Yet another great week out in the field! Elder Montes and I really wanted to focus this week on getting the members excited about the missionary work and helping invite their friends to church/taking missionary lessons from us. The members here are great...the active ones. It´s really tough to engage the members when we get a max of about thirty members to sacrament on Sunday. Elder Montes and I always knock on the doors of members and ask for references when we pass bye their houses but haven´t had any such luck quite yet. We´re going to keep working on gaining the member´s trust and helping them feel comfortable teaching their friends little pieces of doctrine.
Anyways, this week was pretty crazy. Elder Montes and I were out contacting looking for an appointment and we couldn´t find anyone. It was a really long day and all six of our appointments fell through so we were really disappointed with the numbers from the day. It was eight o´clock on Saturday and it was cold, miserable and it started to rain so we were about to give up. Elder Montes said, let´s head back and plan because we´re not going to find anyone but I felt impressed to say ok but we are going to go down this street first. I have no idea why that thought went through my head because the street was dark and, very obvious to me, dangerous (peligrosa). He agreed and just when we got to the end of the street, we ran into an old couple, probably in their late fifties. I don´t know why I said it, but I turned to the Señor and said, "Señor! Yo testifico que Usted puede vivir con su hermano despues de esta vida si siga el ejemplo de Jesucristo." (I know that you can live with your brother again after this life if you follow the example of Jesus Christ.) We acompanied them back to their house and taught them the plan of salvation and restoration. It turns out that his brother had just died and that he was worried about where his brother would end up. The couple´s names are Efrén y Gloria and we are teaching their 27 year old son Alberto too. I have a feeling that they are a golden contact.
This Sunday we had another baptism: a joven named Brandon. He is 17 and accepted our invitation on Tuesday last week. Elder Montes and I are really excited about this area. We have baptismal dates planned for the next four weeks and are praying that we´ll find more. The record for the mission is eight weeks straight of baptisms in an area and we´ve got three so far (one for the week before I arrived in the field). We have a goal to get eleven straight weeks of baptisms. Now, I know that some people think that having a goal of baptizing is ugly and we´re just trying to bring more people into the church. FALSE!! We are bringing SOULS unto Christ and inviting them to grow closer to God. These people are wonderful and I love them.
We have eight-twelve new investigators depending on how you count and are working hard on inviting them to follow Christ´s example and bringing more joy into their lives through the waters of baptism, the book of mormon, and prayer. Elder Montes is a great companion and we hope to see a lot of success with each other and to keep growing in out teaching abilities and love for the people.
In a less-church related note, Thanksgiving: Elder Montes and I made plans to eat thanksgiving dinner with a family in our ward from America but they had some things come up and that went down the tube...like a lot of our lesson/appointment plans so we ended up contacting the rest of the night. I hardly noticed it was thanksgiving but when Elder Montes would remind me that I was missing out on one of my favorite holidays, I would think of you family. I love you all so much, family and friends and continue to pray for you every night and day. I do read your emails and I love them. I believe that day has my mission office address and that is the best place to direct any of the mail you want to send me. Dearelder remains the best way to go as far as price and security go...
Keep up the scripture study and prayers,
Love:
Elder Palmer
No comments:
Post a Comment