Hola Familia y Amigos!!
Well, this week's been good. First off I survived transfer week and am staying pretty much the same as I was. I'm still in Napa, Elder Teran is still my companion, about the only different thing is that we're moving apartments. We're moving in with the Zone Leaders who are pretty cool, so it should be a pretty fun time. And we'll actually live within the boundaries of our area, which will mean not quite as much biking! :) The only downside is that it's a smaller apartment with only one bathroom for the 4 of us... but I've done it before and I survived, so I'll survive again.
But surviving transfers is not the only reason why this week was good. We had a good week where we were able to see a number of miracles. First off, one of the biggest ones I would say is what happened on Monday; we had 4 lessons scheduled but we had a flat tire we had to fix which made us late to the first (with Andres) and then he had left by the time we got there. As we went to the other lessons we had scheduled, everybody canceled. Elder Teran and I were both pretty disappointed and unbeknownst to each other we both offered prayers in our hearts asking Heavenly Father for a miracle. I know on my part my thoughts went something like, "Heavenly Father, this is your work, and for some reason we're here tonight with all of our appointments canceled. Help us see a miracle, help us find who we're here to find tonight." It was at that point that Elder Teran remembered a potential that we had just down the street named Salvador. We'd tried to see him a few times before, but he'd never been home. This time he was home and he was willing to talk to us for a few minutes. We ended up having a lesson with him and we extended a soft baptismal invitation and he said yes!
And that was just the beginning of the miracles. We ended up having 9 lessons this week, with 6 of them being with non-members! We taught 3 new people, Salvador, Miguel, and Hector who we all soft-invited to be baptized and all agreed. We even had a second lesson with Hector. And we finally were able to have a lesson with an investigator, Adolfo, who we've had one actual lesson with the past 6 weeks, and we set expectations with him and explained that if he wants to know if what we teach and share is true, he has to do his part. He seemed to accept that and be excited to start reading and praying to gain a testimony. We also re-invited him to be baptized as well, and he said that if he came to know it is true he would! That means we extended a total of 4 baptismal invites this week! I'm super excited to see what this next week brings and to seek and see new miracles!
I don't have quite as much time as I would like this week, but I love y'all and can't wait to here from y'all soon!
-Elder Whitaker
Well, this week's been good. First off I survived transfer week and am staying pretty much the same as I was. I'm still in Napa, Elder Teran is still my companion, about the only different thing is that we're moving apartments. We're moving in with the Zone Leaders who are pretty cool, so it should be a pretty fun time. And we'll actually live within the boundaries of our area, which will mean not quite as much biking! :) The only downside is that it's a smaller apartment with only one bathroom for the 4 of us... but I've done it before and I survived, so I'll survive again.
But surviving transfers is not the only reason why this week was good. We had a good week where we were able to see a number of miracles. First off, one of the biggest ones I would say is what happened on Monday; we had 4 lessons scheduled but we had a flat tire we had to fix which made us late to the first (with Andres) and then he had left by the time we got there. As we went to the other lessons we had scheduled, everybody canceled. Elder Teran and I were both pretty disappointed and unbeknownst to each other we both offered prayers in our hearts asking Heavenly Father for a miracle. I know on my part my thoughts went something like, "Heavenly Father, this is your work, and for some reason we're here tonight with all of our appointments canceled. Help us see a miracle, help us find who we're here to find tonight." It was at that point that Elder Teran remembered a potential that we had just down the street named Salvador. We'd tried to see him a few times before, but he'd never been home. This time he was home and he was willing to talk to us for a few minutes. We ended up having a lesson with him and we extended a soft baptismal invitation and he said yes!
And that was just the beginning of the miracles. We ended up having 9 lessons this week, with 6 of them being with non-members! We taught 3 new people, Salvador, Miguel, and Hector who we all soft-invited to be baptized and all agreed. We even had a second lesson with Hector. And we finally were able to have a lesson with an investigator, Adolfo, who we've had one actual lesson with the past 6 weeks, and we set expectations with him and explained that if he wants to know if what we teach and share is true, he has to do his part. He seemed to accept that and be excited to start reading and praying to gain a testimony. We also re-invited him to be baptized as well, and he said that if he came to know it is true he would! That means we extended a total of 4 baptismal invites this week! I'm super excited to see what this next week brings and to seek and see new miracles!
I don't have quite as much time as I would like this week, but I love y'all and can't wait to here from y'all soon!
-Elder Whitaker