Landon:
 |
| Landon with Boise State Center Jeff Beiderman. |
 |
| We just went on a tour with this guy from the branch who works at the Henesey factory. Basically it is a place where they take fast sports cars and make them faster and crazier. |
Dear Amigos,
The Fourth of July was great we had an exchange so I was with an
English elder from Katy. It was a pretty fun day because we also went
to a zone conference in the mourning and met our new Mission
President, President Peterson. He is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
and was a banker. He has a bunch of kids and served a South American
mission so he speaks Spanish pretty well though it is obviously a
little rusty. I really wasn't sure what to expect and I am still kind
of getting to know him but I believe that he is a great man for the
job. His wife is a convert to the church and shared her conversion
story with us which was very nice. She seems like a very kind hearted
person I think we will be able to learn a lot from her as well. The
night of the Fourth of July I was still on exchange and we did some
finding in a very Hispanic trailer park and which was interesting
because I was the only one that spoke Spanish. Then later we went and
ate some really good barbecue with some investigators that invited us
over.
Alvaro and Gabriel are still both on date to be baptized. We had a
super awesome lesson with them on Saturday about the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. It is so nice to meet someone who is actually reliable,
Alvaro does what he say he is going to do even studying the material
we are going to be teaching before we come over. Gabriel his brother
isn't quite as reliable and works a lot but he is coming along as
well.
I went on another exchange with an English Elder named Elder Hansen
from Logan Utah. He is pretty cool he was a wrestler in High School
and has been out on the mission about 8 months longer than me. For
part of the night we went to a correlation meeting with their ward
mission leader who is none other than Jeff Beiderman who played center
for the Boise State Broncos. They were a really cool family too they
gave us breakfast for dinner and have two little boys and a little
girl who love playing crazy ball, which is a game with only two rules
don't break anything and the big guys try to hit the little guys with
the balls. I had the privilege to put on a Boise State 2007 Fiesta
Bowl ring. If you don't know what that is or you don't remember then
you need to go look up the highlights from that game and you will
understand the awesomeness of that.
Also this Sunday we had a potluck dinner with the whole branch after
church which was super fun. I got to sit and talk to the two oldest
members of the Sealy Branch. They are from a tiny little town called
San Felipe but if you ask them it's San Philip because "we won the
war!" They also told us all about how Texas got started in San
Felipe.
Elder Marquez is doing awesome he only has 3 weeks left on his mission
before he goes home to California.
12 Porque si no hay fe entre los hijos de los hombres, Dios no puede
hacer ningún milagro entre ellos; por tanto, no se mostró sino hasta
después de su fe.
Elder Hatch
Dallin:
This has been another week of miracles and blessings of all kinds. We
had the baptism of Alex and Erica on Saturday and the Confirmation and
reception of the Gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. We also did
exchanges with Dayton Elders and met many great people.
Last Tuesday was the 4th of July! It was a good day although we had a
lot of our plans change we still taught a lot of people and had a good
time. We ended up eating dinner with our Ward Mission Leader Brother
Cordell. They made us some good burgers and hotdogs. We also visited
and spent time with a couple other members and had a whole bunch of
home made Root Beer.
We went on Exchanges later in the week and I went with Elder Pruit.
Elder Pruit is a great missionary only about 3 months our of the MTC
and he has spent his whole time in Dayton and only been on an exchange
once with the Zone Leaders which wasn't even a real exchange. So it
was a new experience for him and me as a District Leader. It went
really well and we actually did have some good success. One think I
learned is that Cleveland is a bigger size town than I have ever
served in. Just about the same size as Twin Falls but feels a lot
more chaotic and harder to navigate than anywhere in the west. We had
some adventures finding our way just because I still don't know the
area so well. We did meet one really cool guy named Chris who claimed
to be atheist or agnostic leaning atheist that still isn't sure that
there is no God but doesn't think so. He was actually super blown
away when we told him about the Book of Mormon and what it was a
record of. We got to teach him again on Sunday and he is so filled
with questions and speculations. But some of the questions that he
has not been able to answer before are actually found in the Restored
True Gospel of Jesus Christ which we teach. So we will continue
working with him. Elder Pruit is from Colorado and took 5 years of
French in High School so he can speak French. We had a great time
learning from each other.
The baptism of Alex and Erica was on Saturday and we came and met with
them on Friday. Erica got super super sick. She was feeling terrible
and couldn't even stay with us for the whole lesson. We got them all
prepared for the baptism with what they were going to wear and who was
going to do what. That night they both had a terrible night and Erica
was very sick. Alex was stressed out of his mind and had all his
former doubts and fears return. He told he was expecting so much from
the baptism and wanted it to be fulfilling and a very big experience
spiritually and emotionally. The next morning Erica wasn't sure she
wanted to do it and thought about calling it off or rescheduling.
Erica had always been the driving force behind them getting them to
keep commitments and come to church, but it was at this time that Alex
overcame fear and doubt, took courage and decided they would go
through with it of at least to just go and be baptized and then come
back right after. They called us that morning and we were already
filling the font and told us she was sick and that they might not want
to stay for the talks. I received that phone call and prayed right
after. I felt comforted that things would be OK. They came and were
baptized. Immediately after being baptized while we were changing
Alex told me that he felt everything he could have hoped for and that
as he left the water he felt such joy that he was brought to tears.
Erica was sick but went through with it and said she was happy too
even though she had to be dunked under the water twice because her leg
popped up. They went home. The next day they came,e to church and
received the Holy Ghost.
In addition to Erica and Alex he had another 6 Investigators come to
church including people who spoke Spanish who were members and
investigators. This was perfect because some of the less active
member Hispanics could also speak perfect English and translate for
the Investigators. Some people that I had never even seen before came
to church. They were Bryan and Ashlee: Bryan is a member who actually
offered to come out with us to teach people and Ashlee is his fiancée
who is not a member so we will get to visit them this next week. We
were very blessed with the help of members in taking care of our
investigators. Last night we had the opportunity to find two new
families of Hispanics who will come to English class and let us teach
them.
This week has been awesome and tomorrow we will have our first Zone
Conference with the new Mission President! Life is good.
Elder Hatch
No comments:
Post a Comment