Disappointing Family Home Evening

Are you guys getting hit with some of this East Coast heat that we are hearing about?

 

• Yea, it's been pretty hot recently (up towards the upper 90's/100), but it hasn't effected us too badly, we've managed to be able to use the car and get inside teaching lessons, so it hasn't been to bad.

 

How did your family home evening go last week?  Sounds like you had great plans.

 

• Not quite how we planned it.  We had talked to the investigator three days in a row (fri, sat and sunday) and every day she said that she was going to come, but on monday, the member called her to see if she was ready to pick her up, and she said that she had to leave for  "mandato", or something like that I'm not sure what.  Then there was another investigator that was supposed to come.  We had one of the members call her and invite her to come to the FHE and she said she would, then we stopped by her house on our way to make sure that she was coming so that the member could pick her up.  She told us yes, and that she was supposed to go over to the members house to ride over with them in a few minutes (the member lives across the street).  So we wen't to the FHE and found out that that member that she said that she was riding with was already there, so we called her, and she told us that she had left and couldn't come...just 20 minutes after telling us that she was coming!!  So we got there late, because we were running about 15 min behind, and then we had to rummage around to try to find somebody that could come, so we ended up being 30 min late.  So when we got there, the members were mad at us because we were late and didn't have any investigators there, and she had cooked a ton of food.  We ate dinner with them and taught a lesson, and tried to make the best out of it that we could, but it was still a pretty disapointing night.

 

 How are things going?  

 

• Great

 

 Do you need anything?

 

• nope...pix from sharee's wedding!!! (electronic copies are great, but us missionaries like to have hard copies of pix).

 

 Did you ever get your bike adjusted? 

 

• I brought it in and they looked at it and told me that repacking the bearings wouldn't really do anything.  He said it wasnt the bearings that are wearing down (as in the balls)  but what the balls roll on,  so he told me that if he were me that he would just ride it out for now (because it isn't too bad,  I just wanted to fix it now before it caused a bigger problem) and later on I'll need to get new hubs.

 

This week we had a training on tuesday, and then I went on exchanges to wilminton after the training until weds. evening.  IT was interesting, we taught a family from china.  It was weird though because I heard them speaking chinese, and since I've been speaking spanish, my brain tried to pick up what they were saying, but since I don't know chinese I didn't pick up any of it.  I don't know if that makes any sence, it's kind of something you have to experience.

 

As far as food goes, we did really good this week.  We ate with members 7 times this week, which made my stomach happy, and we got try and get referrals from them.

 

On Thursday evening we went to teach a family, but the parents weren't there...well, they were asleep and didn't want to wake up.  But their son was there, and he agreed to let us teach him.  We had to teach him outside, because we can't be alone with him inside the house.  But we taught him the plan of salvation, because he had some questions about that.  The leson wen't really well, and it suprised me how well he remembered everything that we taught him.

Video of Missionaries singing "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" at conclusion of Spanish Conference in Knightdale, NC - see Jeff on the back left.

how are you doing?

I just sent you a few pix from the Spanish missionary activity that we had this weekend.  on Thursday night we drove with the zone leaders to the mission home in Raleigh and stayed the night there.  Sis. Cotterral had cooked some soup for us, so we ate that (our second dinner that night),  and then we went to bed.  The next morning we got up and went to the temple in apex.  We did a session in the temple, and we did it in Spanish.  I was surprised at how easy it was to understand.  It is really basic and simple Spanish.  Then we ate lunch had some training/discussion/testimony meeting and then headed back to our areas.  However with traffic, by the time we got back to our area, it was already 7 o clock and just had enough time to go to a dinner appointment.

We had a pretty good week this past week.  I really enjoyed the Spanish activity, but it did take away a lot of proselyting time, but that's alright.  I learned a lot of things that should help us out.

Tuesday was pretty crazy this week.  Tuesdays are usually days that you spend tracting for hours on end, because everybody's at work.  But we were really busy, we taught four really good lessons, between traveling and teaching the lessons, that's all we did that day.  We found this guy a while back, and in the contact with him, we invited him to read the book of Mormon, to pray about it and then to be baptized if he came to know that it's true.  When we taught him, he told us of an amazing story of this dream that he had telling him that it is true.  We set a baptismal date with him for the 13 of august.  But now were not to sure, because we talked to a few members that know him and we're not sure if he is quite capable of making the decision to be baptized. But we'll see how it goes.

There was a family that we were teaching.  I think I told you about them,  but we decided to drop them.  They weren't will to give up the church that they are at right now.  they told us that they had made a promise that they wouldn't leave the church that they are at right now.  and their son plays the guitar in the church band (I've always thought that the church bands are kind of interesting, because they are breaking the sabbath day at church by listening to rock music in the church!)

Tonight we have an exiting night planned.  Two of the families in the branch are going to have a family home evening, and invite a few of our investigators.  So we're going to eat dinner, have a lesson, and let the investigators get to know a few members.

Sister Cotterell fixed soup for the missionaries

Conference of Spanish speaking missionaries

Picture of Companion

Picture is of Elder Dixon before he (Dixon) was transferred.

How are you doing? So it wasn't too long ago since I last wrote you, but there's a few things I could tell you about.

We finally got back up with [investigator] (the boy thats 12 yrs old and his parents didn't want to give him permission) but it looks like they might end up giving him permission. So were going to work on teaching him again. But he's going to honduras for three weeks, so we'll have to wait for that.

I think I told you about the family we found last tuesday, the Rivera family. We taught them again this week, and it went pretty good. the mom had read in the book of mormon and prayed about it, but she told us that she hadn't recieved an answer telling her if it is true or not yet. We're kind of wondering if they're going to be willing to give up the church that they are at. When we invited them to come to church they told us that when they began going to the churhc that they are at now that they were anointed and promised that they would stay at that church and not go to any other church. But Elder Lake asked them that if they found out if our church was the only true church if they would join it. that sentence doesn't make sence, we'll try it in spanish. El les pregunto si ellos llegaran a saber que nuestra iglesia es la unica iglesa si se juntarian con nuestra iglesia. and they said that they would. so we'll see how it goes.

So I told you that me and elder Lake have been speaking just spanish together, and we are still doing it. We've gone two weeks now. I feel like I've gotten a lot better at spanish these last few weeks. I could speek just fine about the gospel, or teach lessons, but I talked a little bit slower whenever I tried to carry on a normal daily conversation (I could do it but I had to think), but now it's starting to come a lot more smothley.

This last week we also got up with a potential that we contacted about a week and a half ago. it was origionally the daughter that we first contacted, but the parents were there and listened when we taught them. it was a really good lesson. the parents didn't quite understand everything, but the daughter seemed to absorb everything, and give some really good answers.

In our mission since near the beginning of our mission, pres. Coterral has always encouraged us to try to extend a baptismal invitation in the first lesson. it always requires an extra effort to get that invitation out, but recently he's been hinting on us extending invitations to be baptized in the contact. Me and elder Lake decided to give that a try and we ended up inviting 16 people to be baptized this week (where we normally only invite about 5-7) but we saw a lot of good things come of it. it was amazing seeing the number of people that actually said yes, and that have already started to fulfill commitments.

Lot of Tracting

How are you holding up with the weather?

 

• Good, It is really not much hotter than last year, but it is a lot drier.  We haven't had hardly any rain this year, which for here is very unusual.  They don't have any sprinklers for the crops out here, so a lot of the corn is about to shrivel up and die.  But even still it's wetter than Utah, and still plenty humid.

 

How was Spanish Day and how are things with your companion? 

 

• We haven't had the spanish day yet, that will be the 15th of July.  Things are going great with my companion.  It's been great working with him, I was talking with another elder and he said it is kind of funny, because my personality and elder Dixson's personality are so similar.  But Transfers are tomorrow and he's getting transferred.

 

[We]  would like you to take pictures of the countryside in Raleigh if you ever get the chance.

 

• I'm assuming that your referring to the countryside of North Carolina?...because there isn't countryside of Raleigh.  But I can work on that, it's sometimes difficult because I don't really have much time to take pix, but I'll try and take a few pix.

 

Have you been affected by the wildfires or the smoke?

 

• It depends on the day and which way the wind is blowing,  the fire isn't in our area, but sometimes we get the smoke blown our way.

 

This last week we did quite a bit of tracting.  I told you last week about how most of our investigators dropped us.  and on Wednesday it made the final push.  We called up Jame's mom to see when we could teach him, and she said that she wasn't so sure anymore that she was going to let him get baptized...  So we'll have to see, it might change if we give it some time, but we just have to wait it out for now.  So we've spent most of this week knocking doors and trying to find someone new to teach.

 

This week kinda reminds me of a scripture in Alma 26 when Ammon is talking about his mission to the lamanites and there's a verse that said something along the lines of when the were discouraged that the lord comforted them [See Alma:26:27].  (I'm not sure exactly how it goes, I don't have my scriptures w/ me right now.)  But it seems like nearly every day in the morning I had a good study and got excited to go out and work and then worked hard but then by the end of the day I felt kind of discouraged but the next morning I'd have my study again and then get exited to work the next day, and it all went through the same cycle.  Sometimes it's difficult but nonetheless, it's such an important and urgent work that it's so important to keep at it.

 

Our District

Our District

There's always a frog in front of our doorway at night, and I call him el guapo sapo [the handsome toad]

Family that was baptized a little bit before I got to Wallace

Mission Conference with Richard G Scott - Most of the Spanish speaking Elders

 

Investigators Moving Away

So, it was a pretty good week this week.  we kept busy and taught a bunch of lessons.  However, we started out the week with 4 solid investigators, and 3 baptismal dates, but somehow withing two days we lost three investigators and 2 baptismal dates went with it.  so we still have james that we are teaching, and he's still on track for baptism.  we moved his baptism for the 9th of july, but now I feel like we just got set back at square one. 

 

So I just found out that we are going to have a "spanish missionary day"  Meaning all of us spanish missionaries are going down to raleigh to go to the temple (I'm guessing in spanish, but I'm not sure...) and then I guess training and lunch or something like that, but I'm pretty excited for it.  It's kind of funny that whenever we go to trainings, all of the spanish missionaries group together and all of the english missionaries group together, we don't really talk to the english missionaries much.  So it will be awesome to get together with all of the spanish missionaries.

 

This week we found an awesome investigator.  We found him on monday, had an awesome first lesson with him and set a baptismal date with him.  The second lesson with him (weds.) was also a really good lesson.  He talked about how he felt the spirit during the lesson, and his desire to change his life.  However when we called on saturday to confirm our appointment with him that night, he said that he had moved out to his mom's house in goldsboro and is going to be there for a month.  So I guess we'll pass that on to the goldsboro elders.

 

We were also teaching someone named Jose.  We had set a baptismal date with him and he had even come to church last sunday.  We had lost contact with him for most of the week, but when we finally got back up with him on saturday we found out that he was moving back to honduras in 3 weeks, and would be to busy to contunue the lessons, and I don't know if he's going to let us put him in contact with the missionaries in honduras or not.

 

We were also teaching someone named Johana, and the last lesson we had with her was a really amazing lesson ( I think I wrote about it last week)  however since that lesson we havn't been able to get up with her, and were pretty certain that she is avoiding our phone calls/not anwering the door, etc.

 

But on a good note, we still are teaching James.  I mentioned a little bit about him earlier, but he's doing pretty good, and should be able to make his baptism.  We just struggling to get him to read the book of Mormon.

 

So I did get my bike fixed, but it was a little frustrating.  I took apart the break, and there was just a little spring that had broken (I took a pix of the spring).  I talked to the bike shop and they said that we couldn't order/get just the little spring, so I ended up having to buy the entire new brake, which I'm sure you saw wasn't cheap.  I thought about just going to the hardware store and trying to rig something up, but I figured that brakes are important and I'd better not try to rig it up somehow, and that it would have take too much time.

Ribeye Steak

We had a pretty good week this week.  It seems like we have a fairly good teaching pool right now, but for some reason or another we weren't able to teach many of them this week.  But I think it should pick up again this coming week.

Recently we've been teaching someone named [Investigator].  I wrote a little bit about her last week.  She was the one that was worried about the end of the world, and then had a lot of questions about judgment and the resurrection...resureccion, so we answered a lot of her questions using the book of mormon.  But then we taught her about the Restoration...well, tried to.  But she had a lot of doubts about prophets and apostles.  She liked us talking about Jesus Christ and the Atonement, but she got a little uneasy when we talked about prophets.  More than anything I don't think she really understood what a prophet is.   (and she's not the only one, there are a lot of different beleifs that I've heard of what a prophet is.  In fact a lot of people don't recognize the need for a prophet.   I've ran into so many people that think that the bible is all that they need to be "saved", but what they don't see is how many people say that, but yet how many different beliefs and religions have come from the bible.)  We talked to her on friday about what a prophet is, and we ended up spending about an hour and 45 min. talking to her.  It was a lesson that at first it seemed like it was all going down hill, but somehow at the end we were able to recover it.  We were with a member that talked a LOT, he was saying a lot of good things, but the conversation was moving so quick, that I felt like the spirit wasn't really able to be there like it should.  [She] just wasn't catching on to the concept of prophets, so finally we jumped into the Restoration and the first vision.  IT seemed like when we shared that, the spirit was able to come back strong again, and it clarified a lot of the doubts that she had.

We also are teaching someone named [Investigator man].   [He] has a baptismal date for the end of July.  But we had been struggling with praying with us during the lesson (something that our mission pres. wan'ts us to do at the end of every first lesson is to invite the head of the household to give una oracion de rodillas [Prayer kneeling] (sorry I couldn't figure out how to spell that). ).  But he just didn't wan't to do it.  So we went over with a member to teach him on tuesday and taught him about prayer.  IT was kind of interesting though, because the member is american and doesn't speak one word of spanish, but we still invited him to bear his testimony about prayer.  It actually turned out really well, we had to translate for him, but I felt like it turned out well.  Whenever we go on exchanges to visit a spanish person with an english speaking person it's a little different, I always feel like their's a barier between them, but it seemed like it wasn't like that this time, and they were actually able to communicate.  But, at the end of the lesson, Jose Prayed!!

On saturday we had a really good dinner, one of our members fed us Rib eye steak and potatoes.  I know that's kind of a random fact, but beef is expensive out here, and that's probably only the 3rd time I've eaten steak on my mission, so it was a really good dinner.

In response to your question about the weather, it's getting pretty warm.  It has been in about the 90's this whole week.  But it is also quite humid out here.  I'm a lot closer to the cost this year than when I was in raleigh, so it's even more humid than Raleigh was.

I was wondering if you could possible find on the internet or somewhere that tells how to speak in vos.    Not Vosotros, but vos.  There are a lot of Hondurans here and they speak in vos  a lot, so I'd like to figure out how to use it.  It's similar to speaking in Tu (tu, tuyo ti, etc.) but it's a little different.  and also I was wondering if you could make me a copy of the last general conference in SPANISH on disc so that I can practice listening to spanish a little more (it's a little more difficult in this area, because sometimes I don't speak with a native for more than 1/2 hr in a day.)

Good Week

We had a really good week this week.  We've started teaching some new people, and we now have several people with baptismal dates.

 

I told you last week about [sister investigator], who we set a baptismal date with on the first visit.  We havn't taught her since last tuesday, but we have an apt. with her tomorrow.

 

We've had an investigator/potential, named [Investigator], who we've taught a couple times these last few months, but we had lost contact with him for several weeks.  We finally passed by last sunday with a member that already knew him ( I think I already told you about this part last week).  But we had a really good lesson with him.  And on Thursday we visited with him again, and he accepted a baptismal date for the end of July!  (The other good thing about that was that my companion, to celebrate setting the date with him, cooked us T-bone steaks!)

 

We're still working on getting [Investigator] ready for baptism, however we didn't get to teach him this week, because he doesn't have a phone, so we were'nt able to get in contact with him until this last fri/sat.

 

There was another person that we taught this week named [another sister investigator], (I know the name doesn't look hispanic but she is, she's from honduras, and for some reason or another a lot of honduraneans have american names.  I'm not sure why.)  I may have told you about her before, but we talked to her one day.  And it was the day right before when there was a lot of stuff going out on the news about how the end of the world was supposed to end on some day in may.  I don't know if you heard a lot of that or not.  But she was reaally scared that day because she knew that she was sinning.  We talked to her about the doctrine of christ and how she could be forgiven,  and then on tuesday we taught her again.  She had a ton of questions about the Resurrection and judgment.  So we read in 2 Ne 9, we didn't really have to do any teaching during that lesson, we just read, and through the BOM she answered her own questions.  We had another lesson with her on Fri.  where we talked about the Restoration.  We didn't quite get all the way through the lesson, because she asks a ton of questions.  It might take a while to teach her, because she doesn't know hardly anything about Religion, so we just have to start at square one,  But it seems like she has some potential.

 

On Saturday night we had a pretty interesting lesson.  We talked to this guy that believed that the Atonement of Jesus Christ was just merely a torture.  He thought that since christ was the son of God that he should have been worshiped rather than tortured and then hung on the cross, and he thought it would have been better for ten other normal men to go stand in his place and suffer that for him.  So we talked to him about that and tried to help him understand the atonement of Jesus Christ a little better and why Christ was the only one that could do it.  (the more I've thought about it the more I've realized how illogical it would be for anyone other than christ to try and perform the atonement.)  At the lesson it was him and his daughter and his daughters friend (who are both only 13)  and towards the end of the lesson his daughter started to try to flirt with me.  I'm wondering if it was just a ploy to get us out of there and to keep us from coming back, but either way, it worked and we got out of there quick and I don't have any plans to go back.