Hola familia y amigos!
So this week I finally got to go to Sacrament meeting! (because of General Conference) It was hard to have three hours of not really understanding what was going on, but I was really glad to get to meet the branch members and get to know them a little. I was kinda surprised at how many members there were, like about 50, where I was expecting more like 30, and from what I understand there can be about 60-70 there on good days. Anyway, I was glad to be able to finally see what the branch is like and meet a lot more of the members.
This week we were able to teach a lot more lessons and had a lot of time to tract and find more people to teach. We had a lesson on Tuesday evening with Antonio and we had a sweet lesson about praying to know the truth, and keeping the Sabbath day holy and we invited him to be baptized when he receives an answer to his prayers and he said YES!!! Unfortunately this weekend he was in L.A. so he couldn't come to Church, and we weren't able to have our scheduled meeting with him, but we'll hopefully see him at least once this week to teach him and set a baptismal date with him. We're hoping to baptize him either on Mother's Day or sometime before (probably on the 12th, the other Elders have 2 people with that date already) so hopefully I'll be able to call home about that! We've also spent a lot of time tracting to find new investigators and we found a woman, Maria, who is super awesome! So, when we tract we usually try to say we're servants of Jesus Christ and we're there to bless them and their family, and with her she was so excited to let us in because she's been going through a lot of hard times with her family and because she had breast cancer. She was very excited to talk with us and to have the blessing that we left with her home. We're going back tonight to have a lesson with her tonight and bringing a member with us and we're planning on inviting her to be baptized and hopefully set a date with her too. We've also had lessons with Rudi, who's kind of an eternigator (eternal investigator), and Fausto that went well.
Today we went and got a bike!! It's pretty nice, more along the lines that it should last me my whole mission, and maybe even longer, and doesn't suck like the one I've been riding (that bike firmly convinced me that quality matters in a bike if I'm riding it every day!). I'm pretty excited to not be riding the other bike any more and to have a bike that works (the other wouldn't go down to gear 1... not good with the hill we live on).
-Elder Whitaker
So this week I finally got to go to Sacrament meeting! (because of General Conference) It was hard to have three hours of not really understanding what was going on, but I was really glad to get to meet the branch members and get to know them a little. I was kinda surprised at how many members there were, like about 50, where I was expecting more like 30, and from what I understand there can be about 60-70 there on good days. Anyway, I was glad to be able to finally see what the branch is like and meet a lot more of the members.
This week we were able to teach a lot more lessons and had a lot of time to tract and find more people to teach. We had a lesson on Tuesday evening with Antonio and we had a sweet lesson about praying to know the truth, and keeping the Sabbath day holy and we invited him to be baptized when he receives an answer to his prayers and he said YES!!! Unfortunately this weekend he was in L.A. so he couldn't come to Church, and we weren't able to have our scheduled meeting with him, but we'll hopefully see him at least once this week to teach him and set a baptismal date with him. We're hoping to baptize him either on Mother's Day or sometime before (probably on the 12th, the other Elders have 2 people with that date already) so hopefully I'll be able to call home about that! We've also spent a lot of time tracting to find new investigators and we found a woman, Maria, who is super awesome! So, when we tract we usually try to say we're servants of Jesus Christ and we're there to bless them and their family, and with her she was so excited to let us in because she's been going through a lot of hard times with her family and because she had breast cancer. She was very excited to talk with us and to have the blessing that we left with her home. We're going back tonight to have a lesson with her tonight and bringing a member with us and we're planning on inviting her to be baptized and hopefully set a date with her too. We've also had lessons with Rudi, who's kind of an eternigator (eternal investigator), and Fausto that went well.
Today we went and got a bike!! It's pretty nice, more along the lines that it should last me my whole mission, and maybe even longer, and doesn't suck like the one I've been riding (that bike firmly convinced me that quality matters in a bike if I'm riding it every day!). I'm pretty excited to not be riding the other bike any more and to have a bike that works (the other wouldn't go down to gear 1... not good with the hill we live on).
-Elder Whitaker