"We have more investigators coming to church than ever. "

August 29, 2011

Hello everyone! This was an amazing week! We have many great things going on. This week was the "White night" [I assume this has something to do with the baptismal clothes being white] Baptismal night. The stake had a goal for 100 baptisms. There were 18. We were still really happy though. Elder Giorgino and Elder Edwards had 5 baptisms, which was awesome! Merline, one of the people being baptized, was someone that Elder Shipley and I found, so we were really happy. They are all very prepared and have very strong testimonies of the restored gospel already.


We have more investigators coming to church than ever. We had six investigators and one non-member come this week. Kattia, Kervins, and Fabiola, brother and two sisters came. Kattia especially loved the church. They stayed after for the baptism, which is good, because those are very powerful spiritual experiences for investigators and 80% of all people who go to see a baptism end up seeing their own.

Duponte is doing very well. He is very self-motivated and self-reliant. We don't have to get a ride for him or anything. He just made friends and got a ride from some members himself. That is a big faith growing step: when their desire motivates them to come without being asked. We realize that we need to work better on making sure that our investigators have that testimony. They are doing the actions, but now they need to have the conversion.

Ernst, his wife Carrine, and his daughter Karen all came to the Saturday night baptism on the bus. They liked it a lot. Carrine is feeling the spirit. We can tell. When we are in lessons with the whole family, the spirit is so strong. That is how they are meant to be taught, as a family. We won't make the mistake of just focusing on one person in the family alone. The family is the most important unit in the church. I know that is true.

Some interesting things have happened this week. Kattia has a crush on me. It happens with Haitian girls that only speak Creole. They think that a white guy who speaks the same language is interesting. We have been dealing with that the whole week. Last week she called three times a day for two to three days, then I just told her to not call so much but text when she had questions. Then she asked personal questions and she asked me out on a date. I told her that I couldn't as a missionary and she asked me how much time I had left. She told me to do a good job on the mission and that we would stay in contact and talk later. Elder Shipley and I were freaking out about it for a while. We can't pass her to YSA because she only speaks Creole. We wondered if she was keeping her commitments just for me, but then she ready 6 chapters in the book of Mormon and we didn't ask her to read that far. Then she understood mostly everything and had some very insightful questions. But then she wants to know about me to. I told her that I would stop texting if she didn't pull back a little bit and I told her they could send me away. I had Elder Shipley text her, but she threatened to not come to church. We talked her into coming and she actually is doing a lot better than she was. She is turning out to be a very good progressing investigator. I wanted to drop her because I was tired of dealing with it, but she is calming down a lot. We know for sure that she does have a sincere interest in the gospel. She is doing very well. We are going to give her and her brother Kervins a baptismal date.

Cemania is now officially dropped. She stopped texting us for several days. She had done that before. We texted her and told her that we knew that she was to afraid to tell us she didn't want to continue, but that we knew the message is true. We asked her if she wanted to continue. She texted and said no. She decided not to get baptized in any church. She said there is just too much confusion. The other two times that we tried to help her continue the studies, I felt a strong feeling to continue. But this time the spirit restrained me and told me to let her go. I got the impression that she would come and meet the missionaries again in the future, and that she would me more prepared. She said she was really sad to say goodbye and that she loved us. I don't feel too sad, because I know that it will all work out for her if she does what she is supposed to. She has great desires. She just is confused and she needs some time to ponder.

Carlo is back in the mix of people who can get baptized within a week or so. Carlo's Supervisor got a call from a place in Hialeah asking how hard of a worker he was, how reliable he was, etc. They realized that he was trying to leave the job because he couldn't get Sundays off. He has worker at the place for 25 years and he is a very good worker, so they don't want to lose him. His boss let him come to church this Sunday and today he will tell us what his boss said about all Sundays in the future. We pray that the president of the company's heart will be softened as well. His supervisor definitely has been.

Things are going well. We haven't been as obedient as we should have been. We haven't been doing an hour of Harvesting the Field because of how many people we have to teach. It is definitely making a difference in the spirit we feel as a companionship. I have to go now. Bye everyone! I love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons

"Thanks for all of your prayers and support"

Dear Family and Friends,


We had a great week. We didn't have as many people at church, but that was okay. We didn't follow up with people and get them prepared as well for church, which is probably why. We had stake conference and it was great. We had three investigators there: Carlo Joseph (fourth time at church), Jenifer (second time at church), and Duponte (third time at church in a row!). The young single adult sisters had a baptism for Shannon, a very long time investigator. He is very awesome. We had to plan four baptismal interviews to get it to happen, but it did. There were a lot of people there too! :) Duponte stayed for the baptism and Duponte's friend Yves came to the church after conference ended to see it.

Duponte is awesome! He was in the Jehovah’s Witness church for 8 years, but he doesn't feel good about everything that goes on in that church. He has been to many other churches in search of the truth. He is very willing to act. He came to church randomly with his friend Yves two Sundays in a row and we sat with him. He read the first 15 chapters of the Book of Mormon in two days. We gave him a date for the 4th of September accepted. We have the baptism, the interview, and all the appointments until his baptism planned out. He told several members when he was getting baptized. We are really excited.

Jenifer said that she would like to go to the North Miami Beach Spanish ward instead because she likes it better. So we will be passing her [to the Spanish Elders]. We were really disappointed, but we are happy that she is enjoying the church so much. She says that she wants to get sealed with her husband in the temple some day after she gets baptized.

Cemania is having a really hard time. She loves the church and she feels that we teach the truth, but then she looked up stuff on the internet about the church that bothered her (Blacks and the priesthood) She was really conflicted about it and on Saturday she texted us a lot and said that she didn't want us to come back over and teach her anymore. We went over immediately and she told us how she feels so confused and conflicted. I don't know enough about the subject to be absolutely sure about what all of the facts are. We told her several things. She said that in general she is tired of all the churches saying different things because she doesn't know what to do or where to turn. She told us that she thought of just giving up and not going to any church and just studying on her own. We shared with her 2 Nephi 26:33 which talks about how God inviteth all, Black, White, Bond and free, male and female to come unto him and he denieth none. That helped her feel so much better. She told us that she knew that understanding why God does things won't be easy and she decided to keep studying with us because it would be the more difficult route. She knows that the easy route isn't always the best one. We were so grateful for the spirit. I was out of words to say to her. But she felt something undeniable and she decided to stick was it. This is the second time that she has almost dropped us.

Great news! Georges told us that because he now has six months working in the Marriot Hotel, he will now have the ability to request days off and get them. He says that in two weeks he will be able to have every Sunday off! That means that he will be baptized! We picked the 4th of September for him. We are all really excited.

We have several new investigators who are really interested in what we have to say. We met someone named Jacques whose house we blessed and the same day we passed by. He read the whole introduction and testimony of Joseph Smith and he knew the whole story of how Moroni appeared to Joseph three times in the night and another time after Joseph came back from the field on his way home. We were so amazed. He says he will read more and pray. We also met Katia, who is the sister of someone who came up to us and wanted us to come over. She called us yesterday and today to say hi to us and she told us that she wanted to come to the church yesterday, but it is too far. We told her to take the bus and she said she will. We are so excited.

Bye! Everyone! I love you so much! Thank you for all of your prayers and your support!

Love,

Elder Seamons

An overabundance of referrals and people to teach

Hello Everyone! Wonderful things have been happening with Elder Shipley and I. We are continuing to have an abundance (really and overabundance) of referrals, people to teach, etc. We have 8 people at church. We were so excited! Ernst, his wife, Jennifer (a new investigator from this week. She has an awesome story), Carlo, Duponte (another new investigator), His friend Yves, Cemania, and James, who has come very often. They enjoyed church alot. Ernst's wife Carrine came and she loved the Creole class. She told us that she would definitely visit again. The relief society sisters are so good at fellowshipping. They helped us so much with all of the people we had.

Duponte and Yves are two people who randomly showed up to church two weeks ago. Yves had met with missionaries in Canada and  he moved here, so he brought his friend Duponte along with him. They will come for their 3rd time this next week. Also Jennifer is from new Jersey. We finished teaching Rodeline and Viniel. The lesson went way over the amount of time it should have. We went in the elevator and it opened up on the first floor and a woman stood there and she said, "I am so happy to see you guys, I have been looking for you." Elder Shipley was in the process of handing her a pass-a-long card. She told us that she had been meeting with the missionaries and that she had all of her babies blessed in the church. Her husband is a member of the church. Then we sat down with her and she came to church. She is awesome!

I have recognized my weaknesses now more than I ever have before. I see how much I still need to do and I realize how little I recognize God for all of our successes and I let pride get in the way. But He is helping us. "The Harvest is great, but the laborers are few." That summarizes what is happening in the area right now. We have a huge problem. We have gotten twenty referrals and other media referrals and we haven't contacted them yet, plus we haven't had time to return to certain investigator's houses because we are  booked for the whole week. Our first available time slot is next Tuesday. Everything other than that is scheduled with appointments. We are going to tell president that we think he should split the Creole area in half and bring another companionship in. We might also tell him to give our English area completely to Elder Giorgino and Elder Edwards, because we teach all of Creole as well as half of the English investigators within the ward boundaries. We will see how that works.

We had a mission conference yesterday and Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to us, along with Elder Gay of the area seventy. It was amazing. Elder Ballard teaches so well and he understands how to teach by the spirit. He told us that we need to realize that conversion begins with feeling. That advice is so important. I realize that logic doesn't help people want to change at all. They need to feel God's love as we teach and they need to feel the impression of the Holy Ghost on their soul. Otherwise, it was all for nothing that we taught these people. That knowledge has changed my mission. I still have to work on teaching by the spirit, but I have gotten a lot better at it.

Sister Despain, on of the two sister missionaries that work in the YSA (Young Single Adult) branch had a serious kidney infection and she has been down for a week now. She spent a few days in the hospital. She is getting a lot better. Pray that she will continue to recover.

I am doing great! Pray for our investigators and that we can refine our teaching, planning, and scheduling skills so that we can be the most effective missionaries that the Lord wants us to be. There is so much work to do, but we can step up to the challenge.

I know that God lives, that he loves us, and that through him, we can do all things. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. We have been giving those books out like crazy, and I have never seen so much success before. And most importantly, I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I wouldn't be here with out him. He is the only hope we have, and we all need to use every once of time, energy, and effort that we have so that we can help everyone here the message until the work is done and everyone is safely home again. I love you all and I will right you next week.

Love,

Elder Seamons

Tremendous Success!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been amazing! It reminds me of the scripture in Malachi that talks about how the windows of heaven pouring out so many blessings that there will not be enough room to receive them. Refferals are coming in more crazy than ever. The harvesting method has been doing wonders. We are finding another problem. We realized that more than half of our investigators don't have an appointment for this week because of all of the new people were are teaching. we had 18 new investigators and now a total of around 45 in our investigators pool, even after dropping some. We are having a difficulties making time for daily contact. We have a list in our planner of all of our investigators and we check them off each day as we contact them. We we did okay at first, but now we aren't finding much time. We scheduled an hour in just so it would happen, but we had to drop it because we have the whole week scheduled in since yesterday. We are trying to keep above the water so to speak. God has a lot of plans for this area and we are seeing how many people are prepared to receive the gospel. We taught 34 lessons this week, which is a lot. We definately aren't struggling to find things to do.

 

Many interesting things happened with Cemania. I don't remember if I told the first part, but I will tell you again. Cemania came to church last Sunday. Someone gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, and she read it. It was the fifth Sunday of the month, so it was combined, and everyone was making calls and writing letters to people who hadn't been to church in a long time. We took Cemania to the side and taught her a lesson. She told us that she felt that this is where she needs to be and she felt that we really did live with God before this mortal life. Then Elder Giorgino and I taught her this week on an exchange. She told us, "I can't believe that I am getting baptized in the Mormon church." She felt the spirit very strongly. But then we met with her again and she told us that the day before, people from her old church showed up and told her that she was confused and that she needs to not be meeting with both the churches at the same time. She needs to pray and choose between them. If she meets with both, she will obviously go toward the one that sees her the most often (us). So they told her to meet with one church one week, and the other church the other week and then make a decision. She is feeling very conflicted right now and she is having a lot of opposition. She knows she if getting answers from God when she sits down with us, but there are people around her telling her otherwise. She did a fast and now she will meet with the Church of God for a week and then see us next week. Pray really hard for Cemania.

 

Cassandra and her family are doing really well. Sister Monestine took Rose Marie (the mom) to the church and did a chapel tour with her. Then they went to eat at a chinese buffet. Plus other members of the church were there (I think that one of them might be the bishop). She loved it and she calls us "her missionaries" now. We saw them last night and taught Cassandra (13 years old) and her brother Antonio (8 years old). They have so many questions. Antonio loves the bible and he was so excited to have us come over. Rose Marie said that he was asking her when we would go back to see them the whole week. They are coming to church next week.

 

Lina, Christnel, Wesley, and Ernst came to church again this week!

 

Plus there were several non-members that just showed up. We have appointments with a lot of them. One is the manager of several apartment buildings on a street we work on all of the time called 6th Ave. We contacted him in the elelvator of one of his buildings and we gave him a card with the address of the church and he said that he would be there. He didn't stay the whole time, but he said he would come back next week. We are teaching him on Saturday.

 

We recognize now that we have to be exactly obedient. When we are having this much success and we have so many investigators, there are many people counting on us. Every time we break a rule, it affects at least 50 or so people. Probably their families and friends. And eventually many more. So there is a lot hanging in the balance. Pray that we can continue to have the success we are having. There are many people counting on us now. Even if many of them don't get baptized, they need to have a good experience from us going over so that they will want to meet with missionaries in the future.

 

On preparation day, we do personal and companionship study from 8:00-10:00. Then we go and e-mail for an hour. Afterwards, we go to the store, and then we go back to the apartment. I am usually really tired after e-mailing, so I usually take a nap. We haven't been using our preparation days very productively and we need to be more obedient on several things. I recognize that we just can't do it all perfectly. That is why missionaries need the atonement. That is why everyone needs it. Sometimes I wish I could just have a few moments where I don't need to worry about missionary work. But I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now. This is the greatest experience I have ever had. So much has happened to me and I am learning so much. I still have many times where I get down on myself or I think more about myself than others, but I am doing very well. I just need to keep on a steady upward trend. I know that Jesus Christ lives. Without him this work would not be possible. Without him no one would have a change of heart. It is his work, and if his spirit isn't in it, then it was all for nothing. The spirit is what guides this work.

 

I love you all! Continue to pray for Elder Shipley, our investigators, and I. Pray that we will be able to assist them in meeting their spiritual needs despite the lack of time we have. Pray that they will change and progress to baptism.

 

Bye!

 

Love,

 

Elder Seamons

"I am seeing the windows of heaven open so much that we don't even have room enough to receive it."

August 1, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

This is one of the best weeks I have ever seen on the mission! It was wonderful! We had seven people come to church for sacrament meeting. Cemania, Ernst, Carlo, Lina, Christnel, Wesley, and Luxom. They had a great time at church. I am not sure about Welsey though. He seemed bored during the whole thing. Lina is Christnel and Wesley's mom. They have had a rough time lately, but I will go into that later. I was asked to give a talk on reading the scriptures. Last week Elder Shipley gave a talk on missionary work and he committed everyone in the congregation to get pass-a-long cards off the table. Many people passed them out and we were excited. I talked about how the scriptures had blessed my life, and I committed each person in the congregation to get a Book of Mormon, write their testimonies in it, and to give it out. We had about 15 English copies and they all went. All the French went as well as half of the Creole. We were pretty happy about that. We have some very awesome members in this ward. I love them! They are awesome! Yesterday was the fifth Sunday, so for the combined meeting, they took names from the 600 less active members we had and they had each person in the class call someone or write a letter. 

We were going to take the investigators into another room, but many of them were in conversation with a member of the ward. So we took Cemania who wasn't talking to anyone and taught her a lesson. She got a Plan of Salvation pamphlet from someone and had been reading it. She told us that she had never heard about the premortal life before. She told us however that she felt it was true because she has déjà vous moments and she said it felt so familiar. We told her about the light of Christ and we told her about the Plan of Salvation and she believed it. She told us that she knows that this is where she needs to be and that she is starting to get used to the church. We were so happy when we heard that. Especially because a week and a half ago, she almost dropped herself (quit having the missionaries teach her), because she was part of the Church of God, and she felt like she was turning her back on them if she came here. And she was tired of trying to figure out which church was true and she felt that as long as she tried her best that God would not penalize her if she just went anywhere to find the truth. She said after Christ came again, we would all know the full truth anyway. Elder Shipley and I were so depressed to hear that. But then we told her that God wants her to find out the truth and doesn't want her to stop searching. She told us that we were right and she said we could come back over. Then we went over and we helped her understand why we needed the Book of Mormon as a second witness. Elder Shipley had the idea of focusing a lot on the Book of Mormon. She told us that God answered her through us, because she resented the Book of Mormon at first because she felt like it took away from the bible and substituted it. But now she says that the idea of the book of Mormon makes a lot of sense. She changed the signature on her phone to ***God answered me***. Elder Shipley and I are ecstatic. She is on her way to baptism. Her faith has grown so much since she has been meeting with us. She is doing amazingly!

Ernst has been reading in the Book of Mormon and he came to church today! He told us that he was going to move to Pensacola, but yesterday he said that he changed his mind and that he wants to move next to the church so that he can walk. We were so surprised and excited about that. He accepted our invitation to be baptized when he knows it is true, but he wants to pray, read, and come to church more before he accepts a specific date.

We have been getting so many new investigators and referrals lately. Elder Shipley and I have had a difficulties finding time to call, visit, and help everyone that is interested. We have worked out a system and we have been using Preach My Gospel to help us a lot. We are getting so much better at planning. There is so much to do still to improve, but we are getting there. We need to continue progressing and not get prideful because of the success we are having.

Lina's family is having a really hard time. Lina cares about her children and tries to help them out, but she doesn't listen very well and is always in her children's business. Plus Christnel has extreme anger issues. Last time we were at the house, he threw his copy of the book of Mormon at her because she kept on interrupting him when he was talking to us. Both of them were crying and there was a lot of yelling. The spirit is completely absent from that house. We are going to leave a blessing on the house in the future. Christnel feels that his mom is always bugging him, and putting him down. She feels that he can't change. It is so sad to see. But Christnel does want peace in the home and he is a good kid. He just lets his anger get the best of him. We gave all of them a copy of the Book of Mormon. We are going to see Christnel tonight. We had an investigator give us a really good Haitian meal this week. Elder Shipley was excited about it. I was too because I love Haitian food.

Cassandra and her family are doing well. We visited them with Sister Monestine and Brother Alba. They are very open to us and they really want to visit the church. Cassandra and Franzy are the ones that want to get baptized. They will be coming to church in two weeks. Sister Monestine has been keeping contact with Rose Marie (the mom) and the kids. Sister Monestine said she would even help her find a job. She is taking her somewhere on Wednesday.

I am happier now than any other time in my life. I am learning so many good skills. I hope I cannot get prideful because of how well things are going. I need to work on that.

I have felt more power come from the calling which I bear as a representative of Jesus Christ when I am more obedient. Elder Shipley and I have been doing that a lot. We had an amazing week and we have so many people that we are teaching right now. I am seeing the windows of heaven open so much that we don't even have room enough to receive it. Seriously. We have more referrals than we can even contact. I know that God will give us the strength to fit everything we need to in. I recognize that it was because of God that we have been able to get this far. We couldn't have done it without him. Pray that I may have humility always. It is crucial, or else the pride cycle will take over and I really don't want to go through that.

I am beginning to realize how big of a responsibility we have as missionaries. There are so many people who are relying on us. If we are not obedient, we won't be able to help them at all. We were doing Harvest the field and we met a Haitian woman named Dani Anne who had a daughter named Martine who is a burn victim. She had boiling water fall on her. The backs of her legs and her back are destroyed. It paralyzed her so she can't even walk. She is four. She can't stand up by herself. I want to help her more than anything. I realized that as a holder of the priesthood, I have the power to heal her. But If I am not in tune with the spirit and exactly obedient, I won't know if it is God's will for her to be healed, nor will I have the power to do it. I hope that we can help this family. This woman can't work because she has to watch her daughter, and her fiancé is in Haiti, waiting for his papers to be processed. She pays for the house with money that she receives from friends that visit her.

Everything is going well. There is still a lot of work. I know that Jesus Christ lives. He has carried me this far and will continue to do so. He has never failed me.

Bye everyone! I love you! Thanks for all of the support!

Love,

Elder Seamons

By the way, about that boy in the last area, Peterson, Elder Chandler told me that he got a tumor in the back of his brain because he was so angry all of the time, and his Mom doesn't want it to be operated on. But I heard that a new young men's leader moved in and is watching him very closely and his Mom agreed to let him be baptized if he is on his best behavior for the next two weeks. Pray for Peterson and Christella. They need it very much.

Elder Seamons sent his letter to the president, so I included it.

Hi President! Everything is going very well. I am loving the Harvest the Field method! We haven't been doing it every day as we should because we have so many appointments, but we realize that we have to, so we are going to put it in the planner every day so that we don't schedule too many appointments in. But it is working very well. I am learning to love the people and have a desire to serve them. I am excited to do this, because I feel the spirit very powerfully every time I do it. It is so exciting to exercise the priesthood in such a direct way. People feel the spirit and it opens their minds and hearts.

Elder Edwards and Elder Giorgino have some good investigators and they are very good at finding. They have found several people for us, some of which came from harvesting the field.

Sister Buckley and Sister Despain are very enthusiastic about the work. They need to find more investigators though. They have been passing so many referrals. That is one of the reasons why Elder Shipley and I need to go harvesting: so we can help them find investigators.

We are doing well. We are exacting our obedience. It isn't getting there yet, but it will be. Thank you for your counsel and direction. I love and appreciate you a lot. I will write you next week, President!

Love,

Elder Seamons