Heavenly Father is aware of each of us!

Letter #46
July 14, 2014
Area: Broadway Central
Companion: Petersen

This week we made an effort to not fall back into our usual backups that weren't even good investigators. We finally got a new investigator by trying a person that Elder Petersen was scared of trying the whole time we have been together, it worked out great! The man we met was willing to have us come over again to teach him and was really nice. He is a good man, just a little lost in his ways, he ended up drinking a bottle of beer, then he pulled out a cigarette and smoked the whole cigarette, all while talking to us. He used to be a missionary for the Catholic church and was really active, but then he just stopped.

It is difficult working when your companion doesn't want to work as hard as he should, but I feel like Zone Meeting this week helped him because it helped him realize that he came out for the right reasons and is out here for good reasons, but his desire isn't where it should be, so recently he has been doing a lot of self-evaluation and it has helped us in the work. This week's Zone Meeting was centered on our personal testimonies/desire and teaching, it helped me as well because it required a lot of self-evaluation.

On Thursday we saw a delayed Hour of Power Miracle from last week. Last week, 4 people opened their doors, the first was a lost sheep found, the second gave us water, the third gave us a return appointment, and the last one we invited to church. We went back this Thursday to try the man who said we could come back(door #3), but he wasn't home, so we talked to the man we invited to church(door #4), who was outside at the time, and he said the English missionaries could come back, so we set them an appointment and got his contact information for them. We had the feeling that we should leave, so we went back to our bikes and a woman pulls up in her car and said "Hey, I need to talk to you!". She parked the car and said, "I think you are looking for me, I live in Apartment #13", (which was the number of the apartment of the man behind the third door that was opened). She proceeded to tell us that she just barely moved into the area about a week and a half ago and she was a member from a different state. She had talked to her bishop to have him send missionaries to her new place, but in a prior experience when she did this it took about a month. The miracle is that we got there like 3 days after she moved here and we never got notification that she had moved here. We just decided that Heavenly Father didn't want her to have to wait another month, so he put the idea in Elder Petersen's head a few days earlier that we should knock that apartment complex. I know that miracles happen, and that God allowed us to be a part of one these last two weeks!

Other than that, the struggles in the area are still here and I'm sure they will be fixed by just getting out and working because it seems like that is what's lacking...

1) my cold has gone away, just a lingering cough now :)

2) we met our new mission president; President Drake, but we haven't done interviews, he just talked with each companionship for about 5 minutes and then they talked with us all as a group and told us a little about themselves.

3) Well, yes I got the package, and no the tire liners haven't seem to help me.  I got a flat because the tire liners are apparently not made for slime tubes.  The slime makes a fiber-like thing that acts like a clot, a lot like blood/scabs. The liner slipped around a little and kept taking the little clot out of the hole, making the tire go flat, so I just took them out. They seem to be working on Elder Petersen's bike though, and I haven't had a flat recently, so I guess I'm fine.

Thanks for the advice everyone! And thanks for the updates on the kids, I would like pictures more often, but I think you would say the same :P

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

A week that could have gone better...there is always next week

Letter #45
July 7, 2014
Area: Broadway 2 Central
Companion: Petersen

This week was pretty hard... It was a huge disappointment and a setback in our area. We both feel horrible for our lack of lessons, and want to do more. This week I got sick to the point that Elder Petersen would ask me to go lay down and sleep a little, but I would just start coughing harder and deeper as I was laying down. The past couple of days I have felt a little better, but the cough I have still lingers, so I got some juice with vitamin C in it and cough drops. I am not very concerned about being sick because I know that the Lord has a work for me to do and he will support me and be my strength when I can't do it on my own.

I feel like the lack of success isn't due to the sickness though, whenever we went outside and were working, I felt just fine, it was just when we were inside doing nothing that I would cough and have a stuffy nose. This week I mainly felt held back by internal challenges, well internal in that I feel that our companionship has been out of sync.  I don't know what else it would be. I know I haven't pushed us very hard to get out of our comfort zones and do our best.  I know that there is a sense of contention when I say that we should get going or do something other than what we are doing.   I feel that he would prefer to do anything then what I'm asking us to do...I have no idea what to do with him... If anything I want to put the blame on me first and take care of it, but it just isn't working because I know I am trying to do the best I can. It has been challenging because I really do love him, but I don't love what he is doing.  (He just isn't the same missionary as he was when we came out together.) I really want to help him, I just don't know what to do.

But on another note, 4th of July was just different...Hispanics, in this area, don't really celebrate it , so there wasn't very much of a celebration down here and we just went in an hour early.. It didn't feel like the 4th of July:(

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

PS: on top of my terrific week, the stupid post office sent the postcards that were meant for Angie and Mom back to me... So I'll just have to send them with a letter or package. :(  :(

Do flat tires discourage us? Nope!! Just our bank account...

Letter #44
June 30, 2014
Area: Broadway 2 Central
Companion: Petersen

It sounds like you all had a pretty good week, and had some fun with family and friends. This last week has been good for our area, we had a few setbacks due to the rain storms early in the week, but despite that we still had progression. We worked hard to finally get a member present during out lessons this week because it has been hard in the past weeks--our hard work paid off. We had about 7 members willing to come out, and 3 or so lessons set up with a member, but only 1 worked for different reasons. We'll eventually will get there. We have been working to get our area to grow and progress; it has been hard, but worth it. In the last few weeks we have found a few families that have been progressing nicely, with very few problems, so we are expecting to have a few baptisms before the end of the transfer. 

I really don't know what to say still because I keep feeling like I don't do very much in the area, we end up getting out late and most of the time is spent just riding around. But the real miracle happened Sunday, even though we weren't able to get out until about 6:30pm, but we went over and talked to both of our solid investigator families.  The first we talked to about him and his "wife" getting legally married, which he has been wanting to do, then he offered us food off the grill. The other was actually thinking about calling to ask us if we could come over earlier in the day, but she forgot to...so when we got there and they invited us in and we finally got to watch the Joseph Smith Video with them. They really liked the video and asked if we could meet again on Tuesday, but at the house of their member friend, so we set something up at 1 on Tuesday with them.  They then invited us to eat fajita with them. It was sadly already time to go, so we got the fajita and salsa to go. We were out for about 2 hours, got 2 lessons, and 2 small dinners :)

As for the questions:

1) The problems are from him doing track and cross-country, and injuries, the doctor said that he might have a slipped disc or something else, but since he has been out for such little time, they just tell him to care for it with icyhot and ice. If it is a slipped disc, he would be sent home for treatment, and he wouldn't be able to come back out for all I know...

2) the weather hasn't been that bad, it feels nice, but it is decently hot. It hasn't been bad this week because we have had rainstorms/cloud cover, but once the clouds are gone, it might be really humid

3) I have been taking some pictures here, but most of the ones I have are from my last area, but I still haven't sent them home. I will probably want to send a small package home with the memory card and the Texas spoon I got. Yes, I found one :P We went to Walmart on Saturday because I got a flat tire (again) and had no good patches, so we ended up buying a "slime" tube and that spoon.

4) The bank charges were from us stopping in a place to get some patches, where I got patches, more chain cleaner/lube, and I got a frisbee because the store we go to on PDay doesn't have frisbees and I have been wanting one..

5) Tire liners? what's that? I guess I'll find out when mail comes. but thanks again!

We are going to meet our new mission president this Wednesday, this will be interesting.

Pictures:

1)  picture of the sky which reminds me of some that dad has taken before

2) we found some bears

 

3) we rode the bears :)

Love you all, 

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

 

 

 

Attending the Houston Texas Temple

Letter #43
June 23, 2014
Area: Broadway 2- Central
Companion: Petersen

This week really felt super long until today came...it is weird how that works. We have had a pretty good week, so it wasn't that bad. We found some more new people and we got to teach some people we found last week. The highlight of our week was the Houston temple trip that President Crawford set up for us. it was a special session with the temple president.  He talked with us for an hour beforehand to have us look for things in the video and to think about some questions during the session to help us learn more from the endowment session. I really learned a lot, my brain was having troubles working the rest of the day because I was trying to process all that I learned... [ In the temple we learn more about the life of Jesus Christ and how we can become more like Him and our Heavenly Father.  Here is a link for learning more about the Life of Jesus Christ.  http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/jesus-christ  Also a link that goes to the Houston Texas temple information page  http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/houston-texas-temple

I really don't know what to say about the week-- the number of lessons weren't very high, and I have been thinking of many ways to try to get them up.  We need to get this area progressing, so we are just in the starting of that process. There is great hope and excitement in doing what we can to help this area.

1) Broadway 2 is probably one of the best wards about helping the missionary efforts.  We haven't had a lot of people to go see and we haven't had any member-present lessons work out last week, or really even since I have been here, but this week we have 6 members set up to come out with us and we have plans to make the area better so the members can come out

2) We do the normal missionary Pday activities: basketball, volleyball, etc... this last week I played basketball for a total of about 3 hours and by about half way thru I was running off of adrenaline, so I was pooped that night and sore the next morning.

3) I was with Elder Petersen in the Mexico City MTC.  He has back problems, so we can't even leave until about 3pm, which is hard on me at times.   I still love the guy, we get along great, and we are both excited to get the area going.

4) yes, flat tires, this area has probably the highest flat tire rate in the mission... I have had 2 and they both somehow happened in lessons... If you do send tubes, I would suggest the "Slime" tubes because it isn't very common to find patches out here for some reason...

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

New Area, New companion

Letter #42
June 16, 2014
Area: Broadway 2- Central
Companion: Petersen

Well, I guess this week I don't get a letter from you guys....except Carolyn :P [note: his family letter arrived shortly after he sent this letter.  He only has a short time on the internet writing emails, so we sent his letter in the mail].

Well, to answer Mom's question from last week, my companion is Elder Petersen, he came out to the mission with me and it has been super interesting serving with him.

My new area is really struggling...we have very few investigators and I have really been looking for ways that we can improve the area.  We come to conclude that it seems like the way to do it is just through talking with everyone because that is really something that they have lacked and there are so many people outside. I know it will work because that is what Elder Anderson and I did and it really helped the growth in my last area and that area was thriving when I left.

I am really looking forward to helping this area grow and having fun doing it, but I don't look forward to all the flat tires that will come in the future--because this area has a record for bike problems. I have been here for a week and I have already gotten a flat once...

I love you guys so much and hope I have more to say next week,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

God does hear and answer prayers!

Letter #41
June 11, 2014 (2 days delayed because he was transferred)
Area: Broadway 2 (Central)
Companion: Peterson

Well, this last week was very interesting because a lot of the people that we taught in past weeks were busy and we couldn't meet with them, but we found so many new people that it surprised me. We went to Crosby, which is the opposite side of our area.  We had a long day out there because it was really hot and we had to go finding for most of the time. We found a new guy and it was kind of a miracle story.  You see, we knew that we were only going to be able to make it out to Crosby maybe once a week, and so we prayed to ask God to guide us to someone He has prepared so we can truly help him. We knocked a few doors and at the 2nd or 3rd door, we were told to go try a couple of houses across the street when we asked for referrals. When we went over and contacted the first one, he opened the door and started talking with us.  He led us over to a table outside and we taught him a lesson on God and Prayer.  He really needed that in his life, and he mentioned that a few days before he asked God for direction, then we showed up. I really can't wait to hear what happens with him.

Sadly, Isis, the 14 year old girl, wasn't baptized.  Her parents pulled out on, I believe, Monday evening and we found out on Tuesday from our bishop.... I will keep hoping and praying.

Well, I guess I have more news for you, I got Transferred back into Broadway 2nd ward! I am now serving in the "Central" area of the ward.  I luckily did get your letters in time though, I got them Monday evening, right before leaving the area :) 

I am always so happy to see how you all are doing and I can't wait to hear more, and don't think I am neglecting little Ben, I just forget when I'm emailing..[note- little Ben is his newest nephew who was in the NICU for a short period of time until he could breathe more freely on his own--which he is doing better].

I'm sorry I didn't write more.  I can't think of what happened last week, it was such a blur even though it went fast. I promise to write more next Monday about my new area and everything.

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye

I Know that the Lord Touches Hearts

Letter #40
June 2, 2014
Area: Humble, TX
Companions: Anderson and Strong

Thank you so much for all of the birthday wishes! I love you guys so much! 

This week has been a difficult week for us in the area because of the rain.  Almost nobody is outside, but we have made good use of our time and we are loving having Elder Strong with us! We have had a lot of people be sick, so we haven't been able to talk to them this week, but we hope for the best! Because people are sick, we have had a lot of lessons fall through, so we have done a lot of contacting. We faced a difficulty when trying to go and contact people because the rain keeps scaring them back inside, but we have made really good contacts and found ways to be more effective in actually teaching people when we contact them. As you could tell from our Hour of Power results, it has come in handy having the extra contacting ideas. We had an amazing time doing it because we could do splits because we had one of the young men with us and we were covering twice the ground as usual. This week we made many good contacts and set return appointments with them, so we have a planned out week.

I'd like to mention an Hour of Power Miracle that happened this week.  While I was knocking doors with the young man from the ward, we ran into a woman who was completely closed to our message and wanted nothing to do with it. I just asked questions (inspired questions) to understand her position and to figure out how I could help her. After a few questions I felt like I needed to explain the Book of Mormon a little bit and help her understand that we believe in the Bible too. I shared that and continued talking to her, and she stated that the Bible was inspired, and the Book of Mormon wasn't. I felt inspired to share Alma 7:11-12, and she said it sounded like the scripture in Isaiah that talks about the suffering of Christ, but asked why it didn't say the same words. I answered her question by retelling her that the Book of Mormon was written in the Americas, and they understood things differently than the people in Jerusalem, but that it is still the same message given by prophets. I told her that we would love to come back a different time to explain our message a little more and I asked her when would be a good time.  She said that we could come back Monday (today). I know that the Lord touched her heart through my words because no matter how good I may be at speaking, I never could have changed her heart enough to be open to us coming back to share more.

Actually the 14 year old girl's parents called off the baptism, so we were sad about that last week, but apparently its back on for next Sunday because our Bishop called us in and told us about it. :) I can't wait for Saturday or Sunday!

I love you guys,

Elder Stanley Scott Dye