Sunday, July 19, 2015

Seeing the Miracles That Blessed our Lives

Letter #96
June 29, 2015
Area: Baytown
Companion: Hepworth

We had an amazing week, but it was really hot. We had a mission-wide thing where we bike from the time we leave the apartment until around 5ish, and I am really brown because of it, it was probably mid to high 90s, at one point the thermometer read 103, but I'm not sure if it was... Yesterday we had a huge storm come in and it knocked out the lights at church until 10:20, so we only had Sacrament meeting, then most people left, but we were stuck talking to people and the lights came on for the English ward luckily.

This week was full of miracles, sure there were a few disappointments, but the Lord blessed us more than we deserve. This week we were continuing working with Andrea and her husband, Ulises, and they are doing AMAZING! We were talking with our Branch Mission Leader, Brother Valadez, about some of their concerns. We invited him to our lesson with them Wednesday, sat down, then he and his wife took it away. They were talking for about 20 minutes before starting our lesson, and in that time they introduced themselves, made them feel comfortable. We introduced the first topic we were going to talk about, then they just started teaching. They proceeded to teach the rest of the lesson, we literally only introduced the topic and testified, then we had to interrupt them because our hour was up and we had another appointment to go to. The Valadez family ended up staying for about another 1.5 hours just talking answering questions and concerns. Member "missionaires" are so influential because they can connect with those investigating in the  area in which they live. We missionaries are only in an area for 'so' long, and then are transferred out.  Members in the area are there to stay, so connections are so important.   The Valadez family then invited Andrea, Ulises, and their children over for a Family Home Evening for Friday. We opted not to go to the FHE, but we asked the members if they could talk about fasting, prayer, and scripture study during the FHE.  They did exactly that and then helped them learn a little about the temple because the Valadez family is going to be sealed in early August. Also during the FHE they talked about Baptism and some of their concerns as well as how they can prepare themselves. Andrea and Ulises ended up staying until about 10 or 10:30pm and were surprised by how fast the time went. They are now like best friends with each other. We ended up going over on Saturday to give their baby boy a blessing of health and took Brother Valadez and he gave a beautiful blessing, and Sunday when Andrea and the kids came to church, the baby looked a lot healthier.

Elder Hepworth and I were talking about the branch and expressed to each other how we can make the whole branch like the Valadez family because they worked miracles with this family and now they are basically doing the work (with us just helping them and supporting them). One of the reasons I mention this is because Brother Valadez also talks with his co-workers about the gospel and invites them to church, one of which decided to come to church yesterday and we were able to teach him a little! We are working with the Hermanas to make plans of working with the branch to make them all like this one family. We were thinking about doing a couple of Preach My Gospel classes to introduce it the branch, and then help them know how to study the manual, so they can prepare themselves to help us and their nonmember friends.

We have also been working with Hermana Galvez, and she is progressing really well.  She no longer has problems with the Word of Wisdom, and has no problems with the Law of Chastity, nor the 10 Commandments. This last week we taught her about keeping the Sabbath day holy and helped her understand some of the things we should and shouldn't do on Sunday. She is really doing well, she is just waiting until her son, Brian, gets home from his mission on July 27th.

We are really seeing the work bloom in our area, we are working with Andrea and Ulises towards the baptismal date of July 18th, Hermana Galvez is working for being baptized August 1st, and we were able to set a baptismal date with our investigator, Mario, for July 25th. We just need to confirm Mario's baptismal date, and pray and fast for Andrea and Ulises to get the divorce miraculously expedited  so they can get married and baptized for their date because that is honestly the only thing holding them back. It would be nice if you kept each of them in your prayers.

I love you guys,
Elder Stanley Scott Dye

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