Dear Family and Friends,
it was definitely a good week! We started off last P Day with a combined Zone P-day with the Houston East Zone and our Spanish Zone. We played soccer, it was pretty fun! We had a Family Home Evening with our bishop’s family and another family and the sister missionaries in our ward brought an investigator.. bishop’s son’s girlfriend. She is progressing really well and has a date for baptism. We watched the Joseph Smith movie and after she started telling us how her family is persecuting her for her decision but she is sticking to it! Pretty sweet!
Salvador
Well, even though Salvador didn’t come to church last week, we talked to President Crawford and explained the situation and he gave us the go ahead. He said we should go ahead and press forward if he is ready. The reason he didn’t come to church was because someone got hurt at his dad’s work and he had to rush him to the hospital in their only car. Salvador was sick on Tuesday when we came by, but he told his mom to wake him up when we came by even though he didn’t feel good because he didn’t want to do anything that might hurt his chances at getting baptized on Saturday.
We taught him and talked with his mom and told her that we want her and her husband to step up and be the example for him or we wouldn’t baptize him. She said that they would! Salvador asked me to baptize him!
At Salvador’s baptism, his mom gave the talk on baptism. She started to cry and said she was so grateful that finally her son could join the only true church and thanked Elder Worrell and I over and over again. It was awesome. I felt like a good missionary. She was so thankful and she explained baptism and the gospel really well. She could seriously be a Sunday school teacher which is surprising for a less active.
He came up out of the water with a big smile on his face, and when he got out of the font he just stood there. He said he felt great, and different. I could see it as well. He looked up at me and said, “thank you very much,” in the most sincere way possible. I knew right then that I was meant to meet the Fuentes family. Salvador Alonso Fuentes Lozano will always be special to me. We are going to do our best to get them sealed as a family. Salvador is such a good kid! So many kids in his situation could be punks.. but he is always running around talking care of his siblings and helping his mom with a smile on his face. I love him!
We had refreshments after and got our transfer calls. Our whole district is staying where we are at. I’m glad because I don’t feel like my work is done here in Channelview!
The next day he was confirmed at church.
BYU Folk Dance Show with Jackie
Tuesday night we got to go to the University of Houston for a BYU folk dance show. We took Jackie! She called us and we invited her so she drove us and the sister missionaries. It was super cool! I didn’t think it would be anything too great but I was really amazed!
I hit my six month mark last week.. it’s just too crazy! It has flown by!
Hour of Power
This week, we did our hour of power with Alex Avalos, a super less active that has all sorts of problems but who we have been working with and has been coming to church! We shared our lesson on faith from Mormon 9 and Ether 12 and asked him what he thought the key word was going to be to all of this. “Faith!” he said. It was so awesome to see him learning and understanding. So we knelt down at 6 pm and he offered a prayer. The 3rd house we knocked on, a man opened up and said they were never home and that they were too busy, but we persisted and he let us in. We started getting to know him a little bit and he starting talking about how he’s got a lot of questions: why are there so many contradicting churches, where the true one that Christ established went, why the Bible doesn’t seem to be translated perfectly, Adam & Eve, and free agency. We were really excited! We told him that all those questions can be answered in out first two discussions. He seemed interested. It was perfect! He has all the right questions. We have been praying to find someone that has been prepared for the Gospel and this man definitely looks like he has, it’s just going to be a case of getting a hold of him because he doesn’t have a schedule so he just gave us his number. We are going to keep teaching him he wants us to keep coming by!
Alex was really excited when we told him that we found someone awesome!
Nada Contigo
So.. funny story. On Friday night there was a ward party for mother’s day, and a mariachi band came and provided the entertainment. I was sooooo excited! They asked for any requests. While I worked construction, I worked with a lot of Mexican people, and they would always play that kind of music on the radio. I grew to like it a lot. There was one song in particular I remembered. You can never understand the lyrics but I really like the sound and the chorus. “Nada Contigo.” So I requested it! I was sooo embarassed. Turns out, it’s a song about alcohol and getting drunk to forget someone. All the ward members seemed to think it was funny, but I felt really bad. I had no idea! I had never really listened to the lyrics. I should have thought that one through a little bit better. But all the members just laughed and joked with me about it so it was ok.
One of the Best Days
Saturday was one of the best days of my mission! We have been praying about which streets to knock on and Saturday we tried one that I prayed about. We knocked on 11 doors and got 11 contacts and a lesson! It was sweet!
After church, we drove down to my old stompin’ grounds, Broadway, where we had our much anticipated Choir Fireside in Spanish for the Spanish Stake. It was a pretty sweet experience to perform on Broadway street 😉
As we finished our pre-performance warm up, the chapel was full. Come show time, the place was packed – there were people standing in the back of the overflow and the cultural hall – and this is a stake center!
The performance was awesome – our best by far. I have recordings I will email. Everything went perfectly! During a violin solo for “Our Savior’s Love,” I felt something crazy! I hit every note perfectly, like I wasn’t even playing and my heart was beating really fast. I was expressing my love for my Savior through that instrument and in my mind as I closed my eyes I saw him suffering in Gethsemane. I gave it everything I had. I have played the violin for many people. I can confidently say, that was my best ever performance of any song. Because it wasn’t even me.
Here is a recording of that (click on the play button):
The stake loved the concert! It seemed like there were a lot of non members there as well! I got to see a lot of the members from the ward I used to serve in! There were many compliments. Some people said I was “world class,” that the sound I played was as if “the planets had aligned,” and that I made the violin speak. It was quite flattering, but all I could think about was how I had felt the Holy Ghost as I was playing, something I haven’t really felt before. I felt the confirmation that what my violin was expressing was true. It was really amazing.
It was a great success. Stacey and Cooper, the choir directors have put a crazy amount of time into it all. And.. I get to hold on to the violin for now! I was really sad because I thought I would have to part with it.
Well.. right now we are at 0 progressing investigators… there is a lot of work to do! But we are definitely ready to do it! One more transfer in Channelview baby!
Love you all, have a great week
Elder Viitanen
The wind still blows the strongest tree… the same wind will carry me.
Carlos, you really played very very beautifully!!Thank you very much for getting us to listen it!Thank you also for very nice mail.I am I am speechless now, but I will write a letter to you.
I love you, my grandson!
Dear Elder V.,
Thank you for sharing the recording. You can’t help but feel the reverence when you listen to that. You did a great job! –The photos are great to see, love the story behind Salvador’s baptism and to see the picture of the family was like putting the faces to the story. I hope that they will go strong and I believe Salvador can be a good example to his parents and siblings.
Yeah, that is one big truck! Need a ladder just to get in…but once there you can literally look down on others–in more ways than one.
I think that the picture of the pamphlets and the picture of Christ at the front entrance of a non-member’s door — I think that they are trophies from the missionaries that have entered the lair…are you guys missing some mormon boys from your mission? Or, maybe they are there in a feeble efforts to fend you off… sssspookyyy!
But really, you are a great missionary! I hope that you keep in mind that fact, especially when you are having those harder weeks, like you reported about in the past few weeks. We love you and you are in our prayers!
Jari, Mona & Billy