Exciting Changes :)

Family and Friends,

I'm sorry that I haven't written you all in a while and that this letter will be short. The new rule that we can email more people has been a huge blessing because I get to hear from lots of good friends but sadly has limited my time to write you all haha sorry! Anyway I'll get right to the good stuff. We had transfers last week and my new companion is Elder Tibanlombo from Quito, Ecuador. I'll miss Elder Carrillo because he was a great companion but I'm way happy to be with Elder Tibanlombo. It's funny because he was my zone leader in Orquideas and back then honestly we didn't get along very well...haha thus when I found out he was my companion I was a little bit nervous that this would be a tough experience but boy was I wrong. The first thing I did when we got to the house was have a companionship inventory and we both apologized for things that had happened back in Orquideas and communicated very well that now we were excited to have lots of success together here in Portoviejo and that we were both willing and ready to learn from the other and improve together. Since that day we have had the slightest of arguments or problems between each other, just the opposite in fact! We both get along GREAT! He is hilarious, super smart, hard working, happy, and very humble with a strong desire to learn and grow. It is truly a joy to work side by side with him and he has already taught me a lot about how to be a better missionary and how to be a better person. He has a lot more experience than I do and he only has a few months left before he goes home but he's not trunky at all and he's teaching me a ton its great :) Here are three pictures showing just a few of our adventures together.

The first one is a picture with Carlos Lopez. He's a great friend that always does teaching visits with us and is great at helping investigators feel comfortable in church and just being there friend. He has a natural ability to gain people's confidence and share his testimony :) He'll be a great missionary. This is when we visited him the day before he left for the MTC. He'll be serving in Bolivia and wow it was tough to say goodbye to him because we've become way good buds in my short time here and I'll really miss him but I know I'll see him after the mission and we'll always be good friends. Not to be gay about it haha but there's always a special bond between missionaries and teenagers that are just about to leave for the missions because you're in the same boat and you both help each other out in better serving the people and better preparing the future missionary. That reminds me of all the good times I had with the great missionaries in our ward good stuff.

The second picture is my companion and I celebrating after our successful mousehunt haha We didn't have time to buy a mouse trap so we got creative and through team work and great skills we were able to destroy the pesky rodent with a broom and a long stick. It was hilarious and a good team bonding experience haha!

The third picture is the baptism of Sandy and Mario Marcillo. They're two neighbors of the Ibarra family, a great family that was less active but now they're doing great! It was a good experience because we hit two birds with one stone of activating the Ibarra family and baptizing Sandy and Mario :) I've learned that a lot of times having success in the mission is just a matter of opening your mouth without hesitating. We were sitting there teaching the Ibarra family and trying to motivate them to go to church and then a girl walked in a asked if she could play with their little baby for a while. Sometimes missionaries might think uhhh how annoying we're trying to teach here and she's interrupting us what the heck. But if you've got the right attitude and you're always taking advantage of every finding opportunity you see then you'll just smile and say hey what's your name? Nice to meet you I'm Elder Remington and we're teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it helps us be more happy would you like to join us? :) Little things like that are what bring success and bring eternal salvation to God's precious children. Remember to always listen to the little whisperings of the Spirit and if you're not having those impressions of the Spirit, ask yourself what you're doing to lose the Spirit, change that, and then enjoy being guided by the Holy Ghost everyday because its a great blessing that we all need :) I love you all more than words can describe!