Dear Family & Friends,
This week has been one to
write down in the books. I will start from the beginning. If it doesn’t
make sense just know that I at least makes sense in my head. It started
off with exchanges. I went with Elder Dobson. We went trying to talk
with everyone and find someone to teach in seeing how we didn’t have any
lessons that day. We went and talked to this man in his garage named
Dale. Dale is an older man 70+, we got talking to him and he said that
he was baptized when he was a little but shortly after getting baptized
stopped coming to church. He felt that it just wasn’t for him. But he
told us that he did have a relationship with Jesus Christ and he could
not deny that he died for us so that we can live again. As we talked
about the restored gospel his wife recently passing away came up. She
had passed away a month ago. It was still a very tender spot in his
heart. We shared Alma 40:11 with him. He seemed to be really touched. We
asked if we could come back and share a message with him but he
declined. We left him a card with Jesus on it and our number on the back
asking him to call us if he ever needs anything. We went and knocked on
the door a few houses down the road. No one answered the door. As we
were walking back to the car he called us back over to his house. With
tears in his eyes he showed us where he put the card with our number on
it. He put it next to his father name plate commemorating his fathers
life. Truly humbling to have seen that.
Then we had a lesson with an investigator named James. She has accepted to be baptized on April 28th.
She has met with missionaries for almost 2 years and never has gotten
baptized because she doesn’t feel like she knows enough. As we have
been working with her for about a month she finally said that she is
ready for baptism. She said she had the thought that she will never know
enough and it’s finally time to get baptized and receive the blessings
that come with being baptized. I am really excited for her to be able to
enter the waters of baptism.
Some other investigators named Maka & Filisi will be working towards baptism on May 19th.
They are some Tongans that like to eat. Every time that we go over to
their home they always have food for us. It truly is the Tongan culture
to always do things with food. The lessons that we have with them are so
fun! I always leave with a smile on my face.
This
week we will be having a mission tour by Elder Patrick Kearon of the
presidency of the 70. I am excited for that. It will be way fun to see
some old missionaries, but more importantly to be able to receive
guidance and counsel from a General Authority. He is a convert from
England. I am kind of excited to be able to listen to his cool accent.
Another
man was working on his car. His name is Hugo. He called us over because
he was curious on what we were doing. As we talked with him he had a
lot of questions about how there are so many church’s. That happened to
be the message that we were sending that week. So he was in luck. We
didn’t have much time to talk but he took a Book of Mormon and said that
we could come back sometime. It has been crazy that people have been
calling us over recently.
We were also able to
give a blessing to a young boy named Colten. He has recently been
diagnosed with leukemia. It was super humbling to see a 4 or 5 year boy
having to go through the struggles of life. Makes you truly think about
what matters in life. Hope that he is able to over come the things that
will be thrown his way.
We went and met with a
member who moved from Utah. We talked about what he learned from
Conference. One thing that stood out to him was how the church is going
to be more spiritual and not so much to fulfill the requirement. It was
cool especially with the change to ministering. Really cool to think
with Conference that they want us to work extra hard to have the spirit
in our life.
To finish up I want to share
another story about a woman named Silvia. We were walking and she saw us
coming so she dipped into her apartment. So we could talk with her. As
we finished seeing the people that we needed to see we were headed back
and she saw us coming. She tried to hide again but her dog went barking
at us so she couldn’t hide. As we talked with her she really to have her
heart softened as we talked about it. When we offered her a Book of
Mormon. She got a big smile on her face and she said yes. It was really
cool to se ether excitement to receive the word of god. I won’t be able
to teach her because she is not YSA aged. But she will be a good person
for the other elders to teach.
Hope you have the best week ever! Let me know if I can do anything for you.
