Good day to all of you,
A new video promoting Christ's resurrection has been created
by the church called, "Because of Him." just like "He is the
Gift," it shows a wonderful video about the power of His atonement, and
the love He has for all of us. I would encourage you to all watch it, and share
it however you can, through social media, through a text, word of mouth,
whatever.
Because He Lives
While I was emailing, there was this man playing a computer
game placed diagonally from where I am, and all sorts of other distracting
things at the library. Video games are kind of annoying to me now, especially
since the work we do encompasses something much more important. The man didn't
take his eyes away from the game until he stopped playing it. I'm glad I don't
have that distraction with me.
In the past weeks, we haven't been having too many member
dinners with the families in this ward, especially since so many more active
members live on the north side, but this Sunday the bishopric put attention to
this, and tried to rally more support for us in the South. I was glad for this,
but thought they gave us a little more unnecessary attention on us that we needed.
Few member dinners is actually a little bit better, as it allows me to watch
what I'm eating with a little more precision, if you get what I mean. But I was
glad for the ward's desire to help us. Seeing as there are so many less active
members living in this ward, it's stretched thin as far as callings go already.
The members who are active do much more work than they would if everyone
participated. But we are on the way to change that.
This past week we added three or so new part member families
to our teaching pool, and we might add a few more in the coming week. This past
Monday night, we decided to go by the former investigators that lived in our
apartment complex. We usually would avoid by this, because it is tempting to
visit the people who live nearby, and if we stop by them at the end of the
night, we have no where else to go, essentially. But this night we decided to
visit a few, seeing as we hadn't done that all transfer. We contacted three
doors, with nothing to show for it, when after leaving the last door, we see a
head poke out the neighbor's door, none other than our Elder's Quorum
President. We were puzzled, but we went in, and quickly found out that his
daughter lived there, and that he brought his wife and youngest son to have a
Family Home Evening with his daughter, and her boyfriend. His wife, the
daughter, and as a result, the boyfriend, aren't members. We got something to
drink there, said hello, but left, because we had another appointment to get
to. That fell through, so we decided to text him and offer to do a family home
evening message.
We contacted yet another part member family, the B family,
(family name shortened for privacy of the family) and while making a return
appointment, (a dinner appointment as well) we got the text to come over, and
rushed back to the complex, practically sprinting up the flights of stairs to
the third floor. We shared Joseph's first vision, and they all agreed to read
the Book of Mormon, even Jared, the non member boyfriend. It was a miracle. If
we had tried to approach the Sis. G (also shortened, she was the non member
wife) and the rest of the family in any way, it likely wouldn't have worked. We
have a return appointment for tonight, one with the B family for Wednesday, and
doors opened that we couldn't have open on our own.
Another part-member family that we fell out of contact with
was Rosanna and Jimmy, her fiancee. Jimmy was taught nearly everything, but
because of his long parole, couldn't get baptized in April of last year. When
complications arose with them, and they separated for a time, the missionaries
lost contact, and he lost his desire to get baptized. Since then, he started
attending a baptist church, and preaching regularly in the prisons, giving back
to God as best as he could. He thought intently that preaching in the prisons
would keep him from going to church actively. He didn't phrase it that way when
we visited, but that is the meaning we got. He is a really repentant man, who
thinks he is purely a sinner, due to his past and the doctrine his particular
church teaches. It's hard to meet with him however, since he owns his own
plumbing business, and can't say exactly when he'll be home. We're supposed to
text the day of, which can be a little difficult.
Yet another family is the J. family. We knew that they were
a part member family, but we decided to contact them one night. This was our
first attempt as a companionship, and it worked! Severally attempts had been
made by previous missionaries, all of them coming up dry. Brother and Sister J
were baptized about 7 years ago. Since then, they have has extreme financial
trouble, especially as he was previously a Jehova's witness, working with others
of his same faith. When they were baptized that might have caused him to lose
his job. In various situations, they had been offended by members of the ward,
and encountered additional financial trouble. We met Bro J, his older son
Xavier, and a few of his other kids, all unbaptized. He and his family had a
fantastic relationship with the missionaries, so that allowed us to help in
trying to resolve the offenses that occurred. It was hard to make sense of what
happened. When we asked the kids about baptism, they seemed excited about it,
so much that as we left that night they followed us out. Sis. J wasn't there,
and she was probably offended the most. Sometimes being a member of the church
requires that we have thick skin, especially as we work with imperfect members
of the church every day.
We've also been meeting with a 87 year old with rock in his
soul named Bro. Najera. He's really kind, and open to the message, though he
doesn't comprehend is as quickly as he could if he were younger. He talked
about a cruise he went on, when he went to a dance, and was the oldest person
dancing there. He's really quite fit for his age, and devoted to Jesus Christ.
The difficulty with Brother Najera is that we need to establish contact with
his kids and the rest of the family he lives with, because he wouldn't be able
to got to church actively on his own, and it could be interpreted as an attempt
to take advantage of him, especially because of his age. He's really cool, and
if I weren't a missionary, I could probably spend a day listening to that old
fella' tell stories. Hopefully he'll be able to understand what he reads from
the BoM.
We had a brilliant Zone Conference that focused on
principles of teaching. We know that the understanding of who we teach is
influenced by our personal worthiness and our spiritual power. Lots of role
plays and fun stuff. We also played a quiz game focused on 21 chapters selected
from the Book of Mormon, and the teachings contained in those chapters. I did
very well, but our team did not win a round. It was a little more active
compared to most activities we had. Elder Downer and Elder Bertelsen were
there, and doing well. Christina, Ed, and Johnny are doing well, and they even
invited some friends to watch general conference with them. Gina and Daniel are
well too. Casey however dropped them and told them to lose his number, and
Sister Aguste got offended and left the church. WOAH. Lots of changes in just a
few weeks. I hope Sister Aguste calms down and returns, her kids were very
close to baptism. But God has everything under control, and he will help that
family on his own time table. They also found new investigators that are doing
well.
We've taught a bunch of people, and found many more. I
couldn't hope to detail even the visits we had with those we've taught more
than once. I'll try to update y'all next week, and tell you about more new
people and their wonderful stories.
In a package from Elder Drennan's mom, we got a bunch of
food. We are also being fed many times this week, so I do believe we will not perish
for the want of food this week. I'm sleeping very well, much better than I can
ever remember before. The dogs are just as numerous, and many dog bites have
occurred in our mission and the surrounding ones. We'll need to be careful
ourselves. The dogs aren't quite as cute as you'd think they should be.
Questions
and Answers
What did you teach
about when you gave the training during district meeting?
I taught about "How to Begin Teaching," a
principle in Preach My Gospel and setting expectations with those we teach. I
felt like it was a success, and I re-purposed a role play from another part of
PMG and used it to my own advantage. *laughs evilly*
How are The Fernandez
family, Chris and Darian, Juan and Kathy, Gracie and her brother Jesse, Robert
and Monica, and Jonathan and Sandra and the baby?
We didn't meet with the Fernandez family, Chris and Darian,
or Juan and Kathy, unfortunately. The F family canceled on us just before our
weekly appointment, and they didn't respond when we tried to reestablish
contact. Chris and Darian just weren't home when we made appointments. In one
case, we made an appointment for the next day, and they weren't home. How
frustrating. Actually, we did meet with Juan, but we missed Kathy on the
weekend when their family was busy. We had to reschedule for this Thursday with
Gracie, and Robert and Monica canceled last minute as well. I really don't know
what happened with Chris and Darian. They aren't so urgent about the whole
issue as we are, I suppose.
We DID however meet with Jonathan and Sandra, so I got to
finally meet him. He has a wicked beard. We met his sister, Lilly, and we might
try to stop by her in the future. We read about the tree of life. He seemed to
enjoy the analogy, and asked plenty of questions.
That was an awesome experience
you talked of with the Dias family from Colombia. How has the Book of Mormon
helped your teaching this past week?
Well, the Book of Mormon is the center of conversion. We
read from the introduction page with many people this week. If we didn't have
it, we wouldn't really have anything. I'd hate to be handing out copies of the
D&C to people that we meet. Not too many of the people we've met have been
reading. Read the Book of Mormon! Just do it! That goes to all of my friends
and family at home too. There really isn't a substitution for reading it.
What was your most
notable experience of the Spirit helping you and teaching you this week?
There is no way we would have found the G family, J family
or B family without the Spirit guiding our plans.
Did you have any
more funny dog (or pigeon, or rat)
experiences this week?
Not really. Oh actually, there was a pigeon sitting on a
mounted light on the side of our apartment complex, and actually the side of
our apartment too. (We live on the end). It wasn't really nice, but I threw
some crasins at it, and it didn't even move an inch. Not even when I nailed it.
Talk about "steadfast and immovable." Finally, Elder Drennan went
inside and hit the inner side of the apartment next to the pigeon, and it flew
away. I'm trying not to have as many fun experiences with dogs, just for safety
reasons.
Because He lives, we too might have everlasting life. Never
forget His sacrifice. "No matter who you are. Or who you were."
--
-Elder Hall
Texas San Antonio Mission
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