weekly Email - March 10, 2014
Hope you guys are all well!! Looks like you had some fun ice skating. I don't think they know what ice skating is here, haha. It's getting hot already here. The summer is gonna be an adventure. This week was good. A lot of teaching and a lot of finding as well. Elder Jewkes and I kept the tracting up, we have a return appointment tomorrow with a lady that we found named L---. When we knocked on her door her son, who I'd say is around 14, opens the door and without saying anything to us yells 'Mom!.....Mormons!' and ran back in the house, haha. His mom came out and was really nice and we had a great conversation with her and she invited us back on Tuesday, so we are excited for that. We had a great lesson with J--- this week. He is the other guy we found tracting. We brought Brother Celeste with us who has an amazing conversion story. He was in school to become a Baptist minister then missionaries knocked on his door and he was baptized two weeks later. Amazing. He is an awesome teacher and was great in the lesson. J--- reminds me a lot of T--- when we first started teaching him. So open and curious and can recognize the Spirit. I am really excited for the next lesson. He is single but has a 8 year old son we hopefully can teach has well. He said he will read the Book of Mormon with him, which was really cool. Had a really good lesson with the S----- family. They are a part member family, Brother S----- is a member, a convert too actually. They always invite us in and ask us to share a message with them. Every time we stopped by it seemed we had an appointment in 10 or 15 minutes so we didn't have too much time. But this week we taught them the restoration and it really touched Sister S-----. In the past she has been very kind to us but has been kinda closed towards us. She really opened up this lesson and she said it's hard for her to change but she sees a change coming. It's was really touching. We had a good lesson with C-----. He is so so close to baptism. He told us he is afraid of change, which is understandable, it's just a matter of time with him. I know he knows it's true, we are just waiting for him to act on it. We did have some sad news this week. Brother Schoenburg passed away from a heart attack. It was pretty hard for me for a day or so. I have seen the Schoenburgs as grandparents since I've gotten into this area. We have spent so much time there working in their yard and helping them out. We have been there once a week since I got here. (5 months!!) We actually saw him the day before he passed, asking what we could help out with. I hope Sister Schoenburg is doing okay, we are going to stop by tomorrow to see what we can do. He was such a happy guy, lived a full life. Thank goodness for the Plan of Salvation. We teach people the peace the gospel brings but it's nice when we can take comfort in it ourselves. Other that that, spent a lot of the day with Brother Gaytan on Saturday. He took us out to a Mongolian bbq, that was super good, then visited some members and tracted some. We also went tracting with Brother Malupo and man that was an awesome experience. He is the guy who was a Mission president in Tonga. He was so bold yet so loving to people. I learned a lot from him. We plan on going with him once a week. Finally committed to writing in my journal every night, actually typing it on the type writer, haha. Been good at it for 2 weeks or so. I did it off and on before but I want to do it everyday. You guys get the stuff I mailed you? Love you. Awesome that you guys have been out with the missionaries so much, that is so awesome. Proud of ya, you guys mean a lot to the missionaries. Members who are aware of us and help us out and aren't afraid to share us with their friends make our day. Love you!!! One more lesson I forgot about, had a great lesson with T-- our new investigator. We brought Brother Gaytan and they hit it off. Him and J--- and C---- got to get wet before I leave this area, haha. ("get wet' means get baptized)
love
Elder Mountain
Weekly Email - March 3, 2014
Great to hear from you guys, glad you are doing good! Hope you feel better soon, Pa. So this week was awesome, full of small miracles. The dedication was yesterday, we were able to go to two of the three sessions, they were really awesome. I remembered the Atlanta temple re-dedication a little bit but glad I was able to attend another one. The Prophet and Elder Eyring were there, along with three members of the Seventy. The Prophet looks like he has aged quite a bit lately. The cultural celebration was on Saturday and the Prophet was there for that as well. It actually rained almost all day on Saturday, first time its rained in months. So all of the kids were pretty wet but it went smoothly and looked awesome. We were able to watch it at our ward mission leaders home. The local news station covered it, so it was on TV. Besides the dedication we also had a good week. We have found some great people from tracting. One guy named J--- we found was really golden, reminded me of T--- when we first talked to him. He accepted a Book of Mormon and we got a return appointment for next week. We also met a couple named A----- and J---- who were over at the members home when we had dinner there. They were super curious and also accepted a Book of Mormon and they want to learn more. They really enjoyed the temple and had some questions about eternal families. They are great people, very strong in their faith in Christ but are searching for a church for their family, what we like to hear, haha. We also met a couple B-- and M--- who are neighbors to some members who are super missionary minded. They invited everyone on their street to the temple and took quite a few of them. B-- and M--- asked about the Book of Mormon so we went over and dropped one off and gave an explanation of what it is and they asked several questions and are very open to reading and praying. We had our first lesson with T--, another neighbor of some members. He is an older man, 78 I think is what he said, we went over to give him a Book of Mormon and he invited us in and we had a great lesson. He ended up telling us his life story pretty much and some incredible experiences that have brought him to have a testimony of Christ, especially of prayer. We invited him to read and pray and we should see him in the next few days. Been an awesome week for finding new investigators, which we need. Elder Jewkes and I have been focusing on giving people Book of Mormons in our contacting. Our goal is 25 BoM's for the transfer and we ended up giving 10 this week. B---- is doing good, we had 2 lessons with her this week. She says she wants to finish a novel she is reading then she will read the Book of Mormon all the way through, haha, I guess that's an okay deal. We still have been busy with the church tours and taking the members of the ward on them. They are starting to catch the vision of it, just gotta give them that push so they will invite their friends. Other than that things are going good. Elder Jewkes and I are doing well, laughing a lot. One quick funny story from tracting, we knocked on a door and this lady that looked pretty distraught answers the door. She says I cant talk right now I'm preparing for surgery. I think then maybe she is a surgeon or something and she is studying. But then she says shes busy on the toilet. I could hardly keep a straight face, haha. It was pretty funny. It was either a really good excuse or she really was in the middle of something. Anyways, love you guys!! and miss you. Time is flying by. The church is true. The lord is a Lord of miracles, that is for sure.
love,
Elder Mountain
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