Week 56! "A Song and a Prayer"

From 2/6/15

This week is carnaval!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! PARRRRRTAAAAYYY!!!!
Well....ahem....kidding. But man, the people here KNOW how to play in water and have a good time. All the stores are closed because people have vacated to go to the beach! We saw one truck with a loooong truck bed in the back. On it were two full grown men wading in a large blow-up pool as the truck drove on down the street! jaja Now that´s how it´s done!!

It was neat this week because Hna F is experiencing a lot of "last"s....as in, the week that comes she will be heading back home to the states. It´s horrifying, but wonderful all at the same time. And as I am part of this experience for her I have been able to see how much God loves His missionaries.

For example, last week we went to visit a less active teenager who we hadn´t seen since I got here. The first time I saw him he was just....disrespectful. This time, he listened attentively, treated us with respect, conversed normally, and everything!!! It was weird. Then, he told us an experience he had:

He was having a rough day and was preparing to go to school. He said bye to his mom and headed out, yet, he didn´t actually ever go to school like his mom thought. Instead, he walked to our house and sat outside on the cement sidewalk. He said that, as he sat there not knowing what to do, he heard Hna F´s (beautiful) voice ringing from the second floor out the windows. (I´m glad I probably couldn't sing loud enough for him to hear me...jaja) But, it was that music that we sang that helped him to feel the Spirit and just....reflect. He felt peace through the hymn we sang (I don´t know which hymn it was).

It was then that made him reflect on his behavior, on the way he has been acting with the hermana missionaries for months, and change.

That lesson was one of the most spiritual ones we´d had last week. Largely because the Spirit of repentance is exactly one of the strongest spirits we can feel in our lives.

It was a great week filled with tender mercies large and small. Especially for Hna F. For example, with "A" (the teenager), we visited him the first time not having ANY idea of how we were going to get through to him. But, the night before this visit we made, Hna F said she prayed and studied specifically for him. And then....that. His experience that we had no idea had occurred one month earlier.

Wow, changes are real. And God really blesses His children.

I love you all and hope you have a great week! :)

Hna Fernelius

At parque infantíl last Monday!!

And .....the basketball court where Dad played with his investigators :)

Hno A and the red rose he picked for me and Hna F on Valentine´s Day :)

 

A family that came all the way from Quito just to surprise Hna F and say goodbye!!! Wuuut. That´s love and dedication right there.

Hna N finishing patacones to go with our Sunday lunch cevuche! yuuuummmm :)