The Week Is Not Complete Without A Baptism-Francisco Segura Guayaquil Week Seventy Five

So this week we enjoyed a week filled with lots of lessons and to top it all off a baptism.

Marriages

I dont know if I have shared this but that are few people that are actually married here in this country. Most people just live together without ever getting married. That is a big problem for us missionaries. We are currently teaching two couples who are not married. If everyone goes well and they do what they say(which rarely happens) they will be getting married sometime soon. It isnt too hard but they are just lazy and dont do it. We will see what happens. Hopefully everything goes well and they get married so that they can get baptized. Be praying for them!

Elder Shanklin

Leadership Council

This past week was Leadership Council with President. It is always great to see all the other zone leaders from all over the mission and hear from them and President. This month we talked a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Crist and the process of repentance. It is always nice to learn more about those subjects because we can never fully comprehend the importance or significance of the atonement. It was incredible to hear Presidents testismony and it really strengthen mine. I heard that they already called a new President to take his spot in a couple months but as hard as that will be for me I guess I will have to accept it. 

Elder Shanklin and the other leaders in the mission

Baptism

So this week we were able to end the week good with a baptism. It was a older senior that had been going to church for a well but still had his coffee addiction. We had been working with him so that we would stop drinking and this week he finally cut the last straw and was able to get baptized. It was a great feeling and although it was a short baptism service it was cool. His name is Manuel Llivisaca. Dont even try to pronunciate the last name because you will stay it wrong. He looks really upset and mad it the pictures but that is just how he is. He was actually pretty happy and cracked a couple of jokes in the baptism.

Elder Shanklin got a haircut

Elders with Manuel

That it all for this week. Enjoy the pictures in white, and us eating pizza at Dominos. Thanks for all the love and support!

Looks like some good pizza

I bet he ate the entire pizza himself

Life is a Sport, Make it Count 

Elder Shanklin

Feliz Ano Nuevo-Francisco Segura Guayaquil Week Seventy Four

Hope everyone had a great New Years and that everyone could spend a little time with there family. Hopefully everyone got a good amount a sleep as well. I know that I did. 

New Years In Ecuador

I dont want anyone to think bad when I say that this past week I celebrated my last New Years in Ecuador. It was a little different then the last because I was in a different place. The culture here is that at 12 oclock at night every shoots off fireworks and burns this things called Añoviejos or "Oldyear" in English. They are practically big paper dolls of cartoon characters or movie characters or things like that. I have sent picture with them. They are made in all different shapes and sizes. There are some like 2 stories big and others that are as big as your hand. Then after the burn those everyone goes and eats dinner as a family and then they keep drinking and getting drink. The party here doesnt just last one night, but the entire week. Nobody works and the kids dont have classes so everyone just parties. The cool thing was even during the parties and all the tempation surrounding we were still able to focus and have some great lessons and spiritual experiences. 

Elder Shanklin and Elder Rios

Getting ready for New Years Eve

What does a missonary do during New Years?

Many of you just heard my explanation of New Years and probably asked yourself, What does a missionary do during New Years? Well on the 31st and the 1st we had to be in the house at 6PM. From that time we studied the scriptures but that I mean we played monopoly and yours truly won. They we watched the fireworks, drank some sprite with grape juice and that went to bed. There was nothing to do so we all headed to bed early. The only thing was that there was so much noise so it was almost impossible to sleep and I think I finally was asleep at like 2 in the morning. The life of a missionary.

Elder Shanklin and Elder Rios with a minion

Thanks for all the love and support. In the next couple weeks we will be having baptisms so be on the look out for the pictures in white. 

Life is a Sport, Make it Count

Elder Shanklin  

White Christmas In Ecuador- Francisco Segura Guayaquil Week Seventy Four

So this week we had a White Christmas. I know what you all are thinking. How is that possible if it is 105 degrees where you are? Let me explain. 

Baptism on Christmas

This christmas we decided that since snow likely wouldnt be falling that we would still have a white christmas by baptizing. Incitially the plan was to baptize Manuel. But because of a couple complications and so little failures in the planing he couldnt be baptized. However, that didnt discourage us and we were able to help someone else get baptized that day. Mirko got baptized to make it a white christmas. It was super cool. His cousin was the one who presented us to him. His cousin was recently baptized about 5 months ago. Kevin, his cousin, had the honor and privledge to baptize his cousin. It was a super special experience and it was great to be a part of it. 

Even though the first Manuel didnt get baptized that day he is still excited to do it later on. Our mission president always tells us that a good missionary is he that looks for solutions to the problems instead of excuses. We were able to find the solution to are problem. It was a great experience. The Lord definitely guided us in that situation. 

You guys should definitely enjoy the pictures. It has a little christmas theme to them.

Another Visit

I dont know but I think I must be a magnet to the assistents and to President. They always seem to follow me wherever I go. Whether is be 8 hours away or right down the street. As I told you guys last week, President showed up. This week the assistents showed up out of nowhere. It really didnt surprise me because I am so used to it but it was a great learning experience and we could honestly learn a lot. 

Investigadors

This week the Lord has blessed us with some new investigadors and some cool experiences. We could meet new people and see them in the church on Sunday. It has been a really neat experience for me that last couple months of my mission. I have really felt the Sprit working through me. Not necesarily in big ways, but in ideas that come to head, words to say, or things to do. It has been a long learning process to understand the spirit and I think I will be in this process my entire life.

Thanks for all the love and support! Hope you guys have a great New Years

Life is a Sport, Make it Count

Elder Shanklin

An Early Christmas Gift-Fransisco Segura Guayaquil Week Seventy Three

As the Christmas Season approaches it is acceptable that everyone recieves a gift. This week a recieve a gift from President or should I say, a change.

Changes

This week I went from Loja, from the cold and mountains, to Guayaquil, the warm coastline. I am still adjusting to the climate change. It is difficult. I was able to say goodbye to a couple of my converts and some members in Loja and I wont lie it was pretty hard to say bye to some of them because it had become like home. However, no I am here in Guayaquil ready to work and ready to baptize. The work will not stop. Doesnt matter where I am or who I am with. I am in the sector Fransisco Segura en the Centenario Stake. My new companion is Elder Rios. He is from Peru and had 14 months in the misison. Together we are the zone leaders here. The office and assistents are part of the zone which is pretty interesting but always pretty fun. The ward is super awesome here and in no time we should have some baptisms so dont worry. The pictures will come. 

Spiritual Experience

So this week my companion and I had a sorta kinda cool spiritual experience together. We were at the house of members, when the husband just collasped and wasnt breathing. It that very moment the only thing I could think and say was get out of our way we will give him a blessing and call 911. The coolest part is he was struggling to breath but as soon as we placed our hands over his hand he took the biggest breath and starting recieving strength and being able to respond with his eyes. It was truly a miracle and I learned lots about the Priesthood and the power that we hold. We should always live worthily to be able to use our priesthood in times like these. What an incredible experience. 

Things have been great here and I am looking forward to pass Christmas here this year in Guayaquil. Being my last Christmas and all....Not Trunky. Hope everyone has a great Christmas. FELIZ NAVIDAD. 

Thanks for all the love and support. 

Life is a sport, Make it Count

Elder Shanklin

Unifying Our Congregation in Loja-Loja Week Seventy Two

As Christmas aproaches, even us here in Ecuador like to take time to sing some carols. 

Christmas Choir

This year, like last year, the mission made a choir consisting of the missionaries here in our mission. There were 4 Elders and 5 Sisters. For the past 2 weeks they have been traveling the mission making stops in all the zones. On Thursday night they came here to Loja and had a great show. President and the Assistents acompanied them and it is always great to see them and hear from them because we are so far from the office and them in Guayaquil. The choir did a great job singing and many members commented that they had heard angels singing with them. I guess that is a good preformance then. We were able to spend time with the assistents talking about the zone and learning how we can better our sector and help the missionaries in our zone. It was a good and a learning experience. 

Elder Shanklin and the Loja Zone

Elder Shanklin and the Loja Zone

Church Activities

In this Branch we have started to do more activities to excite and animate all the members and help them stay strong in the church. It has been a great time and has helped the relationship between the missionaries, the converts, and the members. We have seen lots of success in these activities. Loja has been just a great experience and I am eternally grateful for my time here. I am not sure if my time is up or not ( I guess time will tell) but I will never forget my time here in Loja. Then on saturday night our convert invited us to a barbeque with the youth. We definitely stopped by and had to help them cook and of course eat the food. It was so good.

Elder Shanklin at an Ecuadorian barbeque

The Elders with some ward members

Doing what he likes to do....EAT

So basically this week has been a interesting week. One of the investigators we have found have a stroke in the morning and wasnt able to come to church but he is still super excited and ready to learn. However we still had some others in the church that are references from members. They are super cool and in no time should be in the waters of baptism. 

Thanks for all the love and support. 

Life is a Sport, Make it Count

Elder Shanklin

Twenty Hour Bus Ride for Temple Blessings-Loja Week Seventy One

So this week was full of excitement and passed a lot faster than any other week. I will explain why. 

Temple Trip

On Wednesday at like 10 in the morning the assistents called me and wished me a Merry Christmas and told me that as a Christmas present the zone would be traveling to the temple and get to do a session the following day. So 2 hours later the 10 from our zone and the 12 from the other zone left to head to Guayaquil on an 8 hour trip. We would show up to Guayaquil at 10 at night and then we would sleep in the hotel of the temple with AC and hot water. That is the best part about the temple. The next morning we were able to do a session as a zone and it was such a great experience. I always learn something new in the temple and can always apply it in my life. The Temple is a such a beautiful and sacred place that brings lots of peace and joy. I think I could just spend days there. After eating lunch we headed to back to Loja. It was like 20 hours of traveling but we made it in time to get a couple hours of sleep before working the next day. We took a lot of pictures. Enjoy them. 

Elder Shanklin at the Guayaquil Temple

Elder Shanklin and Elder Child

Love this picture

Awesome Missionaries

Guayaquil Temple
Love those palm trees

Elder Shanklin, Elder Childs & Loja Zone

Baptism

On Saturday we had our baptism. So because of the temple trip we were gone Wednesday and Thursday. With normally a week that are things that you forget to do and things that go wrong. Imagine. We had only one day to prepare the whole baptism and make sure that everything worked out. I dont know how we did it, but we did and the baptism was awesome. She shared her testimony after the baptism and it was super awesome. She gaves us, the Elders, a shoutout and that made everything worth it. She will be so great in the church. Her brother was going to baptize her but he got nervous and didnt want to do it, so my companion did it.

Elder Shanklin, Elder Child and their newest baptism

We have been immensly blessed here in Loja. We have great converts and the Branch is completed behind us. They support us 100% and have been blessed with our work. In the coming weeks we have more baptisms. So stayed tuned. A dad with his son, and the cousin of one of our converts. Should be great. 

Thanks for all the love and support. 

Life is a sport, Make it count

Elder Shanklin

Big Windmills & Big Blessings-Loja Week Seventy

So basically this week has been quite short because the last time that I wrote was on Wednesday. Between Wednesday and Sunday there wasn't many things done or anything interesting that happened. I will briefly fill you in on the life of Elder Shanklin and Elder Collins in Loja. 

Pday (Preparation Day)

The Elders in the Museum

Basically since we didn't have Pday this last week we decided to do something a little different today. In Loja, if you have never seen pictures there are like 20 giant windmills on a hill outside of Loja. There is a musuem out there and we decided to head out there. It is like a 30 min drive. We got there and took some pictures that are super awesome and I hope you enjoy them all. And after we enjoyed ourselves out there we realized that there were no taxis to take us home. So we started to walk. He walked about 45 min and then finally a taxi drove by and could take us back home. We recently got back like 30 minutes ago. The pictures should explain it all.

Elder Shanklin

Elder Shanklin with the Windmills.  

Hamdsome missionaries

Converts

So basically we have enjoyed a little bit of success here in Loja and this weekend was super special for us as missionaries. One of our converts, David, made the 8 hour drive and went to the temple. Lenin, who recently got married, was called to be the 1st counselor in the young men and is preparing to be sealed in the temple. Angel was confirmed the priesthood today and will  baptize his sister this weekend and Sunday will receive his calling in the church. Things have been great here in the church and we have had a great time here. The branch really supports us and wants us to be the best possible. They even let us know or tell us to change things if we are doing them wrong, which we are not!

Sorry guys that really is it. There is nothing more to be said or things that could be said. I am literally out of words and apologize for that and will try better next week. 

HUGE!!

Love this misisonary!

Thanks for all the love and support!

Life is a Sport, Make it Count

Elder Shanklin