Learning with Time

Letter #87
April 27, 2015
Area: Baytown
Companion: Knudsen

It is always exciting/crazy reading your emails, Shannon with her house hunting, Carolyn with her schooling endeavors, etc. It is just crazy to think that nobody is going to be living where they were the last time I visited them...

This week went pretty well, we saw a lot of miracles happen, especially as we went through the old potentials in the Area Book! We found a very prepared family, the Silva's, and there are 4 people in the family that are of age for baptism! They are all very into religion and want to grow closer to God. They accepted a baptismal date for May 23rd, and we are very excited for working with them to achieve that goal! We also found a new investigator named Ozzy.  He is very prepared and had questions that he stated nobody was able to answer except for us. He feels like the Bible went through the hands of many people in the way that the game "Telephone" works (remember the words goes from one person to the next usually changing slightly along the way). He basically knew what the apostasy was without knowing WHAT it was.

We also had exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Friday, which is always a great experience. I had the opportunity to be with Elder Johnson and learn from him as well as help him out. I have really come to love exchanges because now the Zone Leaders are more on the same page as me because we have been out the same amount of time and we can help one another. Elder Johnson and I had a really miraculous exchange, we found about 8 potential investigators for my area and we also taught the Silva family the first lesson and extended the baptismal date. We were able to meet with a less active and get to know him and boldly, but lovingly call him to repentance. I was extremely happy to see him come to church on Sunday, he responded well to the invitation.

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

Training....needing to go back to the basics!

Letter #86
April 20, 2015
Area: Baytown
Companion: Knudsen

It sounds like your week was great except for the crazy weather, but we had crazy weather out here too. It was raining most of the week, then yesterday was sunny and nice outside until about 7:10pm, suddenly some menacingly dark clouds started coming in. By 7:30 the clouds covered half of the sky and it was a lot darker than it had been only minutes before. We hadn't eaten dinner, so we decided that we didn't really like the look of the skies and we were just going to go in for dinner. We checked the phone when we got home and saw that we had a text that we missed, it said that there was a tornado warning and everyone should get inside. It said that it had been seen, I will be sending my SD card home soon, and I took a few videos and a bunch of pictures of it.

Other than that, this week went really well, we were having the constant need to find more people though. We saw much success as we went contacting, we actually were able to teach 13 new people, but sadly, a couple had to be passed on to the English Elders, one was going out of town for 1-2 months to visit his father, and three decided they didn't want to hear any more. Regardless, we still were able to find 7 new investigators, and the majority seem like they will begin to progress very soon. With the call of our new Branch Mission Leader we have seen more help from the members than I have ever seen. We were able to bring some members out, but sadly some of the lessons didn't work out so we had to try some other people. We ended up going over to visit a less-active family with Hermano Valadez, the Branch Mission Leader, and we actually caught them at home and found out more of why they don't come to church. We are super excited for where this area seems to be going! It is also really amazing to know that Matthew, one of the referrals given to the English Elders, went to church Sunday. We found him on Saturday, and now he will be getting baptized on May 3rd along with Vansha G, a person who contacted us about 2 weeks ago during the Spoke'n Pedal. They both show extreme desire to grow closer to God and to act upon the message, I can't wait to see that miracle happen!

The district has been doing well, the Hermanas recently had to drop a lot of their investigators, but that gave them more time to find those who are really prepared. We had a really inspired District Meeting that I honestly didn't know exactly what to do until we went to the Temple on Thursday and I prayed in the Celestial Room. The meeting was really focused on what we can do to bring the Spirit into the lessons more and to leave better commitments to be able to allow the investigators to feel that same spirit that we brought. We all realized we just needed to go back to the basics and back to the days of training, when we didn't know what to say or how to say it, when we stuck more to the guidelines and teachings in Preach My Gospel because it was all we knew. We were able to role play using the How to Begin Teaching points and we each applied it to our real teaching and I have felt the spirit more as we teach.

I love you guys,
Elder Stanley Scott Dye

District Leader Responsibilities

Letter #85
April 13, 2015
Area: Baytown
Companion: Knudsen

(this past week I failed to tell you that the Mission President has called me to be a District Leader.  There are more responsibilities, like baptism interviews, and leading district meetings, but I feel that I'm up to these responsibilities.  I know that my mission president has confidence in me, and I trust the Lord.)

This week went pretty well, but we sadly weren't able to get any of our investigators to church or with a date. We worked hard and tried to be diligent in our efforts of finding people and as a result, we found many new investigators and more potentials to try. We were able to teach almost every day this week as well, less than we wanted, but it seems to be looking up for the next few weeks. We found a guy named Justiniano, or in English, Justin, and he seems really interested.  He is a very open young man not too much older than us. We actually contacted him after having walked by twice.  He was blasting music from his car and we both just had the thought that he was just a punk (I know we shouldn't judge), but then we felt like we should go talk to him and he was really open to us. We were able to set a return appointment for tomorrow, Tuesday, and invite him to church and English class on Thursdays. We look forward to teaching him, as well as having him at the English class, but we never would have found out how interested he was if we didn't talk to him.     We also found a couple, Lupita and Jonathan, on Sunday. We contacted them about a week ago and they didn't seem too interested at the time, but we decided to go by and their son let us come in. We started talking to them and taught them the Restoration and before we even extended the invitation to church, Jonathan asked, "So, where's the church?" We started describing how to get there and invited them and he said, "Yeah, we'll go, that's why I asked where the church was." It was great! What made it better is that Jonathan was starting to read from the pamphlet right when we said that God and Jesus were different people while describing the First Vision. We have another appointment set up with them and we have already figured out which member we would like to come with us.

I also had the opportunity to perform a baptismal interview for an investigator of the sisters in my district, and it was an amazing experience. I was scared that I would have to tell Abraham that he couldn't be baptized almost the whole time because he told me early on that he wasn't married legally to his wife, but he failed to mention until the end that she still lives in Mexico, so it isn't a problem yet. He was baptized Saturday and confirmed on Sunday.

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

New Area, New Companion, New Adventures!!

Letter #84
April 6, 2015
Area: Baytown
Companion: Knudsen

Hey guys, I am in Baytown now, in the Texas Spanish Branch. My new companion is Elder Knudsen from a little northern Utah town. He has been out for about 8 months now.

I'm really excited for the opportunity to be here in Baytown in the Texas Branch, but I'm going to be honest and say that this week was rough, we were definitely seeing the consequences of the lack of contacting and new investigators of the last few weeks. We also ran into a few problems for contacting earlier in the week because Elder Knudsen had some bike problems that needed to be fixed. Luckily, I was able to fix the various problems making it so he didn't have to find a bike shop to do it, but sadly that took some of our proselyting time away. Elder Knudsen and I have committed ourselves to talk to everyone-all nationalities- in order to get new people to teach and to show the Lord our desire to do His work. We finally were able to get in contact with one of their potentials that seemed really interested.  We were able to speak with him about the restoration of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. We invited him to conference and to read the Book of Mormon, but we haven't been able to contact him since and he wasn't able to make it to conference.

Elder Knudsen and I look forward to a great week this week despite the difficulties of last week. We will still be contacting a lot, but we have a few potential investigators that said we could come by this week and they are pretty good finds. It was a great start to the week having General Conference ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/04?lang=eng ) because I feel like this conference was based around having an eternal perspective. I have really seen that kind of attitude bless my mission more recently because, as I've applied it and internalized it more, I have seen my attitude towards the work change. I am understanding more of the importance of obedience, the importance of diligence, and the need of sharing this message with the world. I have also grown my testimony of President Drake's calling as our Mission President because the instructions that the prophets are giving us are the same as what he has been giving us, but their instructions will also be helpful further on...past the end of my mission. I feel like so many of the talks were just directed straight towards me-- I am glad I get the opportunity to listen to a prophet's voice every few months. I do have a testimony that Pres. Thomas S Monson is the current prophet for the Lord and that his instruction is what the Lord would have us hear at this time. 

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

Don't give up on anyone Because People Change

Letter #83
March 30, 2015
Area: Liberty- English speaking
Companion: Syrie

First the questions so I don't forget.

1) Elder Syrie has been here for 2 transfers, so since February. He has been out for 9 months and is from Washington state.

2) We have tried to teach Ernesto's sister, but haven't gotten back into contact with her since we first saw her. We told him about finding her that same week :) She speaks English better than Spanish, so we would keep her.

3) I actually will be moving, I got transferred, so don't send me mail until I can tell you where I go! :)

This week was rough for us in finding new investigators, we spent hours going around biking, knocking, looking through former investigator logs and trying them, but it was to no avail. We were trying to figure out what was going on, but as we looked at it we were just seeing that a lot of the people that we contacted were good contacts and good people, but they were all just busy that week... Finally on Friday, the Spanish Elders gave us two referrals, so we called one, and she was interested, but didn't know what her schedule would be, so we need to call her again this week.  Then on Sunday, we finally just decided to go over and try to visit the other referral. We got there, and Elder Syrie mentioned that he and Elder Croney had previously knocked on that house, and when we saw the man, he realized he had talked to him about a month ago and he was completely closed to the gospel, he just said "I'm Pentecostal" to them. When we talked with him, he still seemed set in his beliefs, but he was open to learn. He invited us right in and let us teach him the Restoration, and he was open to the message. We talked about the Book of Mormon as the evidence and he is willing to read it and he wants to at least learn and follow God's will. We were so excited about that! We had been waiting all week to finally teach somebody, or more truly, we were searching all week for people to teach, and on Sunday, at about 4pm, we found them! It also just shows that you can't just give up on people you've already talked to and areas that you've already knocked, people always change.

In terms of our investigators, we saw only Oscar M, Susan and Margaret S this last week, everyone else seemed to be busy all the time. We helped get Margaret's son, Alex, to scouts and he loved it! We also were able to give Susan, another investigator, a blessing of health because she was feeling pretty sick, so we talked with her about blessings with her as well. Oscar is still super amazing, and in the last week he said he read pretty slowly, but he talked about how the Lamanites and the Nephites split up into the two separate groups, so later we looked up where that was, and it turns out that he read at least until 2 Nephi 5! But the sad thing is that he leaves today for Arizona for the next month for work...why does everyone have to be so busy with work!(just kidding, I know that people have to work, but this message is so important).

I have felt the love of all the members in the ward and branch and have seen many opportunities to serve. Remember how we had been working with April and Valeria in the branch? They told me yesterday that they decided to get baptized April 12th! They really want me there, so I am going to ask permission to go. Also, Josh G has also decided to get baptized, we will be stopping by there today to pick up my watch that he is fixing, so I will ask him if he has decided on a date. I am so excited for these people! I know they will be baptized as well as the people we were working with here in the ward.

Love,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye