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