Sunday, October 19, 2014

The WORK has been fun and fruitful!

Letter # 57
Sept. 29, 2014
Area: Broadway- Central 2
Companion: Heath

Hey everyone!

This week has been really fun and fruitful! We have been working hard these past few weeks with very little success, just miracles happening with us finding new people to teach, and this week we finally have seen the work moving forward! I believe that I told you all last week that we got a referral from some other elders for a family that has gone to church a couple of times in their ward because they are friends with a member there, well this week we were able to set a baptismal date for them for October 18th, to give us time to teach them more and to include the rest of the family and get them all baptized the same day.
We also had a really fun ward party on Friday, it was called the Fiestas Patrias, where we celebrated all of the different countries that people in the ward come from.
We had the great opportunity to have Elvia Cuervo, and her 4 kids that live at home, come to the party.  They ended up being some of the first people there and talked with some of the members, including the bishop. We missionaries (the 6 elders in our ward) were able to participate too, we got to dance some of the many Hakas that are common in the Polynesian cultures. We had Elder Mamea, who is a Samoan that lived in Hawaii for a while, teach us. Then we got to see each of the different groups perform. The Primary, Young Single Adults, Young Women, and Relief Society were able to present different dances from the native cultures of where some of our members are from. And there was also food from the different countries, mainly El Salvador, Mexico, and Honduras. It was a really good experience for the Cuervo family.

This Thursday, during Hour of Power, we were able to find a less-active that we didn't know was on our books.  Her name is Lucero, and she is married to a non-member and has a baby that is only a few months old. We decided to stop by on Saturday because we were in the area, and her older brother, who is a returned missionary, was there and her husband was there as well. We ended up teaching them about the Plan of Salvation and who God is because Lucero's husband doesn't have much of a background in religion.  That conversation turned towards us talking about Eternal Marriage. It went really well, and Lucero's brother was really helpful in teaching because he knows them and he knows the doctrine as well. We really saw that as a miracle because Lucero's brother has been praying a lot for Lucero and her husband, and he was only going to be in town for the weekend. They said that they were just talking about us stopping by on Thursday when we knocked the door. It seems like that kind of thing happens a lot...people talk about us, and we show up.

We have been able to move forward with our different investigators by teaching them very spirit-centered lessons, and they have started to progress more. I really look forward to the next few weeks and the opportunity that our investigators will have to see General Conference.

And now to answer your questions mom:
1.1) Cesar has sadly decided to not meet with us, but we hope to work with the rest of the family so the spirit can work on him. Elvia recently has been keeping commitments to read and she came to the party and had a great time. We truly believe that she will be baptized in the next few weeks as long as Cesar doesn't decide to have our lessons with her stop.

1.2) Jorge, Suyapa's non-member "husband", is progressing well as well. They really want to come to church and only haven't because their baby has to live on a schedule because of it's syndrome, which makes it difficult for them to be able to wake up for 9am church. We met with Jorge on Saturday and had a great lesson, and we mainly concentrated on getting to know them and having them get to know us an feel more comfortable. We helped them understand some other things which they had questions about and we taught them about the Priesthood and Auxiliaries to prepare them to know what to expect at conference. They were talking about Jorge being Elder Heath's first baptism when they get married, so we really believe they have that desire to go forward, and we want to talk with them about them getting their birth certificates from Honduras to get them married.

1.3) Manuel, Cesar's friend...we actually haven't been able to catch him because he has a crazy schedule with school and football, and we really want Cesar there while we teach him. We are still trying to at least get him to activities and church...

2) yeah, I got that package, the writing on the outside was a little worn off because it looked like it got rained on a little in Hawaii...(the package took an unplanned 'detour' to Honolulu, Hawaii, instead of the Houston, Texas address written on the package)

I love you guys,
Elder Stanley Scott Dye

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