I will be Calling you on Christmas Morning

Dear Family and Friends,


I will be calling you at about 10 o'clock on Saturday morning (Christmas Day). We are going to Oswald's house and we will be doing it over there.

We had a pretty good week, though we didn't have any members come out with us until Sunday night. Oswald came out with us on Sunday night. He came with us to see Mama Julien too. He loves Mama Julien. He loves her food, and how nice she is. They were getting into very random conversations last night. It was a lot of fun though. It helped strengthen member relationships a lot.

This week wasn't as good of a week for me I feel. I have a hard time getting up in the morning and I feel more tired. Plus I keep falling asleep during personal study.

Vonnette, a new investigator, is progressing very well. She has read the 1st 11 chapters in Nephi, and the whole restoration pamphlet. The thing that amazes me is how well she understood them both. She told me about Lehi having four sons, Nephi, Sam, Laman, and Lemuel and she then told us how two were obedient and two were not. She thought it was crazy how Laman and Lemuel tried to beat up Nephi, and then were visited by an angel and were still angry and doubting afterwards. She loves chapter 8 though. She described what she understood in it. She said it had beautiful words in it. "Li gen bel pawol landan li." She loved it. She told us that she wanted to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet and she said that she is a Seventh Day, but says that if she gets an answer that she needs to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that she will quit the Seventh-day Adventist church. She told us how she got to the seventh day church. She had a dream with three churches side by side: Catholic, Baptist, and Seventh-Day. She tried to enter in Catholic and Baptist, but both times a hand pulled her back out of the churches. Then she entered into the seventh day church and no one stopped her. She told us that that was where God wanted her to be the most at that time. But she says she is always praying for God to tell her where to go. She will join the church when she gets an answer. I just hope she isn't expecting a dream to be the answer and not be paying attention to what the spirit is telling her. She could very possibly get the answer in a dream. I have seen it many times in Haitian Culture. These people are very visionary, and dreams and visions are common. But they need to feel the conformation of the Holy Ghost to back that up. It runs so deep in the culture that I don't know if they expect anything else.

One bad thing did happen with Vonnette. We were going to get a ride for her, because she isn't too close to the church and she doesn't have a car. She told us she was excited to go and very willing, and had a strong feeling that she should go. We weren't able to find a ride for her. Two people fell through in the morning. We could have tried way harder than we did. But we just didn't continue searching. We had a lesson with her yesterday, and everything was great. The only problem is that she says she doesn't want to come to church anymore because we couldn't find her a ride. She told us that today was the day that she felt very strongly about and she said we blew it. I hope we didn't ruin this for good. We are going to be praying very hard for her to receive an answer. She told us after we talked to her for a while that she would think about it and let us know. She ponders, reflects and studies very hard. She is also very into prayer. From what I see of her, she is very able to get an answer. I wonder if Heavenly Father is testing us to see if we want her to get baptized badly enough to work hard for it and pray with real intent. It might also be because she is expecting a different answer and might have gotten it. I do think that our lack of faith could be a huge part of it. We definitely haven't tried as hard as we could have.

I realize now that the only things necessary for a successful mission are obedience and hard work. Because with those two things, faith, desire, love, patience, and everything else. I realize that I can obey the White Handbook rules so much better. I have done many things not right. But at least I realize that now and can fix it.

Widlyne is not doing well. She is never around, she is smoking again, and she hasn't been keeping any of her commitments. We go over there for Edeline and Junior who are both recent converts, but we don't see Widlyne there. We have been trying our best to help her.

Jener is doing okay. He is a really great guy, but he says he doesn't want to get baptized because he can't read and he wants to know the bible more. We told him that the requirements are to have a righteous desire, be willing to take upon him the name of Christ, be keeping the standards, and willing to serve others. He is doing that already. Also, it is hard because he feels that his only problems in life are short memory, not knowing English, and not being able to read. We help him with English and he is excited, but when we teach him the Gospel, he starts to lose focus. We just need to help him have a greater desire to get baptized. He likes the Gospel, but it isn't this huge excitement for him.

Everything is going well though. Hey Laurie! Thank you so much for the Christmas package. You chose really good candy and the BYU T-shirt was awesome! I love getting stuff from you, because it helps me know that you all are still thinking about me.

Bye! Mom and Dad, I will be calling you around 10:00 am -10:15 am. Hopefully we can keep on time and on schedule. The Crance family, who are members will be feeding us breakfast before, so we will try our best. Bye everyone! I love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons

The VERY special Guest and the Golden Ticket

[I will bring to the top what Eric said at the bottom:

“P.S. Get people to send me letters. That is the best thing you can ever get as a missionary.”

If you get time, even after Christmas, you can write him at the mission home at:

Elder Eric Seamons

Florida, Ft Lauderdale Mission

7951 SW 6th St Ste 110

Ft Lauderdale, FL 33324-3211

This week was so amazing! We had so many things happen. We had so many fun mission gatherings that we did. We got to see all the missionaries in the mission again and we learned a lot. It meant we had less time to go out and teach, but we were still very excited.

As a mission we had a Christmas luncheon on Saturday and we had some really good food that they made. Stake presidents and their wives were there, as well as Elder Gay from the seventy. President Hale had something called the Golden Ticket. This is his third year doing it. He has this small golden plaque that he would give out to one person. He had a drawing where they drew 10 names out of a hat from all the 150 or so missionaries. Then he would draw 6 people from the 10 to go on to the next round and so forth. He took pictures after every round. The Golden Ticket is a really awesome prize which President would give out, but it wasn't redeemable until 2020. He said that the person would have to follow certain conditions in order to still be eligible for the prize when the time comes around, such as calling president Hale every six months the day of General Conference until 2020. He did that so he could stay in contact. He said it could be a whole number of things for the prize, including a paid for cruise with the family or something else. He was very well off before the mission, so I could definitely see him doing that. I got to the final two people, the last round out of everyone in the mission. Sister Crane and I were the two finalists, and Sister Crane won. I was glad she won, but I really wanted the Golden Ticket. Sister Crane is in my zone. She is in the Coral Springs Ward with Sister Lealagata. This is Sister Crane's last transfer before she goes home. The Golden Ticket thing was fun though.

[The missionaries were told they were going to have a special guest fly in on a jet. I have inserted a great description from Elder Terry about his experience. He is from the town next to us and went to Lone Peak High School also. He was in Eric’s MTC district and they were companions for a short time at the end of the MTC when Eric’s companion went to Canada. I get Elder Terry’s e-mails and I love his dramatic way of telling things.]

The tension was palpable and we knew someone cool was coming.

And then

through the door,

his little wife by his side,


walked,


PRESIDENT DIETER F. UCHTDORF!


We all jumped to our feet as they waved and smiled and then, one by one, we were able to shake their hands and look into their eyes . . . his eyes . . . and it was incredible.


This is another one of those experiences which words cannot adequately describe.


It was incredible.


And a very Disney-ish devotional, because President Uchtdorf talked about how "dreams really do come true" (his words), and that we must "move forward every day." He taught about nightly prayers--thanking the Lord for all he has done for us, asking him to accept your sacrifices, asking for forgiveness, resolving to move forward, and then putting your trust in God and retiring to bed. He promised resolutely that God will forgive you of your shortcomings and allow you to wake up anew the next morning.


It was powerful.


He also spoke of a blessing--as real as if his hands had been on each of our heads individually--that all our concerns and challenges--at home or here now--will be resolved with a satisfactory conclusion because of our faithful service.


It was a sacred experience.

[Back to Elder Seamons’ letter]

We had the mission-wide Christmas Devotional. It was such a spiritual experience. They had several musical numbers as well as the Mission Choir singing. The speakers were President and Sister Uchdorf. It was awesome. The Hale family was next door neighbors with them in Utah, and they were super good friends. It was such a powerful experience. They both have such love for the missionaries and the members of the church. Everyone in the room got to shake hands with President Uchdorf and all of the Sisters got hugs from Sister Uchdorf. I wrote all my notes for the Devotional in my Journal. We all got Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission Journals. They said they e-mailed all of the parents to buy one. Thank you so much Mom and Dad! You are awesome!

President Uchdorf gave very good advice and counsel:

He said that we are always in the middle of our mission. It doesn't matter whether we just started and have less experience, or are almost finished. He said that many people feel inadequate as missionaries and think that they don't have enough experience to be a powerful teacher and do the work effectively. He said that we are better with the convincing power of God and the spirit than any amount of experience, practice, and training. We will continue to learn and grow, but we don't have to wait until we are perfect before we begin to change lives. It is not our talents and power that makes us so great but God's. We should never think we have too little experience to do something, or think we are above everyone else and have it down. We just need to try our best and everything else will work out because God is there and loves us and will help us.(this next part is my own commentary) That is what President Uchdorf meant by always being in the middle of the mission. You rely on God and work hard as you would at the prime of your mission. You don't slump and give up at the end because you are almost done. You are always in the middle of the mission until the very end.

He said that "God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called." and "God promises you a safe landing, but he didn't promise you a calm journey."

When he talked about teaching the Gospel with power, he used Brigham young's experience that is in Preach My Gospel. Brigham Young said that the missionaries who taught him were not super intellectual. He could have easily have out-talked them. But they taught with convincing power of God. (a good chapter in the scriptures that this makes me think of this is in 1 Corinthians ch. 2)

He also said,"Don't be a character; have character" I think that means that we aren't supposed to be someone we are not or try to act like someone. Just be who you are and be good and righteous. He said, "You do not need to impress the Lord."

He talked about the holiness and the power of the calling which we hold--That we are "the extended arm of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles." That means that we are an extension of Jesus Christ and we represent him to all of those who we meet.

The last thing that I will tell you about his talk was that he said that all of us have a special purpose in this specific mission and that as we follow the spirit, we can know what our individual purpose is, and why we are in this mission and in no other and how the Lord will bless us to accomplish this purpose. And he testified of the call of Prophet that President Monson has, just as Moses did, the truthfulness of this church, and the reality of the Living Christ. He said that it is "a fact that Jesus Christ lives."

I know that is true. Deiter F. Uchdorf is an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. God lives and he loves us. Everything will work out. There is no one who can be against you when you are with God. We have a hard path to walk, but we have strong shoes for it, and that makes all of the difference. I have come to realize how weak I am and how little I can do by myself. But I just need to obey the rules God has given me, do the simple things, trust in him, and everything else will work out. I know it.

I love you all and I need to write president now, but I will talk to you later! Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

P.S. Get people to send me letters. That is the best thing you can ever get as a missionary.

See pictures of President Uchdorf as well as pictures of Eric

almost winning the golden ticket

and him at the Christmas missionary dinner.

President and Sister Uchdorf and President and Sister Hale

 

 

The mission blog had pictures of the mission dinner and Elder Seamons was in 6 of them, but there were two particular photos that showed us the Eric we know when he is very happy.

 

Th is one is of Eric in the food line. He has that "I love this food" look on his face!

This is Eric when he has learned he is one of the last two

who are in line to win the Golden Ticket. This is a look we are

very familiar with.

"The holiday season is wonderful as a missionary!"

Hi Everyone!

This week has been a really good week! We had a lot of really good experiences. It has been very interesting.

We have some investigators and member who are struggling, so pray for them!

We went and talked to Widlyne, who is 20. She is the one who has been smoking and doing all of that stuff. She is super busy and it is hard to get her to sit down with us. She has school every day and she has work a ton, many weeks on Sundays. We saw her twice this week: once on Wednesday and once on Saturday. We saw her on Tuesday and she said that she is not doing well on quitting with smoking. She also admitted that she hasn't been trying super hard. She knows the doctrine and reasons why it is wrong, and why it won't make her happy, but she still has a hard time giving up the habits. We talked about God's plan for her and how we will all be able to live with our families and a spouse who loves us if we just do what God asks us to do. She told us that smoking is taking a toll on her health too. She doesn't feel as good, and her throat hurts more and more lately. She was even coughing up blood the other day. She has been smoking since she was fourteen, so it is hard for her to quit. We were talking to her brother Junior, who is a baptized member, and he told us this week that she had gone over to her boyfriend's house for the night.  She hasn't been doing too well. When we went over on Saturday, she told us that she had just finished smoking a cigarette before we had come. I asked her if she had any more. She said no, but as I kept on asking, she eventually said that she did have some left. She brought them out, and we asked her if she would rip them up. We dug a hole and buried the ripped up cigarettes in the ground. Junior keeps on telling us that trying to get her baptized is a waste of time and that she doesn't want to change. He doesn't have the confidence in her to believe she can, but we always point out that he used to be in that situation at one point and he overcame it. We are trying to help him be more supportive of her. Edeline, their mom, is very supportive of her. Edeline is a recent convert too.

Wow, the Creole part of the ward has grown so much since I got here. Mesidor, Moisena, Peter, Isenada, Claudia, Junior, Edeline, Vely, and Jaleel have all been baptized by the four Creole Elders since I have gotten here. And there are many more from when Elder Anderson and Elder Bolz were together. The hardest part is retention though. Some of the Creole members don't have cars, so they don't come to church. Or some of them like the church a lot, but they get caught up in other things that are going on in their lives. There are a ton of Creole members though. There was one week when we had 25 people in Creole class, which isn't even everyone there. We have a lot of good Haitian members. Anyway, Widlyne hasn't been reading her scriptures or praying, so she won't be able to succeed and overcome these problems unless she does that. She told us that she feels horrible right now in her life. We testified of the atonement and how Jesus Christ can help her overcome all of her temptations, because he felt them and overcame them too in the Garden of Gethsemane. She said that she wished she could do certain parts of her life over again. We told her that she could have a new start through the suffering of Jesus Christ. I know that is true. The atonement is so powerful and far-reaching. If we used it to the full extent it was meant to be used, Satan would be done for. I heard someone say that the only principle you have to be perfect at is repenting, because if you repent every day and truly turn to God, he can help you have that change of heart and turn away from all darkness. We also told Widlyne about staying in good places and not getting into situations where she can be tempted. She said that she bought cigarettes with extra money that she had with her. We told her to only bring enough money to take the bus to work and take it back, so that she wouldn't be able to. If she did, she wouldn't be able to get home. She told us that she smoked 16 cigarettes in one day. That is a ton! Please keep Widlyne in your prayers. She is in great need of help.

We have also been working with Jener, who is a 21 year old Haitian who is trying to learn English. He speaks it well enough to get by, and his vocabulary is pretty high, but he has difficulty remembering things. It is really hard for him. I think he has dyslexia too, because it is super hard for him to read, and he mixes up letters in a word. He loves learning English with us. He has been coming to the English class at the church every Tuesday night. He goes to an English class in a local college so he can learn too. It is hard, because he can't read French or Creole at all, and he can hardly read English, so he is not getting in his daily scripture study. We took some lessons to read out of the Bible and the Book of Mormon with him, but he can only read one or two verses. We just help him with his pronunciation and help him learn more vocabulary in the scriptures. Being able to read in the scriptures will help him so much. We tried one lesson where we read the scriptures to him in Creole. I think that helped. We will probably do that more. He doesn't like that though, because he loves practicing English. He is a much more visual learner. We shared the restoration DVD with him, and he remembered a ton of details and the overall story just because he saw the DVD. He remembered it almost better than any investigator we have ever taught. We are going to bring visual aids to the lesson to talk about Faith, Repentance, and Baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We are also teaching his friend Lionel now. Lionel is very interested in what we have to say and was interested in the restoration and how God restored his full Gospel back to the earth. He said he had noticed how so many different religions say so many different things.

The holiday season is wonderful as a missionary! We have many ward activities, which are helping the members to socialize and help our investigators. We are going to have a relief society dinner program on Thursday. Hopefully we can get as many of the Haitian women as possible. Edeline really wants to go. The problem is that she lives in Coral Springs and all of the members in Coral Springs go to the Coral Springs Ward. All the Haitian members who are out of the Ward boundary, but still in the stake boundary go to our ward, because it is one of the four magnet wards in the mission. There is one in Fort Lauderdale, Boynton Beach, Miami, and Coconut Creek. The problem with that is that most Haitians don't have cars because they can't afford it. Many Haitians we meet don't even have jobs. There are so many unemployed people down here.

The mission is having a ton of meetings and devotionals this month. I can't remember all of the dates, but this week we won't be out Procelyting as much because of it. We are having a mission luncheon and we have a Sunday night devotional with a special speaker.

Last night was the First Presidency Christmas devotional when the Prophet and his two counselors speak. President Hale said to only go if we had an investigator. None of our investigators said they could go, so we were both really sad that we wouldn't be able to see it. But then Wendy, one of our investigators texted and said she could go to it. It was almost 8:00 when the devotional was about to start. We were happy because she would at least be able to see 40 minutes of the program that was being broadcast to the church. We taught someone yesterday that Elder Anderson found while he and I did splits. We had two members of the church with us, so I went and taught Jener with Brother Poor, who owns Chick-fil-a and lets us eat their for free. :) Elder Anderson was with Peter Septembre, a recent convert. The people that Elder Anderson had found were four obnoxious Haitian girls. That was such an annoying lesson. They were not taking us seriously at all. Elder Anderson was irritated too. It wasn't completely horrible though. They did listen some of the time and learn some stuff. They also had satellite and BYUTV, so they watched the whole Christmas devotional at home, and they texted us back and said that one of them wanted us to go and pray with her one day. It was pretty awesome. But anyway, Wendy went to the church, and we left Mama Julien's house (Mama Julien is a Haitian member who makes food for the missionaries to take home every Sunday night. She is so funny and nice. All the missionaries call her Mama Julien.) We were at her house and helped her find the place on LDS.org where the devotional was being broadcast. We made sure it was in the right language, and then we took the food and headed off to the church. (The Broadcast was live in tons of languages, including Haitian Creole and French. Except the Creole one didn't have visual and the French one did. It was kind of weird. Many Haitians speak both French and Creole, so it works. French is the official Language in Haiti, but you don't hear it out in the streets at all. Not every Haitian speaks French. Many don't. French is formal and is only used in the schools in Haiti. You have to speak and write in French in the Haitian schools or else you get punished. Many Haitians read French because Creole wasn't a written language for a very long time. For a long time, the spelling wasn't set. But Creole is more used in certain parts of Haiti and more and more people have come to read it. But Creole is so much fun! Elder Anderson went to eat at Burger King before a lesson we had, and there were two Haitian women working there. We talked to them for a long time and they thought it was awesome. There are a few Creole sayings that we tell many Haitians and they laugh really hard. They think it is funny when we tell them the Geography of Haiti and all of the Haitian food that we know and like, especially considering that we are American and have never been to Haiti before. There are several streets in our area that are mostly Haitian. One of the ones that we spend the most time on is Riverside in Coral Springs. Peter used to live there. Everyone has seen us and knows that we speak Creole. Many of the Haitians there wave to us. There are certain people that will ask us for money. Many Haitians ask us for food or money. We have to tell them that we can't. Some of them will ask us for money every time we see them.

Anyway, Wendy came to the Christmas Devotional which was being broadcast at the church, but the sound wasn't working because of technical difficulties. We decided to teach her a lesson with Sister Hindman. It was good.

Here is an excerpt of my letter to president. I am adding it because it tells some more of the stuff that is going on:

We have had a very successful week. We have been doing many AMT's and have been helping many of the recent converts. We have started sending out scripture texts to our investigators and members to help them get more of the Book of Mormon into their lives, and also to remind them to read. We have seen how we have been able to increase many people's faith. We are also striving to find members to come out with us not just for the sake of raising numbers, but also to find someone who can meet the needs of a specific investigator. Seth Poor, the Elders Quorum president came out with us to see Jener Louis and his friend Lionel. I went with brother Poor, while Elder Anderson went out with Peter Septembre, a recent convert. The double exchange went very well. Brother Poor was able to connect well with Jener and Lionel. Jener now has his phone number, and Brother Poor will come with us again to see them on Tuesday. Plus he lives really close to Jener's house. We are hoping that this can create a lasting bond with them.

We have had trouble being exactly obedient to certain rules, but we are striving to tighten it all up and make sure we are doing better as a companionship. We are especially trying to make sure our day to day activities fit into our purpose better.

Elder Anderson is a great missionary! He loves the Gospel, relates well to everyone we meet, and knows what things are most important. He is an obedient, hardworking missionary! He understands his purpose well and I am learning a lot from him. I am so grateful for the two great companions that I have had out in the mission field so far. I love the Coconut Creek ward! The members are so wonderful, and God is greatly blessing us with much success! It isn't perfect, but there are good things happening.

We are helping an investigator, Widlyne, to get baptized, who is the sister and daughter of two of our recent converts. We are helping her overcome addictions and helping her overcome them through the power of the Atonement. We bore testimony to her on how we can always change and how the Atonement creates a new start in our lives. We told her that reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and going to church will be the key to her conversion and change, because those things will help her have the spirit and added protection of God necessary to overcome her horrible habits.

Well, I have to go now. I will talk to you all later. Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

P.S. Grandma and Aunt Laurie, and everyone! I did get all of your packages and cards. Thank you so much!