Good morning Family and Friends!!!
This week has been a more successful week. Thank goodness!! We definitely needed some success after the last week. We were able to get 3 new investigators this week which is awesome! Marshall and his wife (Dont know her name :/ but we will get it today :). ) and another girl named Angelique. All three of them seem pretty interested in the church and what it has to offer. I'll start with Marshall and his wife....they are the couple that we stopped and helped cut the tree down. We had our first lesson with them last tuesday and it went really well. He has been a Jehovah's Witness for quite a few years and I dont know exactly what her religious background is. She actually didn't sit in on the lesson because she had to take a phone call at the beginning of it. But Marshall was very receptive to the message and the Restoration and sees some truth behind it. They are both very nice people and always express how grateful they are for having us over to talk to them especially when we did that random act of service for them. Marshall is having some health problems along with his wife. We have our 2nd lesson with them today on the Plan of Salvation and plan to extend the Baptism invite to them if the spirit directs us to do so.
Angelique, our 3rd new investigator for the week, we somewhat tracted into. We didnt get a response to our door knock while actually tracting, but got a response to the pass-along card that we left her. She called us and we gave a brief description on what we do and what we share. She invited us to come over and teach her about our church. We had our first lesson on Saturday and it went really well. She doesnt really have any religious background, but she is interested in learing about the Mormons. She gave birth to twins in May 2011 and one of them passed away. They were born pre-maturely and she is just now getting the other baby out of the hospital this week. Our next lesson with her is on saturday and we will be sharing the Plan of Salvation with her. We are hoping that as we teach her, the spirit will direct us on what we need to say so that we are able to address her concerns and answer her questions. She accepted our Baptismal invitation and set the day for April 7th. We are hoping that as we teach her these next few weeks that she will be able to gain a testimony of the gospel and keep the commitments she makes with us. I had a very good feeling giong into the lesson and had an even better feeling going out of it. i cannot wait to see her progress and watch her interest in the Gospel grow as she finds out for herself the truth of the message we share.
I did exchanges with Wakefield on Thursday-Friday after our District meeting. That was a huge learning experience for me, as well as the missionary i did exchanges with. It also made me appreciate my area even more! We got bashed pretty hard on Friday from a couple that we tracted into. FYI, we tracted atleast 6 hours when i was there...... and for those of you who have experienced tracting before, you know how i felt. haha. but anyways, This couple was just there to try and prove us wrong. They had no desire or interest in learning. all they wanted to do was motivate us to stop doing what we were doing and essentially "move on with our lives." So we are sitting in there just listening to this guy talk and talk and talk about how he has been saved and that there is no prophet on the earth because men are liars, and prophets are liars. He was throwing scriptures at us and my companion and i had no idea what to do besides just sit there and try to receive promptings from the spirit on what to say. After the man was done, his wife jumped in. This is the confusing part.... for some reason she brought up how Jesus was born of a virgin and Joseph Smith wasnt. I didnt see any relevance of that to what anyone of us were saying but she said it. I thought for a second that she was trying to say that we worship prohets, but she didnt want to choose for us who we worship. This whole conversation was a train wreck. anyways, at the end of this mess, the gentleman asked if we could have a prayer before we left so i said sure, why not? He then went on to give his reason for the prayer and said, "ok, good because i am going to pray for you two young men to be saved and for you to leave this message you have behind and to forget all about what you are trying to share." i relpied, "so you want to pray to god for us to leave our message behind and to pretty much move on with our lives?" he said, "yup" then i said in response, "well then, no thanks. We know what we have said today is true and that there is a prophet called to this earth to give us guidance and counsel to help us return to live in the presence of our heavenly father again." and that was the end of it. we walked out and and just pondered what the heck happened. we both were in awe. We said a prayer to bring the spirit back and moved on with our day. sometimes all we can do is bear witness to what we know is true. Our testimonies are the strongest part of the things we share. without knowing for a fact that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that the Book of Mormon is truly another testiment of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith was the prophet called to restore this true and only true church to the earth, we wont be effective missionaries. We have to know for ourselves the truth of the Gospel. It was a huge learning experience for me and it motivated me so much to continue what im doing.
Other than that experience in Wakefield, i was able to witness a dog throw up twice right in front of me while talking to a man. That was pretty cool. haha. best part was that the other dog walked up to it and ate it!!!! hahahahaha. dogs are sweet. We also were able to eat at a restaraunt called La Hacienda. A member owns it and feeds the missionaries for free whenever they want. I got some Carne Asada that was pretty bueno and also got a couple Sopapillas! dad knows what those are from our hunts in texas. good stuff right there!
Friday night we went to the Brunswick High School basketball game for the Regional Championship. They won, of course and Bro. Dilworth's nephew had an awesome game. He was dunking all over the place and i think scored 30 of the 68 points. He accepted the offer to play and Virginia State University and he is only a Junior. Going to those games are awesome. the environment is so crazy. the crowd gets so into it and sometimes i think im at a football game with the way the fans get all crazy. haha. its legit and its too bad they dont have anymore home games for the year. They go to Richmond to play in the State Championship. Bro dilworth will keep us updated though.
It is hard to stretch money. especially since we dont get many dinner appointments from the members. we dont have any scheduled so far for march, but plan to send the dinner calendar around this sunday. hopefully some appointments will pop up. February was an Ok month. we had i think 2 a week? not too sure. I will put my pictures on a cd this week to send home. i will also send a couple with this email.
I dont know what i need to do with the ASL study. We weren't able to study at all this week becuase of our busy schedule. but we have it in the plans for this week. If you could look through my school stuff, i dont know if i save my books or not. i might have to buy some. Maybe ask Art Jarman what books will be good? I need to get some asap!
Sounds like you all have been pretty busy! That is good! I got a letter from Addy this week. i already wrote her back today.
Sounds like ian is still enjoying Volleyball. That is awesome that dad was able to bring Tyler Given over to hangout with him. I am sure they enjoyed themselves! What else has Ian been doing? Sounds like Kennady is going to be a good little catcher huh? thats super cool! following her brother and dad! atta girl haha. give me the update on how their games go and how they do individually. i know they will do great! The Grand Canyon trip sounds like a lot of fun! that will be sweet going there. i dont remember too much of it other than that it was beautiful! let me know how it goes! I love you all and miss you!!! Thanks for emailing me and i look forward to hearing from you soon!!!!
Love, Elder Baldwin
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