Two Apostles and Faith

Apostolic Power

This past week has been good. We went to Houston to hear Elder ballard and Elder Nielson speak to the three houston missions. they sopkle to us about companionship unity and getting along with them. They told us a story about a blind missionary that was serving in Florida. Since he could not read, he had to share of what he has felt. He bore his testimony to all of his investigators. It does not matter how much you know until you show much you care for them. He relied on the Lord and had faith. Then on Sunday he sopke to the kingwood stake on sunday. It was really good. Then everyone got to shake his hand.

  

Lifelong Lessons

Getting Better

My finger is doing better, but the other day it was hurting alot more than it usually is. which I think it means that I am getting feeling back into my finger, which is a good sign. I am going to get the stitches out tomorrow so i am really excited about that so it can fully heal. President interviews were great. 

Exchanges

On every saturday night all the neighbourhood kids come to the church to play basketball it is just to keep them off the streets. Before we begin we start off with a prayer and share a spiritual message, then we play some basketball from seven to nine. We are working on if we can teach them personally and bring them to church. This past week we also had exchanges with some other elders in our district. I went to Livingston, it is also another big area, they have a truck and it is pretty hilly over there. It is north of our area.

 

Learning To Teach

We had zone meeting on friday in kingwood which was very good. we are going over the first lesson (restoration) in detail for each principle, so that we can become better teachers, our mission is the best finders but not a lot of those we find get baptized and we teach a lot of first lessons so we are going to get more better at teaching the first lesson. We see what inspired questions we can ask them, what analagies, picture aids, and scriptures, we can use, and what commtiments we can leave with our investigators. Our zone is focusing on four key idicators which are baptismal dates, sacrament meeting, new investigators, and member presents. In our zone we have about three districts. We are doing a competition between the districts where which ever districts gets at least two of the key indicatros they win for that week,. they get to have the texas flag that everyone signed in the zone. At the end of the month whatever district had the flag more wins the big prize, which they have not told us yet.

 

Investigators

We are doing pretty good here in cleveland. We are teching a part member less active family. we are teaching the nine year old Blake and we have set a date for him for febuary 2. His parents also came to church which was good. We are going to get a baptism and also with two reactivations.

 

We are teaching Crystal who is the wife of a member we have taught her the fisrt lesson and she has been coming to church which she seems to be liking it. we are hoping that we will set a date for her soon. This week we are going to be working very hard on part member and less actives in the ward. that is pretty much what happened for this week.  love you all

New Area

New Area

Hey I want to give you all an update on transfers. I am serving in Cleveland, Tx. Which covers a big area and it is also pretty crountry too. it covers cold springs and some other areas. My new companion is elder Harrison. He is a really great guy. He is in the marines. he has been out for a little bit more than a year know. Here is my address.

 

307 sleepy hollow Dr.  apt. 301

Cleveland, TX 77327

Hurt Finger and New Area

Hurt Finger

I attatched two pictures of my finger the day after it was stitched up. Yeah my finger is doing better, it is healing but the wound is still open. I am so glad that I did not brake any bones in the finger, it could of been a lot worse than it was. which i am very grateful for. 

 

Christmas Day

The rest of the day on christmas we just hanged out at our apartment and played monopoly. It has been really cold here lately in the 30's-50's. the cold down here is way different than up there. If it snowed here when it was cold it would be a lot different. That is so exciting that you guys get to go to Cancun. That would be a nice trip.

 

Baptisms!

Yeah I got to go to barbies baptism which was great. a member from Buna the castlemans picked us up from cleveland and drove us to Buna. When we got to Buna they took us to there house and fed us a huge meal. we had a whole box full of goodies. I might go back to Buna again for another baptism. Carrie and her son Josh is going to be baptized in the next few weeks. Which is really exciting. speaking of baptisms We had one here in Cleveland on Sunday it was really great. Alex got baptized and his parents who is not members came to church for sacrament meeting, sunday school, and his baptism. they did not go to priesthood or relief society becasue they  kind of did not like seperating. But they loved of what they saw and heard. during the baptism we watched the restoration movie and they felt the spirit was so strong. After the baptism the dad was tearing up when he left and the mom felt good. We are going to start to be teaching them soon.

 

Reactivation

Yesterday we taught a less active part memmber family, we are teaching the nine year old who wants to get baptized. While the kid is being taugth the parents are asking us questions too. Hopefully we can reactivate the family and get a baptism from it.

New Years 

we did not do that much for new years either. we saw some fireworks that were going off but not to many becasue it was raining. we played catan for awhile. we went to the faucetts to eat dinner. We have president interviews this week. I will pray about what I should do about going home a little bit early for school and I will talk to my mission presidnet. I dont know if i told you this but elder ballard is going to come down and speak to all the three missions and then on sunday he is going to be speaking to the kingwood stake which I am in know. So I get to hear from him twice.