Elder Maverick Ludvigson

Regular season week 16

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gB5gQ19oNLSC1GXy9

Whats up everyone, como estan? Espero que se encuentre bien. Anyways this week was a pretty average week. We had a lot of lessons over calls because who knew people work during the day?😭 An average week for a missionary still is full of miricles and experience. Vamos!

HIGHLIGHTS

-We have lunch with our steak president, pres Molina every week. Hes awsome but randomly he invited the Elders de Pujili and the Elder de Amboto to have lunch with us. It was some homemade rahamen 🤗. After we ate he pretty much interviewed us over the kitchen table 🫠. Hes a smart guy so he gave us some insights and showed us a parable of the Atonement which was cool.

- We were having a lesson over the phone with this dude named Hernan and hes Catholic just like 90% of the people here but hes open to the gospel. We "randomly" grabbed a member that was at the church, Steve. She shared his testimony with Hernan and they clicked instantly because Steve shared his conversion story and it was powerful. 🤘, (Steve was Catholic and we had no idea)

- We have a convert named Arel. He hasnt been taught or been to church for 6 months 😪, but that changed this week 🥳. It was pretty late already and we decided to track down his location and visit him. Google maps took us through some scetchy ally ways and dirt roads but we eventually made it to the house. They were there! They let us in and we shared a pretty strong message with them about building your house upon the rock. They gave us a few snacks and best of all, a ride!

Side Note: members with cars is as rare as a Steelers playoff win 😪

-Last Monday we had people come up to is in the store saying they want to learn english and heared that the church does free english lessons. Perfect so we started our english classes again👍. During contacting we invited people to english class and found some success. We found this one guy randomly on the street named Edgar-James, hes pretty much fluent in english by only listening to Ingaine Dragons and One Republic 🤘. We instantly clicked and he came to class and even stayed for the ward christmas party 🥳!

- Diego Naula, long story short We found this guy like 3 months ago and found out he lives in the hermanas sector so we sadly had to pass him. He called is randomly asking us to give his aunt a health blessing 🙏🏿. We made the long travel and gave her a powerful blessing, the spirt was strong and the whole non member family was there. Afterwords they fed us crab soup, but it was like normal Ecuadorian soup with a full crab thrown in there. After I finished one of the ladies threw a live crab on my plate and it scared the crap out of me, I scrame like a little 👧. We also played with there farm animals and got the really sick aunt to get out of bed and kick the soccer ball around. Maybe thats all she needed is some gringos to pull her out of bed 😭.

Ecuador Things

- RICE, RICE, RICE

- Gringo tax is real, especially in taxis 🚕

- we saw a guy pop a squat in public 😳 💩

- Everyone is or was Catholic including the members

- average cost for a lunch is 2 bucks 🤗

Spiritual Thought

I had a goal this week to have fun and to really connect with people this week and I noticed the difference. Kinda piggybacking off my last thought use your gifts to help other people especially during this Christmas season. Do those randome acts of kindness, its worth it. SMILE! During my mission I realized how important a smile is. Everyone can smile and 90% of the time you get a smile back. My invitation this week is to simply smile more, and notice the reactions you get from it.

Con mi todo corazón Elder Lud 🤘