Serving the Lord in Quito, Ecuador: High (high, high) Hike, New Families, Helping People Progress

7/18/2016

Well today we did have an activity where we went as a district to teleferico which is a tram that goes up super high and there is an opportunity to hike. We went actually pretty far and there were some really rough trail parts. We went past the cave where most people stop and we had to climb over some rocks to keep following the trail. The air kept getting thinner and it got windier and harder to hike. We finally made it to this very sandy part and I legit had to do some mountain climbers to not fall and to keep going up. The surface was extremely slippery and I had to practically crawl up some parts. We finally got to a peak where there were a bunch of clouds passing through. There was a crater behind us but we couldn't see it clearly. At that point we were really ready to go back. So that was today.

This last week went rather well for us. we found two new families of people in this last week. Both were references surprisingly. The first the parents aren't married which was a disappointment so we couldn't put a baptismal date on them. The other was an interesting situation. They are members of this one church that has a lot of beliefs similar to ours. They seem to want to warn people about the second coming and they also put a huge emphasis on teaching Hebrews. I am not even sure if there is one Jew in Ecuador though. They were a little big on that part saying a lot of strange things and saying that there would be no way the Jews would believe Joseph Smith. They also didn't seem to believe that Elijah already came to the earth the very day that the jews are waiting for him every year. They have a belief that the jews are waiting for a prophet born in 1940 because of some comet. It was a little strange. I told them well we have a living prophet. That kind of shocked them and they said ohhh maybe he can preach to the jews as well. There leader seems to be some glorified pastor. Still this made things a little complicated teaching.

We do have to drop an investigator unfortunately. His name is Pedro and well he hasn't gone to church so we will put our trust in God and drop him. We have been dropping some people recently to try and get a good program going. We might have one more baptism but it is a little uncertain as Reynaldo needs to work some things out still and we are running out of time with this change. Hopefully we can also help him. The zone leaders seem to be pushing hard on that as they wanted to put the goal of at least one baptism in this month with the vision of four baptisms. It can be really hard as many people use their free will to chose not to do the things they need to do and well that really isn't our fault. We are doing all we can to help people to progress and we are teaching and testifying and putting in the effort. We just might not see all the fruits of our work.
I will try to get you some photos.

Elder Throop