September 16, 2012

Familia,

 

This week has been good. I haven't been feeling too good the past few days and I can't shake it. The weather is cooling down a little so that's been nice! We can FINALLY drive with the windows down at night! (normally it stays in the 100's when the sun goes down).

 

This week has been so cool. Lan and Ban are really improving and we told them Saturday "It's game time. Time to really get serious about quitting!" They were super excited and we told them that since things are getting tougher, so will we! (in a good and supportive, motivating way) :) They were ready and excited to reach their last week of smoking. They've been sharing cigarettes and cutting down to only 1/4 cigarette each per day! That's INCREDIBLE considering how much they were smoking just two weeks ago! But it's still not completely gone. We're buckling down on the ward visits, and text messages of scriptures and inspiring quotes throughout the day. I KNOW the Lord has great plans for them. They are doing awesome and I'm so proud of them!

 

Nes (the 17 yr old) finally committed to a baptism date this week for the 28th of September! We had an incredible lesson with him about the Restoration and after much prayer about what his concerns might be, we were able to address his concerns: what are ALL the commandments he is going to be committing to keep? It was worrying him, so we wrote out a list of all the commandments and said "chances are, you're probably already keeping the majority of these anyway! Now we're here to teach you about the new ones!" Looking over the 10 commandments, and the law of tithing and word of wisdom he seemed to relax a bit. He is so awesome! He has lots of member friends who gave him a quad of his own! He's been reading through Doctrine & Covenants and really doing his research on a lot of things. Sometimes I feel like he's teaching US! Haha! His mom is slowly backing down on the idea of baptism. She said she still has a lot of Buddhist beliefs that she's not willing to replace just yet. But she DOES have a testimony of Jesus Christ. We'll continue to work with her and teach her more :) Nes is going to lead the way for his family.. I'm so excited for them all.

 

Ly is still on date for baptism for the 29th as well! She was out of town this weekend, but she's doing great!

We met a cool guy named Mi from Africa! We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and though he has a Christian AND Muslim background he sat in awe the entire lesson. You could just see the Spirit teaching him and confirming everything we said to him. He looked at us and said "I believe everything you are teaching me!" so we replied, "Then will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority of God?" .... "YES!" :D

 

So cool! He'll be baptized sometime in October :) He was initially set up for the 29th of thsi month (along with everyone else!) but you have to go to church at least twice before being baptized out here. He had to miss yesterday because of work. 

We're going to pick up a lot of new investigators this week, and I'm so excited! We've been receiving a TON of referrals and are able to actually get a hold of them really quick! Sometimes it takes a while no matter how hard you try to contact them within the first 24 hours of receiving their info.. We met another really cool cat named Lance. He's a 64 year old folk singer! He told us he can't wait to hear our message and that he's really felt that the Lord is telling him to head his life in this direction! He just randomly showed up to church last Sunday looking to see what church was all about! So we stopped by, introduced ourselves, and gave him a Book of Mormon and pamphlets. He came yesterday and sat by us in church and just loved it! I'm excited about him! He's searching.

 

I hope and pray we can all be the means of helping those who are truly ready for the Gospel. Reach out to those who you know that may not be members. Share with them your testimony, even by how you live! Pray for missionary opportunities!

I love you all, and wish you all a great week!

* * *
Love, Me!

HAVE FUN IN DISNEYLAND ABOUT ME! ;)