11 April 2016

WUTUP ERYBUDY?? Did you know that transfers are already NEXT WEEK??? i can't believe how time has already flown by so flippin fast.. and to think, if this was a regular 6 week transfers instead of a 7, transfers would be this week... WOW!!! The mission is passing me by and i don't know where it's going!!!! oh well, i guess it must continue and i must report how it goes for me ;) So this past week was pretty ight. We taught a couple of our investigators and less-actives, which is good!! We met with the Ventura family and taught them a little more about the Book of Mormon and answered some of their questions. They SEEM to have real intent and want to make some progress, but they don't keep any of the commitments and they always cancel our lessons. Oh well, hay que seguir :P We also met with Allan last Monday. they said he watched conference which is good!! The family watched it in English on the main TV, but he watched it in Spanish.. i think.. i don't know if i caught/understood everything, so maybe he just listened to it from the other room..? not sure.. OH WELL!! he did something which is good :) there's a lot of good stuff goin on!! haha ok, so i don't remember if i told you guys about Ligia.. It was a referral we got the other week from some members and she owns a day home and is from Costa Rica. Well, we had been trying to set up an appointment with her for the past week, and she had actually cancelled one that we did set up for Wednesday, and that was a bummer. BUT, we were in the area on Friday and were like "hey, we have some extra time left over (it was like 8:15 at night), let's go by and see if we can set something up." So we went by her house, and they were totally all there!! Her husband answered the door first, and he was like a straight black dude, and i was like ummm boyfriend? NOPE!! He's actually totally costa rican!! he actually comes from a Muslim family, but he didn't really "grow up" Muslim, so he's a Christian with his wife. Well, we talked a bit and he was like "yeah, my wife said she talked with you guys and was gonna meet some time with you, but i didn't now it was at 8:30 at night!" he's like WAY black and it's hilarious, but still super nice. But we ended up setting up and appointment for THE NEXT DAY!!! (Saturday) So we went... and it was AWESOME!!!! We shared the new Easter video with her, and after it all, she was like "wow, you guys believe like the same things about Jesus as we do! and you pray like we do! like when you pray, you are talking to God. a lot of churches don't do that." so something i have found in teaching Evangelicals (at least the ones i know, because some are literally straight anti-mormon) is they have a lot of respect for us as LDS members because we already have a pretty good amount of similarities to their beliefs of Christ :) So yeah, we will start teaching her, her husband, and her younger kid who is 9. I'm really excited for them!! We gave her a copy of the BOM and explained it to her, and she said she will definitely read it and she'll try to have at least half of it done by the time we come back.. isn't that crazy?? she said she likes to read so she's gonna read a bunch of it and she wants to learn all about our church because she previously knew like NOTHING about us. Pues, eso fue la nuestra semana basicamente!! the work is picking up and i'm not quite losing my spanish yet, which. is. good. ;) haha! maybe i'll just make that my catch line now... muahaha!! anywes, have a great week!!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

4 April 2016

HOWDY YALL!!!! This week hasn't been quite so golden as in past weeks, but that's ok, because even with a little slump, the work is STILL managing to progress, and we are finding and teaching new people :) So last week, we had to go give Patrik's kid a blessing because she was having some problems with her head and was going to have to go up to Calgary to have a surgery to fix it. Luckily, everything turned out fine and they're all back again :) we were only able to meet with them once last week because they were gone, but that's ok because it all turned out ok (as ok as it gets when you have to get a surgery i guess). Also, we had set up an appointment with some people that Wimber had taught once before i got here, and he was kinda lacking the faith that they would actually be there, but i kept telling him how sometimes things actually DO work out, and i believed that in that case, it would be one of those times that things did :) well.... THEY DID!!!! we got there and everyone was there and the lesson was great!! they're SUPER nice people and really kinda and inviting. We spent about 15 minutes or so just kinda talking at the beginning so i could kinda establish a friendship and a trust so they would want to listen and accept a little more, then after that, we talked about the Book Of Mormon and it's role in our church and committed them to read it and pray as a family about it. It was a super good lesson and they were way nice to us throughout. After the lesson, he went out to work opn some vehicles, and we stayed there and talked to her a little bit more. Turns out she was like pretty well acquainted with the missionaries back in Honduras, and even here, there was a member who used to take her to church sometimes and she always liked it, but unfortunately that member died of cancer back in December... WOW!!! But her husband is still around and totally active and will totally never stop going to church because he has an awesome testimony and is AWESOME!!! We won't be able to meet until next Friday though because Henry (the husband inv.) works like all this week and next wee until then, so we can't meet before then :/ but that's ok, we'll follow up with them when we can and make sure they're reading :) because that is the ONLY way you can truly become converted to this gospel is by knowing the Book of Mormon is true!! Besides all that, a little fun story!! So you remember how i told you all we went to another ward last Sunday and me and Wimber bore our testimonies there? so funny thing, that ward has a set of sisters, and they had a dinner with a family that has a couple Laurel age girls in it, and they were like "oh, we were so excited when we saw we got 2 cute new elders in our ward, then we were upset when we found out they were just visiting." haha well, after the dinner, the girls were asking the sisters how they can better mark their scriptures, and as they were flipping through, one of them had a little sticky note (or something) on the front of the Book of Mormon with a quote from my testimony saying "the Book of Mormon isn't just a cool story. It's a story of Christ" and she attested it to "the cute spanish missionaries"..... HAHAHA!!!! me and Wimber got a pretty good kick out of that when the sisters told us that xD anywes, on a more serious note, must i say, i LOVE getting to watch and listen to general conference. Seriously though, getting to watch a modern day prophet and his apostles speak to us and give us the word of the Lord is a blessing and a gift that we MUST learn to cherish. To think, 200 years ago, this church didn't even EXIST. 150 years ago, you had to travel great distances and often sacrifice everything you own in order to be able to hear the current prophet. Now, we get to sit in the comfort of our homes and put it on our television and get to hear AND see. What a blessing it is to live in this day of age. However, as we have also been warned, the same things that allow it to be easier to watch spiritual things and have our scriptures with us in our pocket and read the things that matter most, also make it easier to be tempted and use those same devices to corrupt our souls and scars us for life and get addicted to something impure and sinful. So i just thought of a challenge for you guys. As elder M. Russell Ballard talked about in the Saturday afternoon session, have a family council together and discuss the things that need to be discussed, and within that meeting, set a time frame for some point in the future (a full day, couple days, week, etc.) when cell phones and electronic devices are to be used SOLELY for church or work related purposes. I remember in my first area in Brooks, that was something the whole stake challenged everyone to do for a whole week!! So it's possible, you just need the desire to do it ;) well, i love the HECK out of you guys, and hope everything is goin just dandy for ya :) talk to you laterz, and have a great week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham