Flat Tires

Not much to write about this week. My tires on the bike are flat so we've been walking around for the past few days. But we've been getting more rides from members. We're supposed to have 2 baptisms this Saturday which will be pretty exciting. They fell through last week, but this week they should be good. I'm still working on getting to know the investigators in this area, which is kind of tough. Our mission song is "Up Awake Ye Defenders of Zion." I think it's hymn #248.

This is the baptism we had on Sept. 1st. The Flores family.

First Transfer

Well I got transferred to a new area. I'm no longer in the West Valley Zone, I'm in the Magna zone. Which means I moved to a different part of the city of West Valley. I'm no longer companions with Elder Pearl, but he is my Zone Leader. My new companion is from Michocan, Mexico. His name is Elder Gudino. He's like 5'5" and 19. He's been out for over a year. For transfers we all just went to a building and hung out for a little bit, talked with whoever, and then they called us over to an area where the ZL's were. Then the Zl's held up signs with the names of the people transferred to their zones.

Well our new area is pretty big. We cover 2 stakes, and have a spanish ward and branch. So I don't really know any of the investigators or members in my new area. And I didn't really have a chance to get to know many of the members really well in the last area. We were white washed in, and white washed out. We don't have a car so we have to bike around the area which kind of sucks, because a lot of it is uphill. The house is pretty nice where we live. It's in the basement and we have our own kitchen. The couple that live there are kind of strict, but it's not too big of a problem. My spanish is alright. I think it will continue to get better this transfer though. It will help alot having a native speaker as my companion. More than anything I'll miss Elder Cruz, Morris, and Moors. We were all pretty close, oh well.

Humble Dinner

Well the biggest news to report is that the baptism we were supposed to have on Saturday fell through. The parents moved it back 2 or 3 weeks. But the good news is that 2 of our investigators called us and said they wanted to be baptized. We committed them before, but they said they weren't ready. So last night we had the opportunity to baptize and confirm them. It was a great way to start off the month! I'll try to send some pictures of it. Well for the month of August our zone lead the mission. We ended up with 35 baptisms. Our goal was 37 so we fell short of it but we'll make it this month. This month we have a goal of 45. As a reward for leading the mission we get an all day p-day today, and we got to go to Mr. Mac and get a tie.

We're working with one of our investigators who's seen over 30 missionaries. His whole family got baptized except for him. He said he's almost ready, but I'm gonna try to speed that up. We have a few investigators that are pretty close to being baptized I think. They just need to come to church. It's tough. The members here are awesome though. They help us out so much. Every day we get dinner. And they insist that we eat seconds, if we don't they think we don't like the food. So I should be coming back fat. I feel a little bad though. We have a small branch and so a lot of the families feed us 2 or 3 times a month. And they don't really have much, but when we come they feel like they have to cook a more fancy meal than they usually eat. And they don't really have a lot of money. I had a good experience the other day at a dinner appointment. The person didn't have a man home so we couldn't enter. So we ate on the front steps and she sat inside. She gave us a plate of rice with corn and tortillas. And as we sat there she sang us Christmas songs. It was humbling. It made me think about how it was for the Apostles back in the days of Christ. The willingness and desire of this people to give is amazing. Well we got everything here, the good and the bad.

We've run into a few anti-people. One that got excommunicated and tried to give us proof that the Book of Mormon is false. And then we met a less active lady who said "I believe it with all my heart, I just can't live the standards," as she was drinking a beer. I don't get how she can know it's true, and still not live it. It's tough to see. Well that's about my life. Knocking doors, getting rejected, getting yelled at, and talking to people. That's about all that's going on I think.

A Priesthood Blessing

Well nothing too big happened this week. We've been running into a lot of inactives and less actives lately. It's kind of depressing how many of them there are. Now I have somewhat of an idea of what Mormon was saying in Mormon 6:17-the end.

Well we have one more person on date. She's being baptized this Sunday. The mom runs a foster care home and they adopted her, and she wanted to be baptized so the parents wanted her to take lessons first. It's interesting because we teach her in English and Spanish. The mom is from Puerto Rico, and her Uncle designed the Conquistador. I thought that was pretty cool. Speaking of Puerto Rico, a lot of people here think I'm from Puerto Rico or have Latino blood in me. Puerto Rico and Brazil are the top guesses of where I'm from. Anyway, we have like 4 more people on date in September. So we're finding a way to progress, even though it gets real hard sometimes. Yesterday I had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. Our appointments fell through but we found 3 potential investigators who seemed pretty interested in the gospel. We found a english speaking kid named Seth, and he's a really cool kid. He's 18 and wants to join the church. He's been taking lessons from the South missionaries, but we're meeting with him now too. So that he can talk to us whenever and it's easier for him to meet with us.

Saturday we had New Missionary Training and we went to downtown Salt Lake and had a street contacting competition. My companion was Elder Orton. He's from Orlando. It was nice working with him. We got a long well and our assigned area was 100 s., Which is basically the Gateway Mall area. We met some interesting people there. One of them was an Anti, who told us we sinned every week by taking the sacrament because we say we'll always remember him. We were talking with a recent RM when this anti came up to us and so they started going at it while me and Elder Orton were standing there. But the RM said he repents everynight. And the anti said that if he truely repented he'd be perfect in 10 days because he would forsake the sin. It was pretty entertaining to watch.

Well, I think the highlight of my week came yesterday. We were teaching a part member family. The wife is a member and the husband isn't. They're an older couple, and he's willing to listen and talk to the missionaries but wants to keep his religion. While we were talking to them, we found out that he hadn't had a job for a couple of months. And so we were talking and started talking about how we can give blessings. So Elder Pearl said that we could come by later with the Bishop and give him a blessing of comfort. But I felt like we needed to give it then. And the thoughts came to me that I didn't have to worry about the language, and that I'd be able to say everything that I needed. And that everything would be provided to me. So I offered to give one right then. So we told him it was based on his faith, and then I gave him a blessing of comfort in Spanish. It was a good experience. I think that's about all I have for this week.

My District

Well, this week was pretty good. I can't really think of anything real crazy that happened this week. I got my driving privileges, so now I get to drive the car everywhere. We've done a lot of tracting this week, but haven't got many new investigators. We got about 3 or 4 people with a baptismal date though. So that's pretty exciting. One of them we knocked on a door, saw a 19 year-old kid and asked if he was baptized. Said no, and we asked if he'd prepare himself for Sept. 5, and he said yes. He didn't come to church though so I don't know what's going on there. Then the other 2 or 3 or 4 are from a family where the parents need to be divorced and married to each other. And both the parents want their kids to be baptized. Oh and then Saturday we met a woman who is married to an English speaking man, but she speaks mostly Spanish. We asked where she went to church and she said a christian one downtown, but she was looking for one closer. So we invited her to church the next day. She came with her husband, and they enjoyed it. Turns out the husband was less active, and a high council member went and saw them the week before. So hopefully we can re-activate him and convert her. The Spanish is going better for me. I can understand over 1/2 of what they say. So I'm making some good progress. Well we're having good success in this zone. We have something like 28 baptisms so far this transfer. We're leading the mission.


Here's a picture of my district. The one in the very back, middle is our District Leader, Elder Cruz. He's from Brazil, looks a little like Shia Labuff. Then the 2 on the sides of him are the Zone leaders. And the person next to me is Elder Morris from the MTC. And the Samoan is Elder Morrs, he's from San. Fran. Next transfer is his last. He's going to play football for the University of Utah.

Our Digs

I'm in a Spanish branch. And we only cover that branch out of the whole stake. Place I'm staying is pretty nice. It's like a mini apartment. Well I don't really know what to talk about. I participated in 3 confimations this Sunday so that was a good experience. I didn't really understand much of what was being said. But I'm starting to be able to understand more! It's slowly coming along. I don't know. It still seems like I'll never really pick it up. It's tough. Me and my companion are getting a long all right. It's crazy how fast time is going out in the field. The days are long, and the weeks are short. This time is going by a lot faster than the MTC. Which I'm happy about. Well I don't really have any of my own investigators yet. Like ones that I've found and we've started teaching. All of them are from the previous Elders. But mayble I'll get one soon. Last night we went on exchanges, and we visited an investigator and that took about an hour, then we went to different places trying to talk to investigators but they weren't home. So it was 8:25 and i prayed to see where we should go. And I felt like we should go to the Chapel. I didn't know if it was just me wanting to be with someone that speaks english or what. So we went and there was a less active member that lives next door to the chapel working on his car. So we talked to him, and to the guy that lives under them in the basement. (that's what they do here to get cheaper housing). And the guy that wasn't a member agreed to let us come back. We can't knock the door to this house because they have 2 dogs that are always outside fenced in. So this was the first time we could actually talk to them. Well I got to go write a letter to the Primary kids.

Baptism

Well I've felt the Spirit so strongly and it's been great being an instrument in the Lord's hand. We have a baptism of a 9 year old set up this saturday. His name is Diego. His dad wanted to baptize him, but they had trouble finding the membership records of the dad. And his dad is getting deported next month. It was really sad, but as we set a date for this week I felt strongly that everything would be alright. So I told the dad that, and we actually got a call today that they found his record so that was an answer to my prayers.

The other day we were trying to decide who we should go see, and I felt like we should go visit someone in the area book named Alex that we tried visiting before, but he wasn't there. So I was wondering why we felt like we should go there and started looking for people. As we drove (we have a car, but try to walk when we can) down the next street over we found a guy named Martin who was interested in learning about the Gospel. Also, we were driving visiting people on the Progress record and they weren't home. And as we were trying to leave a house, Elder Pearl forgot his number that we have to enter into a black box (a thing the mission uses to track where we are, if we're breaking speed limit, who's driving, all that stuff). So I started looking for someone to talk to. And all of a sudden we see this teenager walking down the street and gave him a Book of Mormon and got his details. After we talked to him Elder Pearl remembered his number and couldn't figure out how he forgot it. But that's the stupor of thought the scriptures talk about. I don't know if anything will turn out because of it, but we'll see.

This weekend we're set up for 3 conformations, (what counts for the records) but none of them are people we found. But we have one more little girl that was adopted into a member family that runs a foster home, and the little girl wanted to be a member so we have a date for her too. So with these 4 people it counts as 4 baptisms under my name. And we're hoping we can get this one guy who's been coming to church for a while but needs to clear up some things. So the Missionary work is progressing pretty well here. I think it might be because of the Spirit of Elijah. With so many of the temples being built here in the valley, I think there are Spirits helping us so that their work can get done. And as President Sonne says, "when temples are dedicated, Satan's power is deminished over the area". Something like that. So hopefully they keep helping us and help us with these baptisms.

A few random things...we have a mission tour with Elder Christensen of the 70 tomorrow. The area we're at is highly populated by Spanish speakers, We actually talked to a few gang members so that was kind of fun. Umm we do get fed pretty much everynight, unless appointments fall through or something like that. I still can't understand spanish when they talk fast. There's a lot of work to be done in this area so I don't really get to write in my journal as much as i would like, but I try. Well I think that's about it for now.