Family and Friends,
This weekend we had a great baptism for a young buck named Jackson who is super shy but a very good kid. :) As a zone in Portoviejo we are very happy and grateful to the Lord for blessing us this month because we just set a record for most baptisms in a month for the entire mission and the entire area. :) We worked very hard and the Lord really blessed us. This last week was even more crazy than the last one for my companion and I running all over the place in interchanges helping out all the different areas with their investigators resolving doubts to get baptized this week and doing a ton of baptismal interviews. Honestly, it was a very long week and very physically, emotionally, and spiritually tiring... but the great thing is that although we were stressed and very busy my companion and I never got overwhelmed and we always laughed, enjoyed the moment, and had a fun time working hard together.
President Amaya has decided to make it a tradition that every month he's going to take to dinner the zone that most baptizes and most surpasses their goal. Everyone in the zone is way stoked to have a dinner with him again :) He should be coming this week or the next to celebrate with us. Elder Linares and Elder Vielma are excited to come visit us again too. Haha. The last time they came after we finished eating they said alright Elder Remington we'll see you here next month haha and I said yep we'll we waiting for you! Great guys those two it'll be fun hanging out with them again especially since Elder Linares is going to finish his mission in just three weeks. Lots of exciting stuff happening here in Portoviejo. I feel very blessed to be here and honored that the Lord trusts me and my companion with such a great place with so many people ready for the gospel. :) We recognize for sure that we're just the instruments (Alma 29:9) and that we can't do anything without His help :) all the glory goes to Him (D&C 4:5). I'm truly the happiest I've ever been and I'm grateful that I have the wonderful opportunity of serving here in Ecuador for much more time. :) The mission goes by way way too fast so I've gotta make every minute count.
It will be General Conference this week and I'm excited for that. I wanted to share a part of President Uchtdorf's talk with all of you from September 2011 that helped me have a great experience last conference and I hope this advice helps all of you to have a great experience in conference as well:
As you prepare for general conference, I invite you to ponder questions you need to have answered. For example, you might yearn for direction and guidance by the Lord regarding challenges you are facing.
Answers to your specific prayers may come directly from a particular talk or from a specific phrase. At other times answers may come in a seemingly unrelated word, phrase, or song. A heart filled with gratitude for the blessings of life and an earnest desire to hear and follow the words of counsel will prepare the way for personal revelation.
Often times we just kind of go through the motions sit in our couch all comfy in our pajamas, listen to the talks, say wow what a great message, and then we go on and live our lives the exact same way. If we really prepare ourselves for conference with specific questions for specific problems then we will receive answers and personal revelation for what we need. That's what I did last October and had a wonderful experience and I invite all of you to do the same and I promise that conference will be more meaningful for you.
Lastly I wanted to share with you all the there's no such thing as a little thing when it comes to obedience. Its easier to be obedient 100% than 98% and when we're obedient we're happy. :) It's a very complicated story and I don't have time to share it all but the other day I had to make a choice between having another baptism to break the record even more or doing things the right way to have a clear conscience. We had traveled very far for this person and if I did what I knew was right I was going to lose $8, 5 hours of traveling, and maybe not break the record... luckily I decided that a clean conscience is worth much more than all of those things and so I made the right choice and the Lord blessed us for it :) Everything worked out okay at the end of the day and I learned two great lessons; first that we should always follow every prompting of the Spirit and second that the peace of a clean conscience is more valuable than anything else.
Remember to always have the eternal perspective in mind when you make choices and you will choose the right (Matthew 6:19-21).
Love,
Elder Remington
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