Spanaway - November 21, 2011

Hello!

 

I'm glad to hear that you're all doing well and that you're happy! I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa M. are happy, reunited with the rest of their family in the other direction, and sharing the Gospel with them.

 

Speaking of the Spirit World, on Sunday, the two oldest high priests in the ward spoke about the spirit world and vicarious temple work. The second and third hours went pretty deep too. We didn't have any investigators there, but it was probably one of the deepest sundays I've had in the mission. But hey, Mari absolutely loved it, so it all worked out!

 

The ward is going to have a temple trip for all the recent converts on December 9th so tonight we're doing a FHE with Mari so she can prepare some names to take with her. She asked her boss if she could have that night off, but she doesn't know yet so just pray for her so that she'll be able to go!

 

We had a great finding miracle this week. Bishop asked us to check up on a family on the ward list and see if the address, phone number, etc. were still up to date. So we did, found out they had moved, but instead of that family we found a less active, Antonio, who was baptized in New Jersey who wants to come back to church, and his 9 year old niece, Angela, who had gone to church with him before, liked it, and wants to get baptized!!!! Pray for her so that her mom gives her permission to be baptized. Antonio had to work so they weren't able to come yesterday; but since she's been before, she can get baptized on the 4th before the end of the transfer!

 

We also had zone conference on Thursday, and a Spanish zone conference on Saturday! They were legit. My biggest takeaway was probably that we need to have faith in tracting, finding, or whatever activity we're doing, and then magnify it with our own diligence, working hard even when we're tired or when we've just been blessed with a big miracle. That's when God gives us the miracles. One of my favorite quotes (from Elder Liechty): "If Christ didn't give up on us [in the garden], then we have no right to give up on Him."

 

Anyway, we're doing what we can so we can baptize this transfer, and I'm grateful for all the prayers you offer in our behalf.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here's something that you might be able to do, maybe for an FHE or something. Get that roll paper that's an inch or two wide but that comes on a roll, cut off a portion 10 feet long or so, and just write a list of all the things for which you are grateful. When you feel down or depressed, you can take out your list and read it until you feel happy again! (This is something that Elder Hardy did and showed us in the Spanish Conference).

 

I love you all and let me know if there is anything I can do to help you out!

 

Love,

Greg

Spanaway - November 14, 2011

We had a pretty good week this week. On Monday while tracting this one couple invited us in and we were able to teach them the Restoration and they almost went on date! Unfortunately they dogged us by not being there for the return appointment, but we're hoping to make contact with them this week.

 

We also got to teach a man named Jorge, who really wants help so he can quit being an alcoholic. So far we've taught him the Restoration and we also put a plan together with him so he can read, pray, come to church, and avoid all the places where he's drunk before. He had to work this Sunday, but we're excited to work with him, and he's willing to make a lot of big life changes to come closer to God.

 

Francisco also still wants to be baptized, but had to work on Sunday so he fell off date. We'll also need to help him quit drinking and smoking, but he has the desires so I'm sure he'll be able to succeed.

 

Unfortuntately, our other investigators have been kind of lame so we need to drop them. We have found some pretty good potentials though, and we have church tours set up with them for this coming week.

 

We had a funny tracting experiences this week.  I had what I'm pretty sure was my first naked person answer a door. She opened it, hiding behind the door, and told us she was showering. Don't ask me why anyone in the shower would bother answering the door, pero así fue. It was pretty funny though, and probably not even the most awkward door contact I've had.

 

Love you all! Thank you for your prayers and your support!

 

Greg <3

Spanaway - November 7, 2011

Hello!!!

 

So Halloween was pretty legit; we went to President Weaver's house and had our little party. The movie was called 17 Miracles. It supposedly came out earlier in the year and is about the Willie Handcart Company. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it; I was close to tears during many parts of it. The pioneers had such an incredible amount of faith and sacrificed so much to be able to join with the Saints and partake of temple blessings.

 

As for me, we had a great week as well! Our teaching pool remains mostly empty, but we knocked into a man named Francisco who invited us into his house and after a few questions told us of a recent divorce and how he wants to change his life and he committed to baptism! He just needs to talk to his boss so he can get Sundays off or move it to another day. Please pray for him as well as for his boss so that he can come to church.

 

I also feel way good about this family from Panama that we met last Sunday. They've been busy all week so we were only able to see them once, but the girls want to come to Tuesday activities, they all already know a member of the ward, and we should be giving the whole family a tour later this week too.

 

We also made sure that Gregorio and Concepcón and Mari got their hometeachers assigned, and I'm just happy that they're progressing as much as they have been. We've been trying to network from our recent converts to find people to teach, and one recent convert was supposed to introduce us to a friend at church yesterday, but none of them were able to make it.

 

I hope you are all doing well and if there is anything in particular that I can do to help you all out, just let me know.

 

Also thank you so much for the package! Everything works great! 

As for Christmas stuff, idk. Music is always nice (Christian rock is no longer approved btw, but some awesome Gospel music would be nice). Maybe a game for p'days like Race to the Galaxy or something, idk. Or something that will reduce the pain from having to eat 10 meals in a single day. Whatever. Just receiving a package of something from somebody will make me way happy.

 

I love you all, and thank you so much for your love and support! Miracles come if we pray enough and put forth the required obedience and diligence, and we'll keep looking for them!

 

<3

Greg

Spanaway - October 31, 2011

It's been a good week in Spanaway! Numbers wise, not so much, but we still had fun. Like I said we've either baptized or dropped our whole teaching pool so that's been a struggle. Mari moved out of our area, though she's still in the ward. She moved up by the church, but in the area of Tacoma Spanish. It'll be sad not being able to teach her as much anymore, but at least I'll see her in the ward for the next 5 weeks. So we helped her pack up a lot of things as she was frantically looking for a house to rent. I love seeing how much happier she is now, how much she's more at peace. She reads the Liahona (there's no Ensign in Spanish, but the Liahona is just as good) as well as the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

 

Gregorio and Concepción are solid; in the third hour of church today everyone was together and they talked about convert retention and they were excited to get their own Progress of New Members sheet so they can keep track of their progress in the church. We're hoping to have a temple baptism trip for all the new converts in the ward in the beginning of December.

 

Even though we only got 10 lessons last week, we found some miracles. We gave a man named Alirio (from El Salvador) a church tour; we've known him for several weeks now but we hadn´t been able to get in contact with him. But even though he's a strong member of another Christian church, he committed to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon and pray and he said that he knew our church didn't teach anything bad. So we'll see how willing he is to truly read and pray.

 

Last night we went tracting after our dinner appointment and we got invited in and watched Finding Faith in Christ with this really nice lady from Panama and her children. It turns out she went to 'Mormon church' in Panama with her stepdad when she was really little, and she already has a couple friends in our ward here. She's Catholic but she happily took a Book of Mormon and we have a tour set up with her for this coming Friday. She is learning English and she works with disabled children and the whole family does tons of community service and they do a lot of stuff to help out orphans and foster children in the area. Just talking with them gave me the impression that they are true followers of Christ, and I just felt really good about the whole thing and I'm excited for the church tour on Friday!

 

Hmmm, ¿qué más? Idk, it's been a good week and I love working here in Spanaway. It's hard to believe that by the end of this transfer I'll have served half my mission to this point here. 

 

I love you all and hope you have a very happy Halloween!

 

 

Greg

Spanaway - October 25, 2011

Well, regarding transfers, both Elder Robertson and I stay! There were a lot of really interesting developments this transfer though, including that my trainer (and zone leader for the past few transfers), Elder Liechty, was called to serve in an English ward as one of the APs! Now there's a scary thought, switching from Spanish to English! But he's someone I know that will do well there.

 

President and Sister Weaver also announced that for next P-day (Halloween), we're not proselyting at all in the evening and instead we're going to have a Halloween 'activity,' not a party (Direct quote from President Weaver: "An activity is still an activity, which has a very broad meaning.") with our respective zones, which will include watching a movie that will be approved by him and his wife. Apparently last year there were non-missionaries that dressed up as missionaries and did some rather unsavory things and President Bowen got called, so President wants to be able to say 'Nope, those aren't our missionaries; ours are all accounted for.'

 

So regarding the miracles and awesomeness of last transfer, this past week, Mari didn't smoke at all. We were sending her daily messages and scriptures through texting and we knew that God was preparing her for baptism. So on Thursday we had a lesson with her, at the beginning of which she expressed how stressed she was and why she didn't want to get baptized. We ended up sharing D&C 122 and JSH with her about opposition, and the Spirit just did some work on her. We extended the commitment and she committed to be baptized on Saturday!!!!!

 

It was awesome, though we learned when she was confirmed in Sacrament that we had misunderstood and we were actually missing part of her name, which made Sunday one of the most stressful days of my life. We ended up rebaptizing and confirming her after Tacoma's baptism that finished at 4:55, and before the Samoan's baptism that began at 5! But we got it done, and I'm just so grateful for the help we had in reaching our baptism goal of 4 for this transfer. When we prayed at the beginning of the transfer, 4 seemed like a really big number, but it just felt right. It was a joy to see how happy Mari was when it was all said and done.

 

The hard part is now that we've either dropped or baptized our entire teaching pool. So we literally have 0 solid nonmembers that we're teaching. Just pray that we find them or that they find us.

 

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

 

Love,

Greg

<3 <3 <3

Spanaway - October 17, 2011

We had an incredible week! Gregorio and Concepción were both baptized on Tuesday, confirmed yesterday, and Gregorio is going to receive the priesthood next Sunday. It was an awesome baptism; Tacoma also had a family of four that was baptized the same day. It was pretty much an awesome day for the Spanish zone. The record we have in the mission is 12 baptized in a single month in the zone, and we're already at nine!

 

We also had a great lesson with Mari and she set a goal to have quit smoking by the end of the month so she doesn't smoke in her new house. She needs to quit for at least a week to be baptized, and then she'll receive the Holy Ghost which will carry her the rest of the way as long as she's doing her part. So she committed to prepare herself to be baptized on the 29th. I'm hoping that I'll still be here, since I found her and have worked with her for so long, but we'll see.

 

We also had a missionary come home in the ward, and everyone threw a huge party at the church. He served in Pittsburgh, PA, and apparently knows one of my friends in Berkeley, Simon Tiu, who served as his zone leader. I don't remember exactly how to spell his last name, but it starts with a Q and he's from Tacoma so maybe Simon will remember him.

 

We finally had our interviews with President and Sister Weaver this week too. All I can say is that they're awesome and that I know they are inspired in order to be able to do their job; I just felt the Spirit during the whole thing, and it was fantastic. It sounds like there are going to be some big upcoming changes in the upcoming transfer meeting, to rules, expectations, etc., and they have a big focus right now about placing Books of Mormon. But again, we'll see!

 

A couple days ago we had a really weird day. It started off by going to see one of our potentials, and just on the doorstep she told us her whole life story, how she was raped, and so her family sent her here, etc. These people have way sad stories, and the sad part is that this isn't the first story I've heard like that. Then we had to go to our apartment to pick up a children's Book of Mormon for her because the normal one is hard to understand in Spanish, then she invited us to eat papusas with her and her brother later in the day (and you don't say no to food from a nonmember). So we already had our own lunch appointment, to which we went, then we went over to the Elders quorum president's house for 'cake' which really meant another dinner and we didn't want to offend anyone so we ate, then we ate papusas, and we finished off with Mari feeding us pan dulce with chocolate milk. I am not looking forward to Thanksgiving next transfer....

 

The work goes on, and it's wonderful. I love you guys and hope you have a wonderful week!

 

¡Les quiero y espero que tengan una espléndida semana!

 

Con cariño,

Greg

Spanaway - October 10, 2011

Well, I suppose I'll start off by telling you about our miracle: Gregorio and Concepción, our two eternal investigators that were coming to church but that had no desire to get baptized, are getting baptized on Tuesday!  We went over to teach them on Tuesday, and felt inspired to change the lesson plan.  We shared Mosiah 18:8-10 with them, asking them all of the questions contained in these verses. And then they said they felt they were ready to be baptized! They had their interviews yesterday and they're solid! It was such an incredible moment because these are people that were found the week before I came to this area so I've been working with them for almost four months now. Tacoma is also baptizing a family of four at the same time and with Juanito from last week, our ward will already have seven baptisms for the month. Bishop promised us a special barbecue when we break 10 =)

 

So Mari is still having trouble. We've set goals with her to help her and just really tried to follow the Spirit. She needs to gain faith in herself and believe that she really can do it, and we left her with the homework of reading Elder Oak's talk about desires from a few conferences ago, as well as Pres. Uchtdorf's Saturday morning closing talk. She needs to move out by the end of the month and she's looking for houses in her spare time (not that she has very much of that) and we're really hoping that she doesn't move out of our area. But what comes will come and we'll work hard either way.

 

We really haven't been able to work with too many other people; one person separated from her husband and moved to live with her parents in Seattle, a couple others moved and won't answer their telephone, etc. But we're still working hard and looking and have faith that they will come.

 

So we had a pretty legit P-day today. President Weaver invited the six of us in our little Spanish district over for breakfast and companionship study, which was way fun. It's Elder Wilde's birthday (Elder Liechty's companion) and we hung out with them and did a way epic go-kart race. Liechty and I were fighting it out at the end, and we hit each other pretty hard a few times, but I finally ended up winning.

 

So here's a funny thing that happened this week: Mari has a Parakeet that is infatuated with me and throws a fit every time I'm there. Last week she bit both me and my companion pretty badly as we were holding her on our hands. Mari had gone to a back room to get something at the time and didn't see till afterward so this week she asked us how everything actually went down. I said 'Jazzie me pisó la mano...' So piso means floor and the verb pisar means to step on, so I was trying to say that Jazzie (the bird) stepped onto my hand. But apparently pisarle means something very different than what's in my dictionary... Well, you learn something new everyday!   lol

 

I love you all very much.

 

Paz y amor

Greg

Spanaway - October 3, 2011

Hi there!

 

I did really enjoy conference; I didn't get too much out of the first session because I was watching in Spanish and was too busy worrying about Juanito not showing up so I wasn't really able to concentrate. But then after that first session he finally came and we baptized him there at the stake center after the second session. That was just a way stressful day; we were late in the morning because we missed our exit, went over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and had to pay the toll to get back on the Tacoma side. It was a relief when it was over.

 

As far as talks that stood out to me, I really liked President Uchtdorf's on Saturday about how even though we're so small compared to all of God's creations, we are important and we mean everything to God. Also, in the very last session, I loved the talk about choice and swimming in the shallow water. In the end, there are only two choices: following Christ, and following the devil. I bet it would be interesting to review all the activities we do every week and consider which of those choices we're making as we do that activity. Also, I'm planning on reading the talk about the Book of Mormon and how it clarifies Bible teachings with our investigators. 

 

Mari has continued to make a lot of progress. She couldn't find her Book of Mormon for a few days so she instead read about halfway through the Principles of the Gospel book. We were way surprised when she pulled out her notes and asked us questions to clarify stuff about Michael the Archangel... haha. But she's solid and wants to get baptized as soon as she quit smoking. We're not sure what more we can do for her; we've fasted with her, given her a blessing, given her cinnamon sticks to use instead of cigarettes, looked in the church addiction literature based off of A.A for ideas, etc. I think she'll do it though; she's made so much progress just from studying the Book of Mormon and once she comes to church on a more regular basis she'll find that strength she needs.

 

Sadly, most of our other investigators have either fallen off the face of the planet or they continue attending church but have no desire to be baptized. But we'll continue looking for those prepared :)

 

Les amo muchisimo y espero que esten bien. Sigan firmes!

 

Greg

Spanaway - September 26, 2011

Lots of good stuff happened this week:

 

We've been struggling to find new, as always, and since almost none of our peeps are home during the day anyway, we started to take our bikes out and just scout out neighborhoods for the Latinos. We've been blessed with some really great potentials! We biked around for probably a good 6 hours this past week and we got to talk with 5 or so Hispanics, but more than half of them are interested in talking with us! We also had another interested part member family fall down out of the sky at our feet, and we're taking them on a church tour on Thursday!

 

Mari has been making a lot of progress! We did that fast with her on Saturday, which was interesting because we had a mission wide fast on Sunday too, but it all worked out. She came to sacrament meeting even though she was feeling sick and had a great excuse, and as far as I know she enjoyed it! The whole Sunday was missionary themed and President and Sister Weaver came and spoke! It was all pretty fantastic!

 

I don't know if I've told you, but there's a media initiative coming here to the Tacoma-Seattle area. Starting next week there will be mormon.org commercials playing on the major networks, billboards up by the freeways, etc. We're way excited to see how it will affect the work. At the very least it will generate a lot of questions and we will hopefully be seeing a lot more member referrals!

 

=)

 

<3

 

Greg

Spanaway - September 19, 2011

Here are some miracles to report: First of all last week before stake conference a member came up to us and told us that he wanted his 12 year old son to have the missionary lessons so he could be baptized! He just finally got custody over him so there shouldn't be any problems there. So we taught him on Sunday and officially put him on date for the 2nd of October! We had to teach him at the church because they live in Kent, which happens to be a bit into the Seattle mission, but they go to church here so we'll baptize him!

We met another man last night in Graham who was actually taught and went to church for 4 weeks when he was living in Seattle, but now he moved down into our mission and we have a lesson scheduled with him in a member's house for Wednesday. Again, that was basically just a miracle that fell out of the sky; God has just been placing people in our path basically, for the which we are very grateful.

While most of our investigators have stopped progressing, Mari is doing fantastic. She obviously has doubts and questions because so much of what she's read with us contradicts what she's firmly believed for most of her life, but she's very open. We were trying to commit her to just pray straight up about the Book of Mormon because that would resolve the concerns she's had, but she told us 'I don't need to do that, because I already know the answer. A better question to ask me would be will I follow through and prepare for a baptism.' The Spirit's always way strong when we teach her and the main thing that's keeping her from putting herself on date is the obstacle of tobacco. But we're going to try and do a fast with her later this week and just do everything we can to help her take that step.

So we also had a fantastic P-day today! We all got together as a Spanish zone, which is something that we're not able to do very often, and we went to the Point Defiance Zoo, up at the very north tip of Tacoma, near the Puget Sound. It was pretty awesome; we saw polar bears swimming right up next to the glass, tigers, falcons, elephants, the whole she-bang, which was pretty legit.

Anyway, love you guys and I hope you have a fantastic week!

Greg

Peace out

Spanaway - September 13, 2011

Well, here's the news: It was transfers and someone was in line to get transferred: Elder L went to Shelton, and I got Elder R, who just spent the first two transfers of his mission in Shelton.

 

He is from West Jordan Utah, sings bass, and has a sweet testimony. I'm way excited to work with him this transfer and we've already seen the miracles coming in.

 

We went tracting after our transfer meeting yesterday and Edwin, a 14 year old kid, got permission from his mom and let us come in so we could watch Finding Faith in Christ with him. He loved it and we started talking about baptism, and he committed to be baptized on the 2nd of October. We'll need to work with his Mom to get permission, but we're way excited to work with him. And I'll add that it was the very first door that answered to us in this transfer.

 

Afterwards we went back out to work and we found another kid (18-19ish), JJ, who wanted to come down to the church so we took him down then and there to the church. He isn't on date, but we're not going to give up on him.

 

Last week on Thursday we finally saw Mari, and we had a way powerful lesson with her and she committed to be baptized on the 25th. She came to church (stake conference) and we had a broadcast from Salt Lake that was legit. She has some issues with a couple things she didn't like and wants to wait on baptism, but she's still way open and as long as we follow the Spirit we'll be fine.

 

She doesn't like the idea of tithing, though that's just because she doesn't understand it very well so we can take care of that. President Packer also talked about a story from when he was in the military, and Mari was anti-war even before she joined the Jehova's Witnesses; she told us that she believes that it's wrong to kill kill people and even though we obey the laws of the land, when they conflict with God's laws, His laws take precedence. So admittedly, it's a legitimate concern and we're not entirely sure how to help her. Obviously she just needs to gain a witness of the Bood of Mormon. We're thinking of sharing the story of Captain Moroni with her too, but we'll see.

 

Mari still says that she feels a fire, a joy whenever we're over and teaching her, and says she knows we're full of the Holy Ghost, so it'll be a matter of time before she gets baptized. She just wants to wait until she's more sure.

 

I'm way excited to serve in Spanaway! It's hard work, but we have faith that baptisms will come, and more importantly our brothers and sisters coming unto God by accepting that first ordinance.

 

I hope you all are well, y ¡siempre recuerden que les amo! Sean fieles, y para siempre Dios esté con Uds.

 

Con cariño,

Greg

Spanaway - September 6, 2011

Hope you all had a happy Labor Day! We certainly did; we played some Ultimate, and then we did a couple go cart races, which was way fun. Finally we checked out Guitar Center in north Tacoma and I got to play around on their keyboards for a while :)

 

As far as investigators, we had a great miracle early last week. Guillermo decided that it was his time and put himself on date to be baptized this coming weekend. We went through all the baptism interview questions with him and the only thing he needs is to get married. Unfortunately, we talked with both of them about marriage yesterday and they don't feel ready to do it yet, even though they've been living together for several years.  But they committed to start reading the Book of Mormon together daily to seek personal revelation on what they should do, so just keep praying for them. It was a miracle when he decided to get baptized, and we can expect another miracle as they choose to get married.

 

Mari, as far as we know, fell off the face of the Earth. We weren't able to see her last week and when we tried to call, it went straight to her voicemail so her phone was probably off and she didn't get the texts we sent. We're wondering if maybe something happened with her mom, but we'll see and we'll keep trying to contact her.

 

We had a great church tour this week with someone named Carmen. English missionaries had been teaching her brother and weren't making any progress so they finally referred them to us. It can be really frustrating when you find out that English missionaries are poaching investigators that should have been referred to you. A problem is that the potential investigators don't like saying 'no' so they'll agree to take the lessons in English just because they're talking to English missionaries, but when we go up and ask them, they admit that it would be better in Spanish. Ah well, the two cases that came up in our area this week got resolved so it should be good now.

 

Keep up all the great stuff you do! ¡Espero que tengan una maravillosa semana! También ¡ojalá que disfruten el sol que tienen allá! A member of our ward just got back from a month long trip down in California, including San José and he said it was sunny y que hacía calorcito :)  (Translation:  I hope you have a marvelous week.  Also, I hope you enjoy the sun that you have there.)

 

¡Les amo, y cuidense! (I love you and take care.)

 

Greg <3

Spanaway, WA -- August 22, 2011

We had a fantastic week! Gregorio finally accepts the Book of Mormon as the word of God and understands that he needs to get baptized. We had a powerful lesson on the Book of Mormon and got on our knees right there and prayed with them and just waited. We were literally down on the ground for a good 15 minutes. But he felt the influence of the Holy Ghost and knows the Book of Mormon is the word of God. He's still hesitant about a solid baptism date but he's reading Alma 34 where it talks about not procrastinating and is praying about a baptismal date. Concepción still has a lot of doubts, but she'll come along too.

Mari is working on quitting smoking; she just wants to finish off the cigarettes she has right now before she starts. But we gave her some things that should help her make those steps. On Saturday we watched Finding Faith in Christ with her, and we feel she's willing to come to church now, except that she's usually having to do something for her family, either watch grandkids or take care of her mom with dementia.

On Tuesday we had a sweet miracle: Our dinner appointment cancelled so we called a member so that we could eat, and that member happened to be working with a less active member who overheard our conversation and offered to feed us. So we met this less active that we'd never even heard of before who we wouldn't have been able to find because her address was wrong in the directory, and what's more, her husband-boyfriend is a nonmember that was taught by missionaries a year ago and likes coming to church when he can. We've been trying to set up tours and appointments with them but so far they've always been called in to work, but we have another appointment tonight which will hopefully go through.

The meeting with Elder Perry was pretty legit. Elder Clayton, one of the presidents of 70 came too, and we certainly had a spiritual feast about study, companionship unity, and stories from Elder Perry's missionary and military service. We also talked about Less Active work and using Less Actives to bump up our lessons each week to 20. It was really weird to see the Seattle missionaries too. At one point Elder Perry asked our mission presidents how many lessons each companionship taught each week on average. Seattle said '6 or 7' (I know, we were all shocked when we heard that). President Weaver is still really new and didn't know the exact number but said jokingly 'A whole lot more than that,' and to an apostle! The entire room just busted out laughing.

Hmmm, what more? We had some fun on P-day today by playing some board games. Usually we just get together with the zone so there were 5-6 of us that played Godswar Risk (a pretty fun version of risk that involves mythology).

Anyway, love you guys! I hope all is well!

Elder Greg

Spanaway, WA -- August 15, 2011

Hello Family!

 

All is going well. This was a great week for us all! The Spanish zone broke a record in that together between the 8 companionships we found 31 new investigators! We were blessed with 3, which is the most we've had in a week since I got here. We gave a church tour to Ricardo and Kimberly, a young couple from Honduras who are cousins to one of our less active members. We also had a miracle when a member brought a friend, Juan, to church, though seeing him will be a bit difficult because he's a truck driver and technically lives in Yakima (way far away, plus out of our mission).

 

Mari is doing awesome; we tried to bring fellowship over one time, but we felt like it made her feel way uncomfortable. She's more or less willing to come, but also has to take care of her mom with dementia a lot of Sundays. But she's been reading in the Book of Mormon, and she committed last night to start working again on quitting smoking, so we'll be working hard with her to do all those things so that she'll be more able to feel the Spirit so that she'll gain a spiritual testimony of the Book of Mormon so that she feels the desire to be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority of God, thus making her first life-saving ordinance and covenant with our Heavenly Father. But, all things step by step, line upon line, etc. :)

 

The bishop is in Spain this month on vacation with his grandkids and our ward clerk is being deployed to Iraq, so it'll be intersting to see what happens with the ward in the coming weeks. I'm not trying to say that the leadership is incapable or anything, but the ward itself is still relatively young and most people are converts and just don't have very much experience. But it'll be interesting to see how everything works out. :)

 

I'm super excited to hear from Elder Perry this Friday! We have zone conference next week too, so it'll just be a spiritual feast!

 

Hmmm, what else? Did I tell you about the Paella I had a few weeks ago? Before bishop left, he cooked us the national dish of Spain (he's a chef), which consists of Rice (which turns yellow because you use saffron), shrimp, mussels, octopus, chicken, etc. It was the first time I'd ever eaten mussel or octopus like that, and it was absolutely delicious! I haven't eaten anything too weird yet, but my papa Elder Liechty and my new little brother Elder Wilde ate menudo last night, which is that soup made out of cow stomach.

 

I love you guys and I hope all is well! Say hi to my Berkeley friends for me and tell them that I love them!

 

Les amo, y ¡que tenga una superchida semana! ¡Guarden la fe!

 

Con amor,

Greg

Spanaway - August 8, 2011

We had some more good experiences with Mari this week; she told us last night that she doesn't doubt that Jose Smith was a prophet, and that a lot of what we've taught makes sense to her intellectually, that God would have had a hand in the lives of the people of the ancient Americas, etc., but that she's still searching to gain that emotional and spiritual witness. She doesn't want to come to church because she sees all sorts of faults in the leadership of churches and doesn't agree with that and had a really bad experience with the Jehova's Witnesses because they excommunicated her after she divorced her abusive husband. But she loves us and with time and as she continues to feel the Spirit she'll come around.

 

We did have some miracles this week. We gave a church tour to a guy named Alberto on Monday, but he works and hasn't been at home when we've tried to see him. We also received a referral from Utah: apparently Espanoza sat in on a few lessons with her sister in Utah who was investigating the church, and we saw her yesterday and hopefully will be able to give her a tour of the church soon.

 

We're really excited because in a couple of weeks we'll be joining with the Seattle mission and will get to hear Elder L. Tom Perry speak for a couple hours.

 

Les amo muchisimo <3

 

Greg <3 <3 <3

Spanaway - August 2, 2011

¡Buenas! (Hi)

 

Transfers were fantastic!!!  Elder Lehr and I are actually going to be staying together this transfer in Spanaway. My granddaddy, Elder Hansen, goes home in a few hours and we received three new Spanish Elders, one of whom is 6'9´´! No one else goes home for 10 more months, so the Spanish zone isn't going to change for almost a year, and we'll all have the chance to get super close! President also opened up another Spanish area, so we now have eight areas with the brand new addition of Centralia. And I wouldn't be surprised if Forks opens up to Spanish, or at least a zebra companionship before I finish my mission.

 

The García family did end up dropping us, which was sad, but like you said it's just part of the work and hopefully everything will work out in the end. We were also blessed in many ways.

 

Transfers also probably fixed the problem with the English elders. The new missionary is super cool, and also clean and cleaned the bathroom already, and we talked last night about a rotating chore thing so that we can turn the apartment into the best apartment in the mission like it used to be.

 

We made a lot of progress with Mari this week. Witnesses do believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God, but tend to place more emphasis on God the Father and believe the the Father is Jehova. They like to talk about the name of God and why that's important, etc. Certainly there are a lot of interesting beliefs. I had a humbling experience in the last lesson we had with her; as we've taught her, there have been a lot of things that she hasn't agreed with, but this last time she told us 'you know, I think you two may be right. Whenever you come to my house, I feel a kind of energy, and when you go, it seems to go too. That's why I started calling you angelitos [little angels] when I first met you. But I want to be sure.' She's still a long ways from coming to church, let alone getting baptized, but this really strengthened my testimony about the importance of being obedient so that we can qualify for the companionship of the Holy Ghost, which is the true testifier of the truths of the Gospel.

 

Hmmm, what else? Tacoma Spanish had a legit baptism on Sunday, probably one of the most spiritual baptisms I've attended. A member just saw Wendy and her two kids at the store, invited them down to the church because there was a barbecue/activity going on, Tacoma gave them a church tour right there, and three weeks later, they entered into the waters of baptism. Member missionary work is the Lord's way of doing missionary work!

 

Keep praying for finding miracles! Instatours! That's probably one of the areas in which we struggle the most in Spanaway, since the Mexican's live so far apart and we need to scout them out. But we feel rejuvenated and we're excited to baptize this transfer!

 

¡Les amo muchísimo y espero que se encuentren bien! (That means I love you very much and hope that you are well).

 

Con cariño y amor (with care and love),

 

Greg