October 17, 2011

You should have moved into your apartment, right? You gave me the address, but not an apartment number.  It is a house that has been split between basement and top into two units. We live at the address I sent and are still scraping things together, but it should be awesome to live in. Transfers are this Monday, so I would hold off sending stuff directly just yet. I hope that I get to stay but have this nagging worry about just that in the back of my mind. Only God and the president know at this point. 

Have the members been feeding you well? We are good in that area.

Do you have restaurants like Subway, Wendy's, McD's in your area so I can send you gift cards? All of the above and more! (I was thinking Christmas gifts)

Life is going well here in Laramie and the work is rolling forward.

Teri Carroll is still progressing and it is really encouraging. We taught lesson 2 this week and she was really interested by the plan of salvation. She committed to study the pamphlet and while  we are still working on getting her to come to church she has been reading a lot and praying a bit as well. We have another lesson with her tomorrow and we are hoping to help her to really get committed to coming to church and praying consistently. Elder Hirschi seems worried about it but I feel confident. We will continue praying for her but extras always help.  :)

Dale said that he would be at church yesterday, but was not. He says that he is moving but he has thrown that around before so no telling one way or the other. His mind is still fairly jumbled but at least we are his, "Brothers in Christ." He continues to talk about  a plan that God is calling  him to do where he will be a traveling minister and preach about societal degradation and all that good stuff with a big white board to help him explain it all. (No exact dimensions on the board yet but it seems to get bigger in his mind each time.)  All in all, I think that we have been asked to do the best we can for time before he leaves, but I don't think that we will get to see him though any major steps like baptism.
Erin thought that she may be deployed, but much to our relief she apparently just said she didn't want o to some higher-up and doesn't have to anymore. Strange, but I won't question good fortune. She continues to feel the Spirit as we visit and she has read and prayed. We are going to have to  get her to do both more consistently, but it is very encouraging to hear her talk about her good experiences with the gospel. We have a solid appointment this Wednesday and we are hoping to go over the plan of salvation. That would really help. She has a lot of potential in my opinion.

Bonnie is having a rough time with life right now. She is being denied all contact with her daughter at this point and we have just learned that she is harassed by thugs sent by her ex-husband on a consistent basis. She says the police ignore calls. I am not really sure what we have found here and while we only have one side of the story, two things are certain: She is convinced of their reality and while it tears her up that her daughter is being kept from her, she intends to fight. We have been trying to strengthen her faith in Christ and help her access the power of the atonement with a focus specifically on the gift of the Holy Ghost and how much that can help her . I think that she is getting it more and more. Hopefully, she will be able to come to church soon so we can get her this gift,which, in my opinion, would be the best thing in the world for her right now. 

Aside from that, we are continuing to get referrals and to find on our own. Things are well and I hope they stay that way.

Love you guys. 

October 10, 2011

How do you like not living with members?  I have yet to  experience it. We are still at the Heath's place. The good thing is that the stake has found us an apartment in the middle of our area and we will probably be moved in by the end of week. It will be very nice to actually live where we work. It is a house that has been split into two apartments. We will live in the upstairs and a Mexican family is in the basement level. The stake will furnish it for us. 

Reid says it is 1010 Steele Street, Laramie 82070 but didn't give an apartment number. 

We continue to have wonderful success here in the Spring Creek ward. Bonnie is continuing to recover, which is great and she has really appreciated our support through this process. But that is the least of my exciting news.

We found a new investigator since I last reported. Teri Carrol is another lady that we found while letting the spirit guide us in our finding efforts. Elder Hirschi was the one being guided this time and it was an awesome experience. When we knocked on her door and started talking to her topic after gospel topic came up and she was very receptive. Ultimately she expressed interest in learning how to build a realtionship with God and we set up an appointment to come speak to her more this last week. At the appointment we had just about the best first lesson that has ever been had and she understood everything. She told us of an experience of looking at nature and thinking, "if there is a God then this is probably a sign from him." I took the opportunity to explain that the way that she felt was a manifestation of the Holy Ghost and that it was the season that she felt that about the display she witnessed. She said that she had never thought of the Spirit like that and was impressed at it's simplicity and knew that I had spoken the truth. She committed to read, pray, look for the Spirit as she had felt it before and to be baptized when she found out for herself that the gospel is true. It was fantastic. I would appreciate a prayer or two on her behalf. 

Dale is the other investigator that we found the week before last and has become more interesting  since we first found him. At first, I thought he was just another drug burnout of the 70's but he was willing to meet with us. I knew that we had to give him a chance. Our presentation of the first lesson was a bit strange, to say the least. He has had a lot of evangelical doctrines thrown at him all his life and that has confused his thinking such that anytime he had the chance he would talk in circles about mostly true things concerning the gospel. He has some misinformation and an interesting way of communicating it and I am not sure he totally understood our explanation of the restoration. Between his crazy long haired, hick look, the fact that his house smells like an ashtray, and his ranting it is hard to focus to say the least. But we had a really good lesson Saturday. After listening to another gospel circle, I felt impressed, "read 2 Nephi 32" So we did, and it hit every point that he had been trying to convey to us. He said that it was the word of God and that it was amazing to see it put so well right before his eyes. He was not only willing to say that the whole Book of Mormon was true, but he said that he would study it and compare it to the Bible. 

It is awesome to have the guidance of the Spirit. It has been wonderful to have His help in this work in even greater abundance. 

October 3, 2011

Our favorite part about General Conference is knowing exactly what Reid is doing and having the chance to sing with him. We feel very close to him.

It is time for the weekly update! Things continue to be fantastic here in Laramie. We found 2 new investigators this week and at least one of them is an interesting story.

We were not really sure what it is that we were supposed to do with 20 minutes before a dinner appointment, so I sought some inspiration. All I got was, "go to LaPrelle Park." I was a bit confused as I wasn't sure how useful it would be to go to a park that is always empty, but I trusted it and so we biked off. As we were approaching the park I saw a lady loading dirt bikes onto a trailer by herself. Now she seemed to me to have the situation  in hand, but was told to help her, so I did. I'm not sure I really helped as she handled it almost by herself but we got to talking and after a little bit she asked us a question She wanted to know if our church had daycare services. We explained primary and told her it was on Sundays. To this Erin said, "Well, I've never been to church in my life but I want to start going. How do I get started?" We had not brought up the gospel in any real sense but she was so prepared that she just decided to bypass that formality. We told her about the when and where and suggested that we set up a time to come back and more fully explain things to which she agreed. When we came back for the appointment with some members, we heard her vacuuming and listening to the radio turned way up. We pounded on the door to no avail. So we tried back a few times that week and finally caught Erin at home. After setting up her Halloween decorations at 8:00pm we set another appointment. This time it came through and we had a great lesson as she cleaned her garage (the whole time). I think the coolest thing about this slightly strange scenario is why she let us come back in the first place. Erin explained to us that it was strange for her to let us talk to her at all. She doesn't like many people and that she does not know but said that when we rode up that we brought a weird feeling with us. She said that it was like a peace and happiness that felt like something she had been looking for. our ward mission leader explained that that was the Spirit and we told her that she could have that feeling with her at all times. She simply said that she would like that and agreed to have us back and read/pray about the Book of Mormon.  But that would be too easy, now her phone number has changed and we are going to have to get in contact with her once more but I am assured everything will work out.

Bonnie has had her surgery so hopefully she will be able to come to church sooner rather than later. She is still happy to talk to us and we are confident that things will continue to go well with her. 

General Conference was so refreshing. I wish that we had the chance to have that kind of experience a lot more but then again that might make it less special. Regardless, I had a lot of questions answered and I feel ready to take on the challenges that are ahead.