June 8, 2015
Area: Baytown
Companion: Hepworth
Hey guys, it sounds like you all had a great week and I am super excited
for Shanny and Simon on their acquiring of a house! Thank you all for
the birthday wishes and I want you to know that I got to go to a pizza
buffet with my district after District Meeting on Friday and my
companion paid for me as a little gift. We ended up getting cheesecake
the next day at a member's home (without them knowing that my birthday
was the day before), and I got some happy birthday texts from some of
the members because one of the only members that I told about my
birthday posted on the branch Facebook page that it was my birthday.
This week went well for us, though it was a little rough due to the difficulty
of getting in with our investigators, but we tried to use our time in a
good effective manner. We went out trying to find new people quite a bit
and also worked with a good number of the less active members. We have
been working with the ward list a lot to try to make the necessary
corrections, and we have actually had a good amount of success in finding
more members to work with, and the majority are part member families!
As we have been searching out new areas to go finding in, we have also
found success and now we know of more places that have a good number of
Hispanics that we can talk to. We have been receiving more referrals and
I have even noticed that there are times that we have had good
contacting miracles!
One miracle we ended up having was just yesterday, we felt like we
needed to try a family that we haven't been able to contact in a couple
of weeks, so we went up to where they live. They weren't home, but we
were able to talk with another investigator for a while as we helped him
try to fix his lawn mower. Then, not feeling quite satisfied with that,
we went over to another person we had contacted a few weeks ago. They
were busy as well, but they mentioned that they would be interested in
the English class we offer and said that he would try to come. That was
better, but it still didn't quite feel like that was what we were needed
for in that area at that time. On our way back to the car, I saw a man
and a woman sitting in a couple of chairs drinking and felt like I
should talk to them. We started to talk with them and they seemed really
cool, but they just didn't seem too interested. I felt like I needed to
ask the man why he only went to the Catholic Church when he went to
church, then I felt to ask him why he thinks there are so many churches.
When I asked those two questions he opened up and said how he feels
that there should be just one church and that he only goes to the
Catholic church because it is what his parents taught him. He and the
woman asked us why there were so many churches and other things that
pertain to the message of the restoration. We were basically able to
teach them about the apostasy and the restoration while we were there
and they seem really interested and invited us back for this next
weekend!
We had a lot of other miracles, but that was our biggest one that we
saw, other than us receiving a really interested member referral that we
will be teaching tonight or sometime a little later this week! We had a
really funny story as well from yesterday. We were looking for members
trying to make corrections to the ward list and one of the places that
we tried last night was definitely not a member. We knocked on the door
of where a member used to live and the man who answered the door didn't
even let us say "hello" or "good evening" before he started swearing at
us and screaming that we should leave saying that if we didn't leave, he
would call the cops on us, which made us laugh a little as we got back
in the car. It is unfortunate that he truly doesn't know what he is missing and he will someday meet the Lord at the judgement bar of God. We both just wish
he would give the gospel a chance, but he isn't and will have to take
ownership of his choices at that last day. We both just see that as extra
evidence that this is true because there is only true opposition against
our church.
The district has been doing well, we are all kinda struggling with
finding a high number of people to teach, but we are trying to pull
everything back together and manage our time better (than we have in
weeks' past). We are trying to work well with the people we have, and that
is helping them start progressing. Of course, there still are some obstacles in
the way of getting some of them progressing, but we are moving in a positive direction.
Elder Stanley Scott Dye
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