Exciting News! :)

Family and Friends,

Today I received some great news from my good buddy Elder Ayala. He sent me this great picture of Johnathon and his wife Maria Fernanda just before her baptism :) woohooo!!! I was way stoked to see that picture and I'm even more stoked to know that now they can go to the temple to be sealed forever as an eternal family :) Luckily for me I'll still be in Ecuador a year from now so I'll probably get to go see them be sealed in the temple... that would be AWESOME :) Johnathon is a way great guy and its so cool to see the great progress he's made and especially the 180 degree change his wife has made. Trust me when we first met her she was no where near close to being baptized. It was so bad that she wouldn't even say hi to us when we saw her, she got mad at her husband for letting us in, told him that we were bad people and worshipped Joseph Smith and a bunch of other lies, and was very upset with him when he got baptized.... and look at her now :) The Sunday before I left Albonor she went to church with her husband and liked it a lot :) She looked way different she was smiling and there was a light about her. She said she read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it and felt that it was true :) I knew that I wasn't going to see it but I knew that she was going to be baptized and I told Elder Ayala he was going to have to send me the picture and tell me all about it :) He said it was a great experience and that they're doing very well and miss me. They sure are a great family and I'm way happy for them :)

We've had lots of sweet experiences this week that have really strengthened my testimony that it is absolutely vital to always involve the members in missionary work and gain their trust. A simple method that I have always used and now we're having everybody in the zone use is sharing a brief message with the families after they serve us meals. A basic example is reading 1 Nephi 8:11 together and then asking him how tasting this fruit of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed their lives. They then share several ways that the church has really changed their life and how grateful they are for all the ways it has helped their family and how different their life is now. Then we say wow that's awesome we can see that this has really blessed your life just like it did for Lehi now lets read and see what Lehi does after tasting this great fruit of joy like you guys have... 1 Nephi 8:12 so what does Lehi want to do after tasting this fruit?... share it with others! Exactly very good would you like to see your friends benefit from this fruit and receive blessings just like you have received these blessings? Yes of course. Perfect! :) Of all the people that you know (your relatives, neighbors, friends from school, friends from work, in-laws, friends of friends, enemies, haha anyone!) who is a family that we can visit and share this message with them? ..... I have never seen a family that doesn't give a referral when we ask in that way :) Its way way way more effective than just getting up to leave and saying last minute, ¨Hey do you have any referrals for us?" That's way inefficient and you miss out on a great opportunity. When you share a message at the end and then ask for a referral you hit like 5 birds with one stone because you're inspiring confidence in the members, showing them that you know how to teach and invite the Spirit, you're practicing your teaching skills and getting better, you're strengthening the conversion of the members, and you're going to get a lot of great referrals all at the same time. The other day in a interchange that we did with some Elders in the zone we shared a message at the end and it turned out that there was a kid living there who had gone to church several times and wanted to get baptized so when we asked them who we can teach they were just like oh yeah teach him he wants to get baptized :) Haha yeah no problem! Just think if we hadn't done that we would've missed a great opportunity! Trust me wherever you are in your mission use this tactic regularly and it will bring you great success :)

Love you all very much,

Elder Remington