July 25, 2010

Hi family!

How's life with you? Now that you are almost all back together, that is. I only just realized that summer is almost over. That's a bummer for Kayti and Cale, I bet, but a blessing for mom. :) When does school start? Is anybody going to do sports this year? I don't remember if Kayti made it back into the marching band, so you'll have to let me know if she did, and how that's going, since I bet that the band camp thing starts pretty soon.

Anyway, life here is marching on. Actually, we were REALLY busy this week. Our ward had a pioneer barbeque on Saturday, so Sister Silva and I were hitting the pavement to invite as many less actives, potential investigators, former investigators, and our regular investigators as we could. And it paid off. We had both Lewis and Pupe there, with their whole families, and a few of our less actives came too. It was really fun, because, since they came, we got to go too. We played volleyball, flag football, and missionary tag. There were probably over 100 people there from the ward. It was really fun, although pretty hot -- 102 I think. I got a bit of a sunburn, although since I was wearing proselyting clothes, it's only on my face - and my arms (I have a wicked farmers tan now... hahahaha).

The ward here is great. They've welcomed me in like I was always here. I'm really getting to know a lot of the members, and it makes me feel like I belong. It's of course different being a missionary in the ward. Everyone knows my name since I wear it, and I struggle every day with remembering everyone's names and their stories, but I'm praying for help in that regard, and it's getting much easier.

On Friday night, we met with a couple who really just wanted to argue with us. But we prayed for the spirit of truth and love to be there in our lesson with us and it went really well. I'm learning a lot from them what the world believes about Jesus Christ and the Atonement, which I never really knew before, because I grew up LDS. We brought some Elders from our zone with us. Elder Byrom is leaving in 3 weeks, and he knows his stuff, so it was good to see that the answers to all their questions can be found in the bible.

This week we met twice each with Lewis and Pupe. I'll start with Lewis. I don't remember if I talked last week about how worried we were that, since he's still living with his girlfriend he'd lose his drive to get baptized. So on Tuesday, when we met with him, we taught him "Follow the Prophet" and then asked him after, about his testimony. He's so solid in the church. He told us he knows that baptism is the most important thing, and that it has to be done in our church by someone who holds the priesthood. It made me so happy to know that he's still on the right path. He started his new job this last week, so he said, once he's got some money, he'll be able to make a change in his situation. We're looking forward to the next few months. We've set kind of a tentative date in October, so we'll see. He's getting along great with the ward members, and he brought all six of Patrina's kids to the barbeque (Patrina didn't come), and they had a good time. He didn't come to church yesterday, though. We'll find out what happened when we meet with him on Wednesday.

Pupe is doing so great too! We met with her on wednesday. Her testimony is growing. It's amazing to see how the spirit changes our investigators between our visits. When she first started meeting with us, she only wanted to learn about us. Now she's reading the Book of Mormon, praying to Heavenly Father (which is a big change for her, since she's Buddhist, and worships Buddha), and even reading the conference edition of the Ensign. We taught her Lesson 3 (which is the gospel) and then we committed her to be baptized. She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either. Her main concern is that she'd be giving up a way of life by giving up Buddha, and she wants to talk to someone else who converted from a non- christian religion before she says yes. We gave her some Ensign articles about people who've done it, and we're trying to find someone else who can actually talk to her. But if anyone has any suggestions as to what we could say or do that would help resolve her concerns, that would be great!

We're also teaching two new investigators. We haven't taught them yet, but we're starting this week. Crawford Johnson is an older African American. He knows a lot about the church already, since he lived a long time in Ogden, UT. We can't quite seem to get a read on him. He's super friendly and knows a lot about us. He has a Book of Mormon that he says he reads all the time, and he's really interested in talking to us about it. So we don't know for sure yet if he's golden or he wants to bash with us. We'll find out, I guess. :) The other person we're going to teach is Jean, also an older African American. She's super nice. She's the neighbor of one of the ward members.

I guess that about wraps it up for this week. I finally got the note from Daniel with Mom's cell phone. I also got a box of BYU fudge from Dan and Cat. Thanks so much!!! it's sooo yummy. My companion just laughed at both the note and the fudge. The note only had a short thing saying, call this number, not home, and the fudge had no letter at all. I told her that's how our family does it. She thinks we're crazy... or in her El Salvadorian accent, cressy. :)

Anyway, I love you all and I hope you're doing well. Please pray for missionary experiences, and then keep your eye open to them!

Love, Sister Reid