Hello All,Starting off with a scripture:10 Therefore we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that he would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, yea, and also give us strength that we might retain our cities, and our lands, and our possessions, for the support of our people.11 Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him.I really like these feelings and results we get from prayer. If you read the story you can see how they were really in trouble and then ended up winning big time. Sometimes we just need the faith and the Lord on our side.Last week for P'day we cooked Peruvian food as a District(us and the Sisters) because they are all peruvian and I wanted to learn how to cook more things. Oh it was sooo good and fun to do. My companion knows how to cook really good. He cookes almost every night just cause he likes cooking. So in the mission you teach all kinda of people but a majority of the time it is people that have big challenges in life or want to change their life. This week we found one. We were calling old references from like 3 years back and one dude anwsered and wanted a visit. His profile said he was in prison and wants to changes his life. We visited him and he said a year ago missionaries called but didnt visit him the assigned day so he rejected every call after that. He just decided to give us another shot this time. He told us he wants to change his life cause he has been in every Maximum security Prison in Ecuador. EVERY SINGLE ONE. He kinda told us he got mixed up in a bad situation and we said we didnt need details. Then he told us that his life has been hard cause he was in prison and the Mophia or some gang sent hit men after him in prison and when they tried to kill him he over took them and ended up killing like a few hit men in Prison and just got more jail time in other Prisons. It really freaked Elder Quispe out. But hes a nice guy, wants to change, and cried in the lesson and basically begged us for our help. Also he came to church and brought his wife and they liked it. Dont worry mom. I dont feel like he is dangerous. He is a changed man and has repented like crazy and was playing with little kids making faces in Church.We had super crazy and funny experiences this week and one of them cause some Hippie lookin dude tried to sell us health cook books to help us live the Word of Wisdom better (thats about all he knows about the Church) so we said no and then started to talk with him. We asked him where he was from and he said ¨the Spirit World¨and we were like oh really. And he quoted the Bible when Christ says ¨Ye are not of this world¨so thats why he says he is from the Spirit World. Elder Quispe said ¨but where were you born_¨and he said ¨Peru¨. Elder Quispe said ¨oh you´re Peruvian_¨and he replied¨NO my BODY is from Peru¨He said some other weird and funny things then had to go…Darwin Encalada HAD a date for baptism but went rouge. He left is house super early before our appointment and told his mom he went to the market to help a friend. We called and he said he was in the Hospital for the Flu so he is lying and didnt come home the other night, turned off his phone, and his mom has no idea what happened to him. We feel like he lost his desires and is playing with us so for now he wont be getting baptised but we will see what happens to him.We did find 13 people this week who listened to us for a little and want a return visit. That is a record for every misionary in quito for the week. We tied it for ourt Zone leaders 3 months back so we are pretty excited. Some of them arent too into it but were willing to listen and give us their number so that is awesome.Something super exciting was this week I got a call from aweird number and some Girl anwsered and said"Please tell me you speak English too" and I was like super thrown off. But we got a refference from the Temple Visitors Centor in Hawaii. I was so excited cause the refference is amazing and wants to get baptised cause her son is going to get baptised soon. But it turns out that she lives just on the other side of the limit with the SIsiters. But Im still pretty excited to see what happens. But the work really is progressing all over the world.But everything is going good here with me and I hope the same for all of you guys as well.Take care!-Elder Hallsted(Feel free to send Bentley and email at
bentley.hallsted@missionary.org)