Dear Family and Friends,
Well, all I’ve got to say is that THE LORD PROVIDES!!! This week was a complete turn around from last week! we honestly believe that God was trying to teach us a lesson and as soon as we learned it he blessed us immediately! We had such a good week! We taught the most lessons out of any week I have been here and we got members at most of them which is something we have really been working on a lot.
Excitement in the Branch
The branch is so excited about missionary work right now! We have so many members that are willing to come with us to appointments. Two days out of the week we have members that will drive us around to our appointments all day! It’s so great!
I won’t be able to get into all the details because the computers we are on today are timed, but let me just say this area has the greatest potential right now that any area I have ever been in, and I mean that! It’s about to explode! We have so many things going on! Let me just list them:
- A sister in our branch introduced us to her sister, Gloria, and her family. Gloria said she wants to come to church with her children and get baptized!
- We are teaching the children of a lady in our branch. They want to get baptized as well.
- We found a man through a miracle out in Lumberton Texas. He is really interested in his church and his brother in law just moved in with him from Mexico. His brother in law is fully endowed and active and has been looking for the church nearby and we happened to find him. So not only did we find a fully active family to add to the branch, we also found an awesome new investigator family! Part member family work is where it’s at! Why have I been knocking doors for the past year?! (just kidding)
- The Ibarra family who moved here from Arizona after investigating and going to church for two years
- The Vega family. I think I told yall about them, right? well Claudia Vega, the mother, is the most solid investigator I have ever taught through the first four lessons. She is so sweet! I want that family to get baptized so bad! There is just a certain spirit about them when we go by! It’s crazy, I just know they need to get baptized! Please pray for them! She is investigating sincerely like no one else I have ever seen.
Beto and Yaneth.. still waiting on their birth certificates so they can get married. It’s been almost a month. We aren’t sure what’s taking so long. It’s ground mail, so we assume some guy in a sombrero riding a donkey is delivering it from El Salvador. that could be why it’s taking so long.- Dunia said her first prayer in sacrament meeting yesterday. That was her biggest fear, and she offered a great prayer! She asked us to help her pay her tithing and offerings, too! So legit!
The branch is just buzzing with excitement! I can just feel the potential! Us and the branch president have this vision of what could go down in the next couple of weeks and we are so hungry for it!
And That is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
So that is about 5% of the excitement that I could muster into this short email. I’m sorry! I’ll write more next time! Right now we are on our way to Vidor to play basketball. I haven’t played basketball on a wood court my whole mission so I’m excited! It’s always been either carpet floors in the churches or the streets of South Park, Beaumont with all the ghetto kids! haha That’s definitely helped improve my basketball but it’s not very safe, and playing on a wood floor sounds really good right now!
Haydee
Also, I got a letter from Haydee, the first convert of my mission. She is doing really well, she is a visiting teacher! Her boyfriend who is in jail has read the whole Book of Mormon and wants to get baptized and sealed when he gets out. They read it on the phone every night together haha. not sure how he got a phone in jail but.. there you go.
Love ya’ll! the church is true!
Elder Viitanen