They both admit that we were sent by God to give them comfort and counsel

April 16^th, 2012

Hi Everyone! We have had an amazing week! The area is doing really well.

First off, Our Branch mission leader's name is Brother Vega. He is the one who owns Pop-eye's. His wife is the Young Women's president. You probably saw her as the hostess in the "Young Woman Peagant of Values" in the talent show. Their son and daughter in law, Jamie, just moved in from Kendall/Miami area a week or so ago. Brad has been less active for a while but is starting to come to church, and Jamie has agreed to read in the Book of Mormon and pray with Brad. She has already been to church twice since we met her. The last lesson we had with her was really spiritual. She said that she felt peace as she read in the Book of Mormon. We asked her if she wanted to feel more of it. She said yes. We committed her to baptism on the 28th of April, and she has agreed to work toward gaining a testimony and preparing for that date. The Brother and Sister Vega will be out of town that day, so we will have to put the baptism forward. We are going to meet Jamie and Brad at the Vega's house at 8:00 tonight, so we will talk to her then.

Marius is progressing very well. We have had three lessons with him this week. He told Brother Poor and Brother Preston that he didn't feel that baptism a second time would be bad at all, but he felt that it would be as if he were a ball, rolling around which ever direction the wind took him, not having faith. He did say however that he felt that what we have been sharing with him is true. We committed his to pray about the 21st of April. He said yes. Two lessons ago on Saturday, he prayed at the end of the lesson and while he prayed he brought up Acts where Paul told the people that they needed to be baptized again so that they could receive the Holy Ghost. He told God that he had received the baptism of repentance, but he may not have received the baptism for the Holy Ghost. He admitted that that is what we were probably referring to. During the lesson, before the prayer, he brought that up a little, and he was agreeing with us and defending us. Fernand was trying to argue. We evaded the questions she asked us, "for example, if someone is already baptized would they need to be baptized again." She already asked the question before, so to avoid any argument and so that the spirit wouldn't leave during the lesson, we just told her to pray and ask God about it. We switched the subject and were about to pray and she told us that we didn't answer her question. Marius turned to her and said that we answered it by telling her to pray and let the Holy Spirit reveal it to her. Marius, in his prayer, mentioned that we didn't want the spirit of contention in the room. He gets it! He is so close. We just hope Fernand doesn't pull his progression down. She has changed so much since we have met her, but she isn't quite ready for baptism yet. But they both admit that we were sent by God to give them comfort and counsel. The last two or so lessons, Marius has been crying in them. Pray that he will have the final push of the spirit to help him make the choice to be baptized. The only thing that could possibly stop him is the fact that there aren't very many Haitians and the social atmosphere isn't the same because none of the other members speak creole. We will see what happens.

In the branch, pretty much no one speaks creole. We only have three active members, none of which are priesthood holders, so if he gets baptized, no one can home teach him. Plus President Anderson said that the branch may not always have a creole missionary serving in it. So it will be interesting. Elder Pearce knows a few words such as Hello, Good bye, how are you doing?, I'm good, but other than that, he doesn't know much. We hope that President sends a creole missionary after I leave, because if not, we can't go back and teach Marius. The three active Haitian members we have are all very busy and can't come out with us. I went harvesting yesterday and we blessed three Spanish people. I really need to brush up on it when I get back though. I haven't had any time to study it.

We still have members taking us out to eat every once and a while too. Sister Maurer, Sister Isaacs, and us went to Denny's. Elder Pearce and I have gone several times to the one on Dixie and Commercial since we have been together. There is a Jamaican lady named Aleisha. She is really nice. Whenever we go in, she doesn't even bother asking us what we want to drink anymore. She just brings out water because we come enough times. She is really friendly and we even got her phone number, because she has agreed to let us come over and share a message with her and leave a blessing on the home. She would come on Sunday, but she has to work. There are so many people that we have met together that we are really attached to and have become friends with. Marius is one of them. He was the first person whose door we knocked on together and let us in. The first day we met each other as a companionship.

 It is so hard to remember everything else that has happened. It all seems like a huge blur. Elizabeth Chupp is really motivated now to approach her mom and get the papers signed. We had a baptismal interview for her on Thursday. She passed and she will go to her mom with the papers and get it signed. We told her she can't trick her mom or forge the signature. She has been waiting for two years and she wants to get baptized so bad. We are praying really hard for her. If all goes well, we could have three people baptized this week: Marius, Elizabeth, and Jamie.

We have worked a little bit with a man named Derrick Shoemaker. He is very into the Pentecostal beliefs and he is very different in the way he likes to worship. He says he wants to read the Book of Mormon, but he isn't quite ready yet. He has heard anti about the church, so it isn't easy. We are focusing more on his friend, Joe, because he is more open to what we teach.

Elder Pearce has been having a lot of bike problems. He has had four tires pop in the last week and a half. We realized that we were probably over inflating them. But he did run over a piece of metal the other day. We are learning a ton about how to fix bikes. It will be good for Elder Pearce to learn all this early on in the mission. I didn't learn most of it until now.

We also were guided to bless some homeless people. Where they always are. There names are Taylor and Christopher. They were very nice. They seemed like they were going through a rough time and Christopher had been in a car accident before and was in a wheel chair. They just slept outside and when we found them it was raining. Luckily they found a tin overhead to sit under.

I have to go now! Thank you! I know the Gospel is true! Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! Everything is going really well. We have several people that are preparing to be baptized: Elizabeth Chupp, Jamie Vega, and Marius Verticier. We have focused with all of these people on helping them feel the spirit and once they do, immediately committing them to act. It has changed the way the work in the area is going. It has changed the way we harvest. We don't wait for a spiritual moment. We plan for it. And when it happens, we see it as an opening and a springboard to greater spiritual growth and commitment, especially that of baptism. As we have focused on the spirit, we have become more obedient, more aware of what the spirit is prompting us to do, more unified in our teaching, and in turn, more happy. Elder Pearce and I have talked and we will be very sad the day that won't be companions anymore. We are also worried because we are teaching a lot of Haitians and contacting many Hispanics as well, and if an English elder is assigned to this branch with Elder Pearce, it will be hard, because they won't be able to talk to any of these people, and our language members aren't very available. I just want you to know that for the future when transfers happen. Whatever happens though, it will be for the best. Thank you so much President! I know you are inspired of God. Our companionship is so perfect for the area, the investigators and people we contact, and for our own personal challenges.

Elizabeth Chupp has been meeting with the missionaries for two years, and she has finally decided to take action and ask her mom to sign her baptismal record. She has always wanted to be baptized, but she was afraid to talk to her mom. The spirit has helped motivate her.

We also prayed to accomplish a certain number of harvest blessings, and we did it yesterday. We are so excited!

Thanks President! I love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons

"We had the most amazing Sacrament meeting for Easter"

April 9th, 2012
 

This week was really amazing! We had the most amazing Sacrament meeting for Easter. In the Foyer, there were displays with different items from Jesus' life with different scriptures next to it printed out. It has the crown of thorns, the nails, the sign that said, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", it had the unleavened bread, different pictures of Christ's ministry, and one of the rooms was decorated to look like the garden tomb with the bed where Jesus laid. There was a very strong spirit. The talks were amazing. Sister I gave a talk on the atonement and how she had been rebellious much of her life and how the atonement had the power to heal her and help her have that change of heart. Sister G sang the song, "His Hands." I cried during the service. I was so happy that our investigators were there for it. We had nine investigators at church: Joe, Derek, Clair, Jason, Marius, Fernand, Jaimie (a new investigator who we met for the first time yesterday at church), Thomas, and Elizabeth. We know that they felt the spirit. Sister Hepler translated for Marius and Fernand and they loved it. For the opening hymn, we sang "Christ the Lord is risen today" #200. They knew the song in French, so they felt very involved. We taught Sunday School about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and everyone got involved and our investigators even answered Jason's questions, which was cool. Jason has been letting the same old problems bother him and he just can't get past them. We probably won't continue to teach him. We will still see him at church because he always comes, and we have never asked him to. We are teaching Maria his wife, and she is progressing really well. We committed her to baptism and she said that she will think about it.

We also saw Elizabeth on Friday. She loved General conference. She watched three sessions of it. She has pages of notes and her favorite quotes from each talk. She had a lot to say about it. She is pretty much a member already. For the talent show a few weeks ago, they young women had a skit called, "The Young Women Pageant of Values" and she performed in the skit and she has relationships with many people in the branch. She also performed a poem for the show as well. She already knows that she wants to be baptized and she has chosen Luis to do it, since he is the one who first introduced her to the missionaries two years ago. We hope that she will be able to get permission from her Mom. We will see what happens. She has another church that she is a part of as well, which is okay because she has a testimony of this one. She does service with them. Her church has land they own in Haiti, so they church is doing a two week trip over to Haiti to do service, such as building a school, going to orphanages, delivering food, etc. I am so happy that she gets to do that. She says that there is a lot of preparation involved. She even went to a five hour Haitian church. She is learning some Creole. Her Creole class starts this week.

After church yesterday, Leanna and her Parents invited us over to Leanna's house for Easter Dinner. They are the teachers of the Daily Dose English class for the branch. They invited everyone from the class to the dinner. Only Marius and Fernand were able to make it. We took a picture with them. Leanna has photography backdrops and lights, so she took the picture with my camera and used her equipment for her job. The food was really good and the Rosato's brought a whole bunch of leftovers to our apartment after our appointments were done. Marius and Fernand are planning on coming over to the English class on Wednesday.

We are excited about the English class. So far, the people who have gone to the class are Sister T, Sister C, Sister G, Marius, and Maria. We have invited Berta, Yvonette, Rose, and Joseline (Sister G's friend). We have a ton of other people to invited, so we are hoping we can get a good turn out this Wednesday. It is a great service that the church can do to get people comfortable with the church and see the church building. We hope that we can even get enough people where we have to make two or more classes. We definitely have enough people we know that we could do that.

And by the way, Elder Pearce has a half sister from his dad that lives in Lauderhill. She is not a member of the church. We got permission to see her. She is really interested in learning the missionary lessons and she is very engaged. Her name is A. She is really nice. Elder Pearce's mom has a picture with her, him, and her daughter L. L is 4 years old and she is really cute. It took us an hour and 30 minutes or so to bike there. We are excited were that will go. Bye! I love you!

Well,

I have run out of time. Thank you for all that you do. I love you all very much! Take care!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! We had an amazing week. We got many people to church and we have many people that are prepared to receive a date now. We are going to be  "Challenging and Testifying" missionaries. We are getting along great as a companionship and we both feel that what has happened with everything about transfers has been very inspired and we are very excited to make the most out of the remainder of the time that we will both spend together. We are going to get the standards of excellence this week. We know that it is expected of us and God will provide a way so that we can accomplish the things which he has commanded. Bye President! We love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons

We are staying together for another transfer!

April 3, 2012

Dear Family and Friends
 

Hi everyone! We had so much stuff happen this week. It was so amazing! We are staying together for another transfer. We are so excited! We have many investigators that are progressing now! We had six people come to conference on Saturday and Sunday.  Elizabeth, Maria and Jason, Marius, and Thomas. They all enjoyed the conference. Many of the talks seemed to be perfect for us as missionaries and for our investigators. The interesting thing about the talks is that I know the Sentelous family that Elder Anderson was talking about. They were in the Miami Shores Ward. There is a family from Maimi named the Manzur's that moved up to the branch, and they were good friends with the Sentelous Family. The Sentelous's had some extra tickets for conference and the Manzur's went to Salt Lake. The Sentelous' moved to Utah when I was in Miami. It was so cool to hear that talk.

The branch had its first official Daily Dose English Class. Brother and Sister Rosato are the teachers. It is the same class that we did in Coconut Creek a year and a half ago. It is so nice that they have called teachers for it. Hermana, Marlene, Marius, and Maria were at the class. They all loved it and all have agreed to come for the future classes. We have more people who are coming this Wednesday.

We had the Branch Talent show on Friday. It was really good. Jason and Maria also came. Our most progressing investigators are getting immersed in the church and are becoming very active. Jason has been coming very regularly to church and activities since I was with Elder Snyder and Owens. This branch has so much talent in it. Brother Hawkshaw played several compositions on the people that he made for some famous people. It was really awesome.

We got a really awesome new investigator named Edward. We harvested into him. He was drunk when we went up to him. He said that it was a wake up call for him. We had been having trouble getting a hold of him after that. But then we passed by and he was there. Elder Sommerfeldt, one of the Senior missionaries came out with us. He said that baptism was the next step in his life and he needed to do that. He agreed to be baptized. He has a date. For the 14th of April. The Spirit was so strong in the lesson and he was very excited. But then we had a follow up lesson. We were at Sister Georges' house, which is about two or so blocks away from his house. We saw him ride his bike right past her house and he saw us. He didn't say anything. We wonder if he was drunk again. It was kind of weird because we knew he was sincere at the time, otherwise the spirit wouldn't have manifested itself in the way that it did.

At the Talent show Elder Pearce sang and I played the Piano. It turned out really well. We came up with a very creative number to do, and part of it was a skit. Sister Hawkshaw recorded it, so you can ask her to send it to you.

Love, 

Elder Seamons

Hi President! We are doing really well as a companionship. The district is also doing really well. Elder Pearce and I are really happy that we can be together for another transfer. We are going to make the most of it.

We had some really amazing harvest the field experiences this week. We made a goal of 8 in one day because we hadn't had many at the beginning of last week and because of the pray, plan, practice, and do pattern that you taught us, we were able to surpass that goal. We were really excited and great things will continue to happen. Elder Pearce and I are getting along really well.

Thank you so much President! I love you so much! I will write you next week.

Love,

Elder Seamons

Moving, hit by a car, voodoo and the power of the priesthood

Eric just moved and a couple, the Hawkshaws, who have been in the branch from England have sent us several e-mails with photos lately. There are photos from the new place he has moved to, as well as some from the talent show and some from the going away party for the Hawkshaws.

March 26, 2012
 

This area is really amazing. We have transfers in 9 days. We are really hoping that neither of us is being transferred. We just hope that we can stay together and make everything in this area work really well.

We both decided after talking awhile that part of the reason that are investigators aren't doing as well is because we haven't been planning and preparing for our lessons as effectively as we could. Elder Pearce taught me some of the things that they taught him in the missionary training center about planning. We have decided that their is no point in teaching unless we plan the best we can, so we are going to make sure that every person we teach is properly prepared for before the day is over.

We have been trying to help out our investigators better and we have come up with several ideas of what to do. We are not going to waste time on people who are not willing to keep their assignments. I tend to keep investigators a long time and try to help them out, but it is sometimes better to drop them. We just dropped many people in the last few weeks and we have only the really willing ones left. Elder Gonzalez told us when he came to the mission,"We don't abandon investigators, we just put them in the area book. :) "

We also have a talent show in the branch. Elder Pearce is planning on singing, and I am playing the piano to accompany him. We will see how it turns out.

We are a block away from the church. We got permission to e-mail in the church using the clerk's office computer. We walked here.

We are focusing less actives, our most progressing investigators, other names that the ward council gives us, getting people to the new English class that is starting this week, getting people to the talent show on Friday, and getting people to general conference. We are really excited! This next week will be great.

I bought some shrimp, which we will put with rice, green beans, and some other stuff. We will cook that today. We made a goal to not do microwaveable meals for a week. Elder Pearce has been telling me that he feels like he doesn't have a lot of energy and he feels that a contributing factor is the way he has been eating. I haven't been eating very well either. We won't go into that. But we will try to eat better.

By the way, I got hit by a car on Monday. I was on Commercial Blvd. going straight across while someone a side street wanted to turn right. It wasn't at a stop light. The person was stopped and I was starting to cross and then they shot forward because they were looking to make sure that cars weren't coming, but they didn't look for bikers. They shot in front of me when I was entering into the intersection, and I slammed into the front right corner of the car. Elder Pearce said he saw that I had the right of way. The lady didn't even get out of her car. I got out of her way, she turned stopped, rolled down the back window, asked if I was okay, told me to be more careful, and drove off. Elder Pearce got her license plate number, but the church legal department doesn't want to have me contact her because the damage wasn't severe enough. My front tire was really bent and my brakes were knocked out of place, but it wasn't a huge cost. The mission took care of it. I went to an urgent care center to get checked out, and they told me I was fine. Florida drivers never give bikers or pedestrians the right of way. When we are at lights and we push the button and the light flashes for us to go across, we always have to check. I have almost got hit so many times. Even when it is clearly the right of way of the pedestrian and they know it, they still cut in. It is very a hard to be patient with these people. But I have learned not to let it bother me as much.

Elder Koleber also got hit by a car a few days after that. I think most of my companions have been hit by a car sometime on their missions. But he is fine.

We had an interesting week. We moved out on Wednesday. We are a block away from the ocean, so we went jogging two mornings in a row and took pictures at the pier. We also found a Jamaican restaurant that is really good. Sister Maurer took us out to eat at an Italian Restaurant named Umberto's just west of the intercoastal. After our lesson with Elizabeth, Sister Terron gave us Mexican food. It was really good! Elizabeth has a strong testimony and is ready to be baptized, but she is telling us that he Mom doesn't like the church very much, and their relationship isn't doing well now, so she doesn't want to ask her mom in case it makes things worse. Plus she hasn't been very willing in the past. We talked to her about faith and how no miracles can be performed without it. We saw her at church, which was good. We will see what she does with her mom. Brother Terron knows the mom, since the Terrons are friends with Elizabeth, so Brother Terron wants us to go with him to their house and talk to the mom. Elizabeth has to talk to her mom too though. If they are available, we will do that.

Just to answer Dad's question, Marius isn't currently a minister as a profession. Since his church is in Haiti, he goes to another church and has a lower position. He does gardening outside houses and apartment buildings.

We had five investigators and two less-active members at church: the investigators were: Jason and Maria  (his wife from Colombia. She got back from a trip to Colombia on Wed.), Elizabeth, and Marius and his wife Fernand. The two less active members were both Haitian (Malene  and Jeanne ). We were so excited to see Marius, and even more excited to see his wife Fernand. Marius went and bore his testimony since yesterday was Fast Sunday because of conference, and I translated. It was so great! They both said that they are coming to General Conference on Saturday. We will take them to Coconut Creek because more Haitians will be there and they can see that we have many Haitians in the church. Maria said that she wants us to come and leave a blessing on their home. She has started to read the Book of Mormon.

We had a really weird experience. We were at Berta's house and she was saying the prayer. Brother Hawkshaw was with us. She was praying very loud and intensely. But I could have sworn that she spoke some things that didn't sound like Creole and even though Haitians are very passionate when they pray, it didn't seem right. All three of us thought it was some voodoo thing and Elder Pearce and I felt a dark presence. We both felt very very strange. We called President Anderson and he told us to get a blessing. We called Elder Koleber and Elder Gray to come over. As they were traveling to our apartment, we were singing hymns and things to bring the spirit. It was helping, but it still didn't feel complete. Elder Pearce lifted his arm to the square and commanded the evil spirits to depart. Instantly I felt this huge weight lift off of my chest and I felt peace. It really gave me a greater testimony of the power of the priesthood. I am so glad that he had done that before in Jamaica, because I had no idea. President Anderson told us that Satan loves to make God's servants feel uneasy and miserable. It is so nice to know that Jesus Christ has all power.

I know that the gospel is true. I will talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Note From Dad:

I liked Eric’s comment last week when he said that Jesus asked us to be a light to the world, not the spotlight. I asked him if he had heard that idea from someone or thought of it himself. Here is what he said:

I didn't come up with it. The spirit did. I didn't hear it from anyone in particular though. It just hit me one day as I was thinking about it.

Letter to the President:

Hi President! We are doing really well. Our district has increased the number of blessings that we got this week. We have been focusing a lot on people that are progressing and putting the rest to the side. Elder Koleber was hit by a car this week, but he is doing well. Elder Grey is very happy and he is getting involved in the missionary work. Elder Piarrotti is doing well and so is Elder Wood. Elder Pearce and I have been working on planning effectively for our investigators. We decided that we haven't been able to hit the standards because the fundamentals of planning have been very lacking in our companionship.

I love you President! Take care! Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Talent show photos

Elder Seamons and Elder Pearce with Brother Vega

Elder Pearce and Seamons with Brother and Sister Somerfelt