Alright, well our apartment lobby people decided to play all of my favorite country music randomly today so let’s see if I can concentrate and get this email out haha. Sometimes it’s weird to think that people still listen to normal music! You are all weird! Do you know that?! haha just joking
Alright well… let me think. There is always so much that happens in the week and then when you sit down and only have a little bit of time to share it all your mind just goes blank.. and I am blanking out! Oh well, I guess it isn’t that important.
Temple
On Tuesday, we went to the temple. That was sweet! I love going to the Houston temple. It makes me want to go to the temple more when I get home.
Isabel and Jesus
Isabel and Jesus… we had a sweet lesson with them and president Garcia. They have been reading the Book of Mormon and they both committed to baptism on February 23rd. They are gonna have to get married though so looks like we will have another wedding on our hands. They said they would come to church yesterday but didn’t show up for some reason and we haven’t gotten a hold of them… I’m not sure why. They probably had to work or something. that’s one of the most frustrating things of working with Hispanics is they tend to just…. disappear. Hopefully that’s not the case here!
Hour of Power
We had another Hour of Power miracle! We went out and knocked and the last trailer we knocked on, we found a 23 year old guy who just moved here from Hyrum Utah a week ago and he is trying to save money to get back to Mexico. He has been a member for a couple years but has fallen away a little bit and is going through a divorce, but he wants to shape up! So he came to church on Sunday. and we just happened to find him! Ain’t that crazy?!
Some other good news from some of my old areas…
Old Investigators Getting Baptized
A man named Jose Jullian Lopez got baptized last weekend. I taught him with Elder Bruneel a year ago. I can’t remember if I ever talked about him. He was living with his member girlfriend, who’s last name was Villalobos. Anyway, he was the first person I ever committed to baptism and was teaching progressively, and then they disappeared. Well, the missionaries in that area found them and he asked them “do you know elder Viitanen?” They started teaching him and he started taking things more seriously and going to church and reading the Book of Mormon. Before his baptism he called me and said, “I still remember the way you taught and it made me feel really good. You and elder Bruneel helped me a lot.” He was married to his girlfriend and baptized this last weekend! Crazy! That was from a year ago!
Also, I can’t remember if I told y’all or not that Javier “Pollo” from my last area in Denver Harbor was baptized last month. That was cool too!
Here’s a funny story. In my last area, Elder Erickson and I were working our last day together and we knew we were both getting transferred. So went to see this investigator that has been investigating the church for years and hasn’t ever really done anything. So we just went there and had a straight talk with her. We did it within the bounds of appropriateness of course, but we said what needed to be said. She wasn’t coming to church or reading or taking anything seriously so we figured we wouldn’t lose anything if we had a frank conversation with her. So we did. She got a little mad and maybe offended. We told her that Christ said, “if you love me, keep my commandments.” And lovingly pointed out that she wasn’t keeping the commandments. Then we read James 2 which is my favorite passage about faith and told her that believing is easy but doing is what faith really is. That got her a little worked up. She kicked us out. On our way out, maybe it was my hot Spanish blood, but I told her that if I ever saw her at church I would eat my shoe. I know it is ridiculous, but I consider it a spiritual prompting. you will see why. 🙂
She got offended of course and slammed the door. We walked away, chuckling a little bit. Trust me, this lady has never done anything. A couple of months later, I got a call from the Elders there. They said they were randomly knocking doors and found her. She let them in and they started teaching her. She started going to church, and was baptized!
She told the elders that, Elder Erickson and I really made her mad but then she started thinking about what we told her and realized we were right. She started praying and asked God for a sign for what she should do. She said that a week later, new missionaries knocked on her door, and she knew she got her answer. She thanked us for opening up her eyes a little bit haha. I gladly send her a picture of me with my shoe in my mouth 🙂
District Leader
I had some cool pics for y’all but my camera just died. Sorry. I know other stuff happened this week but I can’t remember. Sorry about that too. Everything just turns into a huge blur. Oh yeah! I got made district leader! That’s exciting I guess…
It’s been beautiful here. 70 degrees and sunny. Sometimes, it’s gotten a little hot. But I miss the snow and the winter. Man, we talked to a crazy guy this week. We talk to crazy people every day I guess. I love y’all!
Elder Viitanen