Hola familia y amigos!!
This week has been pretty good. We've been able to do a lot of finding of our own because we still both don't know much about the Hermana's area that we picked upl. But that has led to some miracles I believe. We've offered more blessings on people's homes in the past week than we had in the past two transfers. We've met a lot of people that may not have met with missionaries if we were more familiar with the area and the people there. Two of our most promising people we met are both young kids one 15 and the other about 13 or so. The 15 year old, Aldair, was a contact on last Saturday and he said to come back on Monday to leave a blessing. We went by to leave the blessing and he is just an awesome nice kid. We went back on Wednesday and taught him that God is our loving Heavenly Father. And we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon to read. We're going back today and are planning on inviting him to be baptized and maybe try to set a date. Then we also met the 13 year old, Samuel, who we found by looking for formers. We left a blessing with him and afterward he said that the blessing really helped him, that it helped him feel closer to God. We have an appointment with his mom and him later this week. We were able to meet with Lupe, our investigator with a baptismal date this week as well. It was the first time seeing him (we inherited him from the sisters' area) so we mainly took time to see where he's at. He says he still wants to be baptized, but that he needs to learn more to feel ready for that step. He seems to truly have sincere desires to learn though, which is good. We'll keep meeting with him.
We also were able to meet with Magdalena and she is making progress, although slowly. We read a chapter in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 1, with her and ended up talking a lot about obedience, which we feel like is a principle we needed to talk to her about. It seemed to go well and hopefully she takes it to heart. We also were able to meet/visit other less-actives in the Hermana's area, including Consuelo and Mario, an older couple that used to be fairly active, but have gotten a little discouraged with the lack of people meeting with the group. We mainly talked with Consuelo and it kind-of felt like talking with an investigator the kinds of questions she had, but hopefully we can fix that! And we visited Elida who has a good testimony, but has a tough life at home. Her husband, Temo, isn't a member and although he isn't against her going to church, isn't the best influence for her or her kids. She has a tough time sometimes coming to church some Sundays. But I'm excited to have the opportunity to work with all these people and hopefully help the group grow and strengthen itself.
I wanted to also write a quick note for my cousin, Ethan, who's getting baptized this week. I've been around him for almost his whole life up until now and I've always enjoyed spending time with him. I'm so proud that he's gained enough faith in Jesus Christ to follow His example and be baptized by immersion so that he can become clean from his sins and start a new journey as an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love you Ethan and I can't wait to see pictures!! :) (Make sure you write about your baptism somewhere special!)
I love all y'all and I love hearing from y'all about what's going on. Have an amazing week!!
-Elder Whitaker
This week has been pretty good. We've been able to do a lot of finding of our own because we still both don't know much about the Hermana's area that we picked upl. But that has led to some miracles I believe. We've offered more blessings on people's homes in the past week than we had in the past two transfers. We've met a lot of people that may not have met with missionaries if we were more familiar with the area and the people there. Two of our most promising people we met are both young kids one 15 and the other about 13 or so. The 15 year old, Aldair, was a contact on last Saturday and he said to come back on Monday to leave a blessing. We went by to leave the blessing and he is just an awesome nice kid. We went back on Wednesday and taught him that God is our loving Heavenly Father. And we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon to read. We're going back today and are planning on inviting him to be baptized and maybe try to set a date. Then we also met the 13 year old, Samuel, who we found by looking for formers. We left a blessing with him and afterward he said that the blessing really helped him, that it helped him feel closer to God. We have an appointment with his mom and him later this week. We were able to meet with Lupe, our investigator with a baptismal date this week as well. It was the first time seeing him (we inherited him from the sisters' area) so we mainly took time to see where he's at. He says he still wants to be baptized, but that he needs to learn more to feel ready for that step. He seems to truly have sincere desires to learn though, which is good. We'll keep meeting with him.
We also were able to meet with Magdalena and she is making progress, although slowly. We read a chapter in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 1, with her and ended up talking a lot about obedience, which we feel like is a principle we needed to talk to her about. It seemed to go well and hopefully she takes it to heart. We also were able to meet/visit other less-actives in the Hermana's area, including Consuelo and Mario, an older couple that used to be fairly active, but have gotten a little discouraged with the lack of people meeting with the group. We mainly talked with Consuelo and it kind-of felt like talking with an investigator the kinds of questions she had, but hopefully we can fix that! And we visited Elida who has a good testimony, but has a tough life at home. Her husband, Temo, isn't a member and although he isn't against her going to church, isn't the best influence for her or her kids. She has a tough time sometimes coming to church some Sundays. But I'm excited to have the opportunity to work with all these people and hopefully help the group grow and strengthen itself.
I wanted to also write a quick note for my cousin, Ethan, who's getting baptized this week. I've been around him for almost his whole life up until now and I've always enjoyed spending time with him. I'm so proud that he's gained enough faith in Jesus Christ to follow His example and be baptized by immersion so that he can become clean from his sins and start a new journey as an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love you Ethan and I can't wait to see pictures!! :) (Make sure you write about your baptism somewhere special!)
I love all y'all and I love hearing from y'all about what's going on. Have an amazing week!!
-Elder Whitaker