Timing is everything

Dear Family and Friends,

Well I must say thank you to Kelli, Dashawn, Bryan and Cara for your DearElders. I must say sorry for not writing anyone back yet. Time is shorter here in Ecuador. But I love you all and felt the love of your friendship in the letters. And keep them coming, haha. Try and imagine me responding to you. I will find time to write back. 

This week went by really fast. But at the same time it feels like it's been awhile since I've written. Sunday was great because Nelly came to church with her daughter. We taught a powerful lesson of the Restoration. I even pulled out the Bible, haha. I'm trying to find time to study the scriptures more. Sometimes there are things to be done in the morning that take away from my study time. I go to the government buildings and register the visas of the missionaries. I've made friends with all the workers there, even the security guards, haha. They even helped me out with a favor last week, haha. Nothing illegal, I just had to renew a couple visas of two Colombian missionaries but we had to do it in the afternoon because they were coming from outside of Guayaquil. The visas are only done in the morning but they let us do it in the afternoon. It's all about having friends, haha. I also met a white family of Jehovah's Witnesses there. Friendly people. 

Sunday afternoon we went looking for new investigators. I honestly believe that it is possible to walk being led in every footstep by the spirit. You've just got to listen. Really, you've just got to feel. So we went walking, and I was leading the way trying to feel out where to go. I felt impressed to talk to a few people and then the impression to leave them and keep walking. We got to a building where there was an inactive family, and entered. I stopped, "not yet" I said and we walked back out. We chatted with a lady seated outside of the building. She didn't want anything. The door to the building closed as we turned back to it to enter and maybe talk to the inactive family. 
The doors here all lock automatically because of robbers. Sometimes you get lucky and one is left open. A second later a man in his 20's shows up and opens the door with his key. "Can we come in with you?" we asked and he said "sure Elder". 

Then started a quick conversation on how he knew the Elders and he said he was about to be baptized when he lived in Argentina but his family moved to Ecuador and for 7 years he lost contact with the Church. He accepted the baptismal date for the 23 of June that night. We were blessed to have another lesson with him with the Elder's Quorum President and he committed more to come to church and be baptized. Se llama Bryan. His dad was a Pastor and that's why he never let him join the church. He's 25. It's a little hard to contact him because he has to work a lot so we need your prayers to help him progress. He knows a ton and knows the church is true. We are being careful to make sure he is genuine. 

Sometimes we feel like we are guided in one direction and we follow it and it leads to no results. We have to remember that we can't see the whole plan. If we keep following the spirit we will end up in the right place. I felt the impressions to talk to certain people before we found Bryan. But they weren't the ones I was looking for. But the timing was perfect because we did follow the earlier impressions. If we didn't talk to the lady outside of the building at the last moment we would have never met Bryan. It was part of the plan. You never know what is waiting right around the corner. With the guidance of the spirit, the timing will always be perfect. 

Sincerely,
Elder Johnson