeous we were and that we are missing out not going to the catholic church. It was a very interesting conversation and the old man here just love us gringas :)

We have a progressing investigator here now in Guaranda! Marly is doing awesome and came to church yesterday! She is reading the Book of Mormon and really feels that this church is the true church! She has a ton of faith and has really been prepared to hear our message! Hopefully we can keep helping her to progress and to understand the importance of baptism and what it means :) She was telling us again yesterday that she feels like we are her answer to change and to follow God more. She just puts a bright light in our week. Also this week we found a family and started teaching them and they seem really interested and really want to know the truth! One problem is that they weren´t able to go to church, because he had a soccer game. That is a big problem here in Ecuador, because people love soccer, and a lot of the time the games are on saturday. Hopefuly we can help them to understand the importance of this gospel and help them to have a desire to keep the sabbath day holy, and hopefully he can find a new team and start playing on saturdays. 

Here every thursday we have a district and zone meeting. But our meetings are in Riobamba and Riobamba is a 2 hour bus ride away. So every thursday we have to leave by 7:30 to catch the 8 bus to Riobamba to be there by 10 and then we usually leave Riobamba by 2 and get back to Guaranda by 4, so we usually lose a lot of our thursday. But I have learned to love the bus ride and use it to catch up on my book of mormon reading and to sleep :) A cool thing though is we go up pretty high to cross mountains and when we are high up we are passing through clouds so all you can see is white outside of the bus windows. You can´t see anything more than 5 feet away. It is pretty spooky, but cool :) I love it here in Ecuador, it is so pretty!!! 

Today for our pday we hiked up to a indian statue that they have here in Guaranda, I think it might represent the natives that started Guaranda or something. But, it has a really pretty view of Guaranda as well and it was a fun little hike. It was good to get out a do something. 

I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week! 

Me and the indian statue

Me and Hna Varney