"We have been a little discouraged"

We spoke to Eric on Christmas day. He sounded good. He went caroling with his district around the area before Christmas. Then on Christmas day, they went to church and then to eat with two different families. He is a bit discouraged with the new area because it is difficult to get things going when you are starting from scratch. 

 

December 27, 2011

Hi everyone! The library was closed yesterday, so I couldn't e-mail. We had a great week last week. We don't have a lot of investigators that are progressing, but there were a lot of less active members/active members/non-members that didn't know about the new branch: Brother/Sister Landis, Sister Samson, Jessie Pierre, Brother Shoetel, Brother Farfsing, and others. So that was really cool.

We have been focusing a lot on less actives, but not a lot on getting new investigators, so we are going to try to shift our focus. We have been a little discouraged because we have been meeting several people that either aren't very nice or aren't very interested. So we are reevaluating where to go finding, what more we can do to help these potential investigators progress, how to better follow up, etc.

Today will be a great day. Starting a new area is difficult, especially since we contacted several Hispanics and we taught one Hispanic family last night and it was really hard because it has been so long since I have spoken. I have been a little discouraged because my Spanish used to be so much better and it takes a ton of mental effort to bring it back because I didn't maintain it for such a long time. It will work out though. We are going to have success. I know that the gospel is true and that Jesus Christ lives. I am so glad that his atonement works with missionaries, because we definitely need it a lot.

I also have a story from when I was in Miami about someone named James that I wrote in a handwritten letter to president that I want to share:

Elder Terry and I were walking down the street and we felt that we should knock on a door. The people living there were named Kathie and James. They were moping the floor. They just went in ten minutes before to officially move in. They hadn't even moved the furniture in yet. We left the blessing and they loved it, especially James. He said it was the "Miracle of the Year," because the first thing they did before anything else, even before moving everything in was to kneel down and leave a prayer. He was baptized two weeks ago. :) He loves the Book of Mormon. He loves the restored Gospel. He is very awesome, and he is active in the church

From mom- We heard from Elder Terry, who is from our area, that James was baptized this week.

I won't write a ton this week. I am a little worn out. I will write a lot more next week.

Love,

Elder Seamons

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi President! Last week was good. We harvested many people. We have many potentials. Our main problem is that we aren't getting a lot of progressing investigators out of it. We realized that we could follow the counsel that you have given us to teach a lesson right after harvesting so that we don't lose contact with these people. We are planning on harvesting at least three hours by knocking door to door. The rest of the day will be doing 4 different member harvests. We were a little discouraged because we haven't been having many investigators come out of it, but we are doing better. I speak Spanish pretty well, but I definitely need some help with it. There are a lot of Hispanics here and we should have a Spanish missionary. We will try to get other Spanish speaking members to help us once we get a return appointment with the person.

We have a great place picked out for harvesting that we feel really good about. We are going to pray, plan, practice, and do so that we can help some people receive the Gospel. I know that if we ask God and do what we are supposed to do, he won't let us down.

The branch will be built up, even if it takes time. Many less actives are starting to come back. We will build up the ward the best we can. We have a lot of great stuff planned. Starting off a branch is difficult, but that means it will be really good by the end.

I love you President! Take care!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Elder Seamons transferred to start a new branch

 Hi everyone! This has been one of the greatest weeks I have ever had on the mission. Some really unexpected things have happened.

Last Sunday, they talked about starting up a new branch on the 18th. The boundaries for the people that lived there who will be in the branch presidency, etc. have all been set up. The big question that we had was if they would have missionaries or not at the branch. President Current, the stake president, said that he had a vision of this branch and that it's soul purpose for creating it was to bring back less actives and to build the kingdom in that particular area. That area was rarely ever visited by missionaries because there wasn't very much success there. Who ever was going to be chosen was going to start from the very bottom.

Elder Koleber and I got a call and the Assistants said that I was being transferred into the new branch with Elder Plowman, an English Elder. The transfer would take place Wednesday night. Elder Larsen, Elder Plowman's companion was sent up to Palm Beach, and Elder Koleber's new companion wouldn't come until the night time. His new companion is named Elder Fitts. He is a Portuguese elder. He had to go home for back surgery and He was reassigned to this mission. He is really nice.

This branch is a multilingual branch. President Current said that he wants people to go down there, despite what language they speak. It is in the transition stage, so he is giving people the choice at first. But we are able to teach any Haitians that we want in the boundaries of the branch. So I am really happy about that. We have a woman named Juslaine that we are teaching that agreed to come to church on Sunday. They already called Sister Pierre as the Creole Sunday school teacher. There are Spanish members who could potentially give translation in Spanish. There is also a Portuguese member named Sister Walker if we need Portuguese translation. We have an awesome new family that used to go to the Lauderhill Spanish ward named the Terron family. They love missionary work and they have given us 4-5 referrals already. Their son Luis is coming out with us on Friday to take us out to these people. Nadia, his sister, is bringing a non-member to the mutual activity on Wednesday. We are very excited. We got

I moved back into the Windward Lakes apartment that I lived in with Elder Rybin and Elder Anderson. But the apartment is different than the one that I was in before when I was there last year. So don't look through my old letters and use that address. It won't be correct. I don't know the new address. It is on McNab road.

I don't even know where to begin. So many things have happened to us this week. Thursday Elder Plowman and I were officially companions, but we were on exchanges for the whole day, because the south area of the ward that Elder Plowman was serving in was being collapsed so that we could be transferred to the branch, so Elder Plowman took Elder Chandler to all of his progressing investigators so that he could meet them all. We didn't want them to fall away after the transition.

Elder Plowman and I officially started working in the new area for the first time on Friday. The nice thing about the whole experience is that I already know many of the members from the Coconut Creek ward. I am still in the exact same area I was in two weeks ago. They just took a chunk of the Coconut Creek ward and made it into a branch. We had 6 people on a list, 4 of which were potential investigators. So we just started from the very bottom.

The church is using a church building that was previously being used by a non-denominational church. It is a super cool building. It looks like an LDS chapel. It doesn't have a baptismal font though. It just had a foyer and one big room, but they put up walls in the big room and took out some of the chairs and put in classrooms. It looks so cool. They also put an official sign on the front that says: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The whole branch is very excited. They already gave out all the callings and they announced them all in sacrament meeting. The building is so perfect and the location is so good that it seems like it was prepared by God for the work of starting and building up the new branch. Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts tried to buy the building and convert it into a restaurant, but the city denied it. It is so cool. There is a permit required parking lot next to it, but on Sundays the City has agreed to allow us to use it without a permit for people to park. I will take some pictures and send them to you.

It was a very spiritual Sunday. All of the leadership is working with us closely to give us referrals and to help out with the missionary work.

I need to go, but I will write a handwritten letter, because there is so much more to tell you all.  I love you all so much! Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Also, I had to text Miami about my sheets that I left there, and Elder Terry told me that James, an investigator who we taught together was going to be baptized. I looked on the Website and he was for sure baptized. I am so happy. Also, Daline Figaro who Elder Rybin and I taught is being baptized on Christmas!

Question: Where is Elder Plowman from, and how long has he been in the mission?

He is from Chicago, Illinois. He has been in the mission field for 4 months. I am his third companion. His second companion was with him for only two weeks because they got together at the beginning of the transfer and then we got put together.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello President! I am so grateful that you placed me in the branch. I have enjoyed this week so much and I have felt the spirit so strong within the last week. Elder Plowman and I are so excited and motivated to do missionary work. The transition into the new branch was smooth on all counts. If I didn't know any better, I would say that the branch had been going on for a long time. Everyone seemed to know where to go and what to do. The leaders and members of this branch are amazing. This is probably the best ward/branch I have ever been in. The branch was such an inspired idea. All of the leaders got up and bore testimony about missionary work and Sister Poor, who is the Relief Society president, is creating a program called the "lost sheep" program intended to get all of the less active sisters in the area back to church. Brother Vega, the new branch mission leader, is amazing. He said that the branch presidency will do exchanges with us every Wednesday. The Youth are doing an activity where they are going to the neighborhood by the chapel and will put chapel invitations on the door knobs with a ribbon and a candy cane. If people answer the door, they will leave their testimony and invite them to the church. I have never been more excited about missionary work! The branch is on fire. We have already met all of the members at church, and we have scheduled a few member blessings. We are really excited.

We went harvesting on Friday and we met a man named Lee, who is in drug and alcoholic rehabilitation and he has been trying to overcome this problem. His mom Veera had her sister die two days ago and will have the funeral soon. Lee had many pass-along cards from the church and he kept them and looked at them often. When we passed by, he had them laying in a row on his couch. These people really needed our help at this time and we were able to be the answer to their prayers.

We have been doing our best to keep the area book updated and we have been following up on all our contacts/referrals. We are really excited!

There were 56 people yesterday at the branch. Our goal is to double that number within the next 6 months. We are doing all we can, and we are working closely with the members.

I know that Jesus Christ is over this church and that he inspires and lifts up this work. Jesus Christ is our Savior and through him, we can obtain all the promised blessings from God, and all the righteous desires of our hearts. He still does miracles and God the Father does know all of his children. I have come to know that very well this week. The fact that I got sent to the branch shows me that he knows who I am.

Thank you President! I love you! Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity.

Love,

Elder Seamons

"I love the diversity of the Coconut Creek ward"

December 12, 2011

Hi everyone! We had a really good week. There were a lot of great things that happened!


Here is most of my letter to President Anderson. It talks about a few awesome people we found this week:

Hello President! We had a great week. We harvested 10 houses this week and we found 25 investigators as a result. We had some amazing miracles as a result:

We were harvesting and we felt inspired to go to the house of a youth counselor for a church named Nadine. She is very familiar with the Bible, but she had a very accepting nature and she told us that she learned a lot and thanked us for coming by. When we told her about Joseph Smith, the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Book of Mormon, she said that she was really interested and she would probably share it with her kids in the youth ministries. She said that if it is from God, she would share it. She has a website too and she had a friend who told her just a week ago, "don't be surprised if two white people come by to help you come closer to God and help you out." When we came and shared the message, she felt that it was from God because her friend is very close to God and we were the fulfillment of what he said. Her attitude toward us when we passed by was untrusting, but we were able to win her heart. She asked us to help her take the new bunk bed upstairs for her and she is so excited for our next appointment.

Another girl named Malene has been very confused about the different translations of the Bibles and why there are so many churches. She wondered why people said that prophets didn't exist anymore. She said that she has been praying for along time about what to do, and as we shared James 1:5 with her, and she told us that was her favorite chapter and she opened to it in her bible and out of all the verses, James 1:5-6 was marked with a highlighter. The spirit was so powerful in the lesson. Elder Koleber said, "you could cut it with a knife." She was also found because of Harvesting. I know that there are many good people that are "only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it." We have found so many awesome people who are just lost and confused. It has helped me fulfill my purpose and I feel like I am doing my job as a missionary.

We are going to get 7 member presents this week, because our member work has been struggling a lot this week. We are also going to give all of these awesome investigators that we found last week baptismal dates. We are going to not go home without one.

(The end of my letter to President)

We have been finding many very prepared investigators. We have been dropping a lot of people because they aren't keeping their commitments, and as a result we picked up a ton of people that were more diligent in doing what we asked them to. There are some awesome things happening in the ward to.

Since I left, they split the Coral Springs ward and some of the ward members came to the Coconut Creek Ward. The Coconut Creek ward is a very missionary work oriented ward and as a result the success in this ward has sky rocketed upward. This ward has had the highest baptism rate in the mission since I left. The elders who came in did a wonderful job. The Coconut Creek ward has now gotten big enough that they announced that in Elder Koleber's and my area there will be a branched formed. South of Copans, East of the I-95 and North of Oakland park Blvd. will be the boundaries. The interesting thing about this new branch is that it is a multi-lingual branch, so Elder Koleber and I will no longer be working in that area. Normally there is a magnet ward where the Haitian members go (which for this area is the Coconut Creek Ward) even if they live outside of the ward boundaries. But for this branch, everyone will go to it, despite language barriers. Sister Heplar, the Creole class teacher (she has been it since the first time I was here) is in the branch boundaries, so she will probably teach it. But that means we will now need a new Creole class teacher.

I love the diversity of the Coconut Creek ward. There is no other place I have been to in the mission that is as diverse. In this ward we have a Portuguese class, many Hispanics, a Creole class, and deaf members who need members to interpret for them. It is very cool.

And also, I don't remember if I said this, but Sister Helplar and her husband who are both converts to the church of about 3-5 years got sealed in the temple on the 3rd of December. I was so excited for them. Brother Heplar is in the branch presidency of the new branch.

We had four investigators come to church: James, his mom, Paula, a woman named Carline, and her son Carl. James' sister, Chelise had a baptismal date, but she hasn't been to church enough, so we will need to push it back. We had an awesome lesson with James where we brought sister Vallini, one of the Portuguese members with us. The spirit was so strong in the lesson. His countenance has changed from that time on every time we have seen him. He was touched deeply by sister Vallini's testimony and we are working on getting the whole family baptized. Chelsie is very interested. Her mom is also doing pretty well. And we had to give chelise another copy of the Book of Mormon because her fiancé took it and started reading it. We are super excited about that. But he has work, so I have never met him. Elder Koleber has seen him once. Chelsie has a cute baby girl named Destiny that is 5 weeks old. That might have been why she didn't come to church yesterday.

So for our apartment situation, We buy for ourselves, but sometimes we will buy as a group (We call it the law of consecration. We used to live entirely by the law of consecration when I was there the first time, but some of the missionaries who got transferred in didn't like that, so they discontinued it.) We had pulled pork and mashed potatoes at it was really good tasting. There is a frisbee golf course that they found after I left, which we went to. It is pretty fun. We also played ultimate frisbee. Elder Shipley threw two of the four frisbees that we had in the water. one was his own personal one. Every morning we go out and we play tennis. There is a court right behind our building. I have been having a hard time serving. They have me do every one so I can get practice. Most of them have been playing for a transfer or more, so they are getting really good. We play with the official rules. Elder Shipley is a really good teacher and has been helping me.

Elder Koleber and I have had a cold for most of the time we have been together. It has been hard, but we are both almost better. We both feel much better now.

We saw Vonette. Unfortunately, she hasn't been reading in the Book of Mormon since May after Elder Gubernick left the area. She talked to her dad in May again about baptism and he got mad at her. She is doesn't want to bring it up again. She also isn't able to come to church on Sundays because she has someone's children who she has been baby sitting every Sunday for a while. She seems less enthusiastic, though she says that he believes that this is Christ's church and that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. She has just lost her enthusiasm. We won't be going over there very often, which is sad. But we will see her every three weeks or so. Then when I get home, I can start doing more work with her. I will make sure that I stay her friend for life, even if she never gets baptized while she is still alive.

Elder Koleber is a great missionary. We have had problems teaching in unity, but that is it. We have gotten along great. We have just been talking about how to get our teaching patterns to mix together.

I love missionary work! It is so fulfilling. I know that the church is true. Jesus Christ is his son and I know that he knows how to do missionary work better than anyone else. If you look to him, he can teach you how to become, "fishers of men", and he can help you prepare for the people that have been prepared by him and his angels to hear his message.

Bye! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Seamons

December 4th Back in Coconut Creek

Hi everyone! I am back in Coconut Creek again! I am so excited. I am serving on the east side of the Turnpike, which I was doing when I was with Elder Bolz. The interesting thing is that after Elder Bolz left, the area was combined into one large Creole area that Both I and Elder Anderson and I and Elder Rybin worked in. All of Elder Rybin and my recent converts are on the other side in Coral Springs, North Lauderdale, and Lauderdale Lakes, but that is okay.


It is like a weird Deja Vous moment. I have been thinking that it will be a lot like when the veil of forgetfulness is lifted from our eyes. It is happening little by little. I am starting to have memories coming back from every place I see and go to that I recognize.

We have been on nw 42 ct and nw 3 ave in pompano, which is a street that I worked on a lot with Elder Rybin and Elder Anderson. The first time I went on the street, I passed by a duplex that I recognize and a few seconds later both doors opened one after the other and two older investigators named Katione and Crystal came out. Crystal didn't stick around, but Katione recognized me and told me that she was glad I was back. She said that I haven't changed much in the last year. She is a cool girl. She said that she wants to come to church and sit down with her, but her mom is funny about strangers coming and preaching to her daughter. She also said that her mom doesn't let her go to churches. It is kind of an interesting situation and it is exactly what it was like about a year ago. It was awesome to see her again. Then we went on Ne 7 ave. and Ne 33 st. and we stopped by Vonette Vivian's house. Her Dad drove up and told me that he remembered me and was glad to see me again. He said to stop by another time for Vonette. We came back another day and her Daughter, whose nick name was mama opened the door. Her eyes got wide and she looked super surprised and she came over and kissed me. Then I told her that it was nice to see her again. Then I heard a yell from inside, "Seamons! Seamons!" I peaked around the corner and saw Vonette sitting at the table doing her English Homework. She and I went nuts. It was one of the greatest moments ever. I missed that woman so much. I thought I would never see her again. The reason she didn't get baptized is because her dad wouldn't let her by threat of kicking her out of the house, which is crazy because she is about 40 years old. She is still keeping in strong and she seems about as awesome as before. The missionaries have dropped in every few weeks since last year, so she knows all of the missionaries and loves all of them. That makes me really happy. Thank goodness for the area book and missionaries who pass the baton well. We will see if her Dad has had a change of heart. I hope he has. That woman is so ready for the Gospel. We are going over there Friday at 4:00.

There are other things I have experienced like that, but I will drift away from the old stuff and talk about the latest updates. Elder Koleber is an amazing missionary! He is originally from Australia, but he moved to the United States 4 years ago to live in Texas. His mom is Welch and his dad is American. He loves writing. He is a creative person. Elder Terry and him got along very well because of that. They weren't companions, but they would talk often in the apartment. Elder Koleber is very witty and he is very funny. He is really disciplined and obedient, but he still is enthusiastic and loves missionary work. Elder Koleber He is great! We are working on merging our teaching patterns, because they are different, but we get along very well. He is really helpful in helping me get reacquainted with the area. His last companion was Elder Clark. Elder Clark is an amazing missionary from what everyone tells me. He is really good at Creole, and it has definitely passed down to Elder Koleber. No language problems as far as I can detect. He can communicate just as well as I can.

Some of our new investigators our as follows:


Sabrina, Peterson, and Stanley (all siblings)

Lina

Michou

Meshia

Christelle and Mista

Chelsie

Dieujuste

Burea

Garye and Ketline

Marie and Cindy Luma