Last e-mail: I am so grateful I could serve a mission

 June 26, 2012

Note: Here are some email exchanges Linda had with Eric about his feelings about coming home.

Mom: How do you feel about coming home?

Eric: I feel prepared. I feel different. I always had a hard time making adjustments in my life, but I feel that I have learned throughout the mission to deal with them and not be sad. I will probably be very sad when the time actually comes, but I am so focused on all the people we are teaching now that I really don't think about it too much.

Mom: Is your companion moving or staying in the area? How does he feel about you leaving?

Eric: Elder Pearce is staying! We are very glad because he knows the area and the people and we feel he needs to be there for another transfer. He is sad about the change that is going to happen tomorrow, but he is doing his very best to think positively. He didn't want to even bring it up because he didn't want to start crying or anything. We both had a minor crying session last week, but other than that it has been great.

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Hi Everyone! Well, this was a great last week of the mission for me! We had so many things happen.

This week we met a less-active member named Sister S. She recently moved from the Miami Lakes Stake. She lived in Myramar closed to where I served. She has a strong testimony of the gospel. She has just been in several moped and car accidents and lived through them. She told us how the doctors told her that she should have died, which makes her story so miraculous. She feels that God is saving her for a purpose and that the adversary doesn't want her to accomplish that. She is going to do everything that she can to make it to church. She was supposed to come this week, but it was raining very badly, and only 50 people showed up at the branch, which is a very small amount compared to normal. But we won't give up on her. We also saw Sister J. She is another less active we have been working with. She wanted to go to the temple and get sealed with her husband, but she is not sure anymore. She likes meeting with us, but her husband, we figured out, has been avoiding us. Every time he knows we are coming over, he always leaves. That is really sad. We hope she will move forward and become active, even if her husband does not. She was supposed to come to church this Sunday, but the rain probably stopped her. We will have to see what happened.

Also, we stopped by a ton of investigators for me to share my last testimony with them and say good-bye to them. We saw Bertha and she started crying for 10 minutes. I didn't realize how much she would miss me. She is really sad that I am going. Ever since the incident near her house with the man who threatened to kill us, she has been upset because she thought we would never come back to her neighborhood and that we would never see her again. She has still been coming to English class lately.

We also saw Miriam J. She has been really happy lately. We saw her yesterday and she gave us some of Murt's (her husband's) ties. She wanted us to have them. She is getting baptized on September 2nd, which will be a Sunday. Brennan, Brother V's 20 year old son, came out with us twice this week and he enjoyed it a lot. He is seriously thinking about serving a mission. He said it wasn't as scary to go out and teach people as he thought it was and he even shared one of his favorite scriptures when we were reading a passage with Ghaelle yesterday. We saw Ghaelle and Oliver. Ghaelle sang for us and it was really beautiful. She is doing well. She said she might be moving to Lauderdale Lakes sometime, which is out of our area, but we will see what happens.

Also, we taught Lucien and she accepted a baptismal date! She is a Haitian woman who is Catholic, but she recognizes that she wasn't baptized properly and she wants to learn more about Jesus Christ. We are really excited to teach her.

We also went out with Brother C who works at a Brazilian airline company. He is out of town often for his job. He has a Brazilian girlfriend named Isabella, who I met at the branch Valentines Day party several months ago. She is currently meeting with the missionaries, starting last week. They Skype every night and read in the Book of Mormon together. We are very excited about that. With Brother C, we saw Emilio, a 60 year old Haitian man who feels guilty about having children with multiple women and not being married to any of them. He feels like he can't fix it because he can't marry them all. We testified to him about the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the atonement. The spirit was present and he felt it. We also saw Marie J, who is wants to come to church and provide her 4 month old daughter with a spiritual atmosphere. She is a very sincere woman. We also saw Marius J (another Marius other than the one I am normally writing about.) Marius J is a 40 year old Haitian man who has Sickle Cell Anemia. He has a low energy level, so he tires easily. He is very nice and friendly though. He is currently taking art classes. He showed us his art work when we went over there. He draws very well. He was very interested in the questions "Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?" We are going to teach him the plan of Salvation in the future and share the Book of Mormon with him as a means to provide the answers to these questions. We know the message we have will give him greater hope and comfort in his life. Brother C enjoyed the exchange.

With Brother Terron on Sunday, we saw Oscar, a man from El Salvador. He hasn't been to church in two years and he has a drinking problem. He is interested in coming to church and having us come back and teach him. We will see what happens. We also saw Centana M, a Haitian Catholic woman who has the ability to heal people. When we knocked on her door, she prayed to know if we were, "good children," and God told her that we were sent by him. She is excited to hear from us. We will share the message of the restoration the next time we see her. We knocked on the door of someone named Chelsea and blessed her. She said we could come back.

We went out to eat with the Rosato's on Saturday. They took us to a restaurant named "Sea Watch." It was so good. Our waitress was named Neily. She is Bulgarian. There are a lot of Europeans in Lauderdale by the Sea. We gave her a Mormon.org card with our names and phone number on it when we left. Elder Pearce and I both ordered blackened Mahi Mahi and we had a chocolate truffle ball that had whipped cream on top. It was so good.

The R family from the Phillipines, who moved into the branch a month or so ago from Hollywood, Fl have a family business. We went to their restaurant named Tokyo, which is on Commercial Blvd. close to ne 15 ave. It was so good! We had sushi, but it was cooked. It was so delicious. Even though the R family paid for it all, it was super cheap compared to most places and they even offered us more food but we were stuffed. We have a ton of pictures from this week of the R family and many of our investigators and us. I will be excited for you to see them all.

We saw Elizabeth with Brother Terron. She lives out of our area, but she has permission to be in our branch so we just let our district leader, Elder Wood, know. She was happy to see us and she is preparing to go to Haiti in a month for a Humanitarian trip. I will practice creole with her when I get back.

There is so much more that I could write, but I have to finish. I love you all so much! I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer. I am so grateful I could serve a mission and I will see you all in two days. Bye! I love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! I am so grateful that you were my mission president and that I could learn from you. Thank you for trusting me enough with the responsibilities you have given me to train and to be a steward over this area. I have grown so much, made life-long friends which I will never forget, and I have developed a love for people which I have never felt in my whole life. This level of love I hadn't quite attained until now. I am ready to report to you tomorrow in my departing interview. I love you so much and Elder Pearce will do great in this area. Expect this area to be the top in the mission.

I love you President! Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

It Was A Powerful Experience That I Will Never Forget

 June 18, 2012

Hi Everyone! We had another amazing week. I don't even know where to start off this week. We had two people at church this week: Linda and Miriam. Miriam's daughter, Sister W has been keeping in contact with us from Montana. Sister W told us that the week before, her Mom, Miriam, had seriously talked to her about being baptized. She has decided to go through with it. Her son-in-law, Ted, will be performing the baptism. She will be going on vacation mid-July to see her other daughter Sue, who is also meeting with the missionaries in Connecticut. Then in August she will be going to Montana, where she will be baptized. They are all very excited. She has felt so much peace as she has been coming to the church and learning of the Gospel. It has been 7 weeks since her husband passed away. She says that this is the first social thing she has done in a long time because of his death, and also because of his health before he passed away. She always had to watch him. She also has wanted to become more involved in church for a very long time, but her husband wasn't a religious kind of guy at all. She is really enjoying herself and we have seen her grow on this spiritual journey. Sister Warner told us that she has noticed a difference in Miriam. She has a cheerfulness and a joy in her voice that wasn't there before she met with us. We are all really happy for Miriam. We feel the presence of the Spirit very strong in our lessons with her.

We also taught Linda. This week she told us that she would come to church, so we scheduled a chapel tour with her. Us and the Sommerfeldts met her at our chapel, and we showed her the different rooms, told her what she should expect, and why it was so important and relevant to her in her life. She started to cry during the tour and she told us she didn't know why. We told her it was the Spirit that she was feeling. She was really excited. We asked her what she was looking for during this spiritual journey. She said she was looking for a church where she could feel loved and cared about and where she could feel uplifted and instructed in what she needed. We testified to her that she would find all that as she continued to meet with us and come to church. It was a powerful experience. We played some hymns with her and really told her how much we loved and cared about her. They both loved church on Sunday and it was great. Linda had to leave right after sacrament meeting, but it was still a wonderful experience for her.

We went with Brother Michael Manzur on Friday from 1:30 to 7:00 and it was awesome! He is a spiritual giant with the faith to move mountains and some amazing miracles happened! First we saw Jener, an investigator we had for a long time. Brother Manzur was able to relate to him and he is going to be fellowshipping him and reading with him once or twice a week in the Book of Mormon between our visits with him. After that we went a few streets down and we were headed to the C family's house, a part member family. On our way, it was pouring down rain. Brother Manzur stopped the car and had the impression to turn around. Though both Elder Pearce and I didn't notice, there was a man with a white beard with a wheel chair and a cane. He was in shorts and a T-shirt and he was under some trees. He walked very slowly and it was painful for him. Brother Manzur found out that his name was Owen Lee B, and we helped him get his wheel chair in the back of Brother Manzur's van and he hopped on in. We learned he was a retired navy seal who served in the Vietnam War. He was very kind and extremely grateful for the ride we gave him to his house, which was a minute 30 seconds in car from where he was. As soon as we pulled up, the hard rain turned to golf ball sized hail. In Florida! It was so crazy and we couldn't believe it. Brother Manzur said a prayer that God would calm the storm and help us be safe. He then proceeded to give Owen Lee Brown a blessing. I was in the passenger seat and Brother Manzur was driving, so we turned around in our seats and all three of us, after Brother Manzur anointed, placed our hands on his head. It was such a powerful experience. Elder Pearce and I both had the thought come into our heads during the blessing that the hail would stop as soon as we finished blessing Owen. As soon as Brother Manzur said amen, the hail turned into rain and within 10 seconds after that, it calmed to a drizzle soft enough to allow us to get out of the car and get Owen back into his house. Owen really needed that blessing because he was in pain when he walked and we know that God put us there so that we could bless him at that time. We are grateful that Brother Manzur was listening to the spirit and he had the faith to allow that miracle to happen. It really demonstrated the power of Priesthood service to me. We didn't teach a lesson, we didn't invite Owen to be baptized, we didn't do much. Just blessed him. I don't know if we will ever see him again, but we know that we helped save him from being seriously injured from the hail or possibly even dying. And we were able to show him God's love. It was a powerful experience that I will never forget. God has blessed us so much.

Also we saw the Cs' directly after that. Sister C is a less active who lives with her less active brother. She has four children, three of which are ages, 8, 11, and 12. We are going to be teaching them. She would like them to hear the lessons and be baptized. We will see how they feel about that. But when we went to her house, her 1-2 year old baby had a 103 fever and was screaming. When we were on the phone with her that morning, I was thinking, "wow, he doesn't sound very happy." So we offered to come over and give him a blessing. It was also a powerful experience and we knew that the spirit was there and they all felt our love for them as well as God's love for them. Wilson, her brother, agreed to come to church and Brother Manzur ran home quickly and brought him back a white shirt and two ties for him to wear on Sunday. His Mom, Maricia, who only speaks Creole, is super nice and she loves it when we come by. She told us that she would come this Sunday. Unfortunately they didn't come. But we will continue to work with that family. We love them a lot.

After that we went to see Andreen, Elder Pearce's Sister. She is going through a hard time and she is struggling a lot. Her daughter, Ladreen is super cute and she is really smart. She can count to one hundred by 2's, 5's, and 10's. She can also play games on the computer and get on the internet browser. She is only five years old. She can spell her name and spell out all of the numbers out one to one hundred. For example, "T-H-R-E-E is 3." Andreen had her do that for about 10 minutes. It was super cute. She wants a good environment for her daughter. Plus Ladreen told us that she didn't want to go to public school because she didn't want to turn into a "bad girl." So Brother Manzur gave her a blessing. We also gave Andreen a blessing. It was a super powerful experience. Andreen felt a difference by the end of the visit. She is still acting the same way as before we had the visit though. We were hoping to see more of a change in her. We realize that change will take time. We just need to be there to help her. We haven't been going through much of the missionary lessons with her. We have been really talking about faith and repentance and nothing else.  We were so grateful for Brother Manzur because we know that we couldn't have a day like that if it weren't for him. He had the faith and the means of transportation to make that possible. God really place him in our path.

We went to the Sawgrass Recreation Center today. We got to hold baby alligators, boa constrictors, and we got to see panthers, leopards, and other animals. Plus we had a picnic with the Sommerfeldts afterwards. It was great!

Well. I have to go. Bye! I will write you next week!

love,

Elder Seamons

 

We have had amazing experiences together and I will remember them for the rest of my life

 June 11, 2012

Hello Everyone! This week has been really good! We had several exciting things happen. There is a less active woman named Sister J, who is 83 years old. She has a small dog named Mitty that she has next to her on her chair whenever we come over. Mitty is very protective of Sister J, so when anyone comes in that she doesn't know very well, she always barks. If we get close to Sister Jarvis to hand her something, Mitty barks too. She is a very cute dog. Sister Jarvis is on an oxygen tank, but she is really mentally sharp still. We went this week and Elder and Sister Evans had set up her account on FamilySearch.org, so we were able to help her start up her family history. It is an amazing website! Elder Pearce and I both learned how to use it on the Evan's laptop. She gave us the names of her parents and their parents, but she didn't know very far back. But when we put in a few names, we were able to connect her to a huge line that had been traced back all the way to the 1200's. It was so cool. She told us she had some "Dragoo's" in her family line and we saw a few people with that last name. She said she has Indian ancestry from 5 generations back. It was super cool. I think that is where the name Dragoo came from. Many of the people had their temple work done or had all the information that they were ready to be done. We started with two names: her mother and her deceased son, who were ready to have their work done. The sheets are printed out, but they just need to be taken to the temple. We were so excited that we were able to find two names. That was great! Afterwards, she had a delicious lunch which her neighbor Blanch had prepared for us. There was potato salad, little beef and chicken sandwiches, olives, water bottles, and some large donut holes that had custard filling inside. They were so delicious! Sister J said it was okay if someone else went to the temple to get the names done for her in the temple, since she is the only member in her family and she is physically unable to go up. We took the names to the Priesthood Executive Meeting we had this Sunday, and the idea came up that I could do them since I will be going to the temple before I leave the mission. We will see if that works out. I would love to do the work for her son. She is such a cute old lady. She always calls us "the Fellas." She has had 100's of missionaries pass by her house and she has a map with the names of 192 missionaries and arrows pointing to where each missionary is from with the number next to it. We are on the map. We took a picture with her to add to her collection of pictures with the missionaries.

We saw Ghaelle on Thursday with President Boggess. We taught her about obedience and the reason why we have commandments from God as well as the Word of Wisdom. We told her how our bodies are temples and we showed her the pictures of the Fort Lauderdale temple. We had her imagine if someone took that beautiful of a place and threw trash around it and put graffiti all over it. We told her that is like our bodies. We need to keep them clean. We then showed her a Mormon.org video profile of a 18 year old, high school girl named Lisa, who we felt Ghaelle could relate to. She said she could relate to her after she saw the video. She told us that when she was in Haiti, she felt left out because all of the kids had hobbies and after school activities that they always did in their spare time. She didn't having anything and she told her mom that. She then got involved in Soccer and she loved it. When she came to the United States, she didn't get involved in that, but she got involved in her church Choir. She loves to sing. Her mom sings all the time and they sing family gatherings to bring the spirit into the room. She is very passionate about that, so we will see how helping her to prepare for baptism will go. But the good news is that Sister G, according to President Boggess, is wanting to start a branch Choir. We are excited about that. Hopefully Ghaelle can get involved in that. Also, we invited Ghaelle to the branch Picnic on Saturday. She said she would ask her mom if her and Oliver could go. Saturday the 9th happened to be Oliver's birthday. President Boggess told him we would get a cake for him if they were coming. We were excited!

We also are teaching Miriam J, an 80 year old woman whose husband died 6 weeks ago. Her daughter is a member and her husband is a bishop in Montana. Their son, Greg, is in his 30's and he was sealed in the temple and has children now. They have talked to her a lot about eternal families. She has been very lonely lately and she is very sad. When we have gone over, she looks like she is on the verge of tears at times. We took President Boggess over to see her with us. We talked about temple work and how she could be baptized and then be able to be sealed with her family. We showed her a video on Mormon.org about Jesus Christ and his atonement. She told us that she read the Plan of Salvation Pamphlet and The Family: a Proclamation to the World that we gave her and that it was very intriguing. She misses her husband so much. They met when they were 16 and they got married at 18. They have been married for 62 years. She works for Royal Carribean, a company that takes people from the airport over to the cruise ships and then boards everyone. Both her and her husband worked there together. She works at the airport and he worked over at the cruise ship docks. We invited her to the branch picnic, which we had on Saturday. I will write about that a little later. And we also invited her to come to church. She said that she really felt that she needed to go back to work on Sunday because she had missed so long after her husband died. She told us that she would come a future Sunday.

We also taught Linda, a 60 year old woman whose kids take advantage of her. She said that she has thought about moving out of the country so they can't get a hold of her. She is a big pushover and she feels guilty saying no to their demands. She is concerned for her kids because they aren't on the right track. Her daughter Angela who lives with her is into drugs. Linda lacks self confidence and has depression issues. She said that she feels like she is inadequate. She is very religious and loves Jesus Christ. She is looking to increase her faith in Jesus Christ. She said that should wants to be baptized and restart her life. We just need to get the date finalized. She is a very amazing woman. Elder Pearce found her with Elder Dean on a Fire-exchange, which is just an hour long exchange where we go harvesting to keep the "fire" going. It was a spontaneous exchange. But we were able to find Linda as a result. We invited her to the Picnic and to church. She said she would come. We were so excited.

For the picnic, there were a ton of people. We had around 90 people show up! That is really good for the branch. That was the most people that have ever showed up to any activity the branch has ever had. We had several investigators come: Alex, Ghaelle and Oliver, Thomas S came with his member wife, Sister C the less active and her three children who haven't been baptized yet, Arlene, who is Elizabeth C's friend, but she isn't ready to be taught yet, Jason W, and Miriam. We were so happy to see all of them. Linda didn't show up, which we were disappointed about. It was a great activity! Brother Schilling, a member who moved up from the Miami Lakes stake was there. We talked to him about his mission in Lima, Peru 20 years ago. He loved the activity! He also came to church, which was exciting. Oliver and Ghaelle had a blast and President Boggess was true to his word and bought a cake for Oliver. Everyone at the activity sang Happy Birthday to him. He got to take the leftovers home too :) Brother Preston, the second counselor in the branch presidency gave them a ride. He told us in the morning meeting the next day before church that he was very happy because he knew that if Oliver hadn't had a birthday cake and the activity, he wouldn't have had any celebration at all. Oliver told him that he didn't have any party for his birthday, just hanging out at home. And when they dropped Ghaelle and Oliver off, it was dark inside and their mom and dad weren't home. Alex came with the Terron's. He is 18 years old and kind of quiet. Afterwards he went with the Terron's and Brother Manzur to watch a sports game, which was awesome considering that the Terron's had never met him before, and Brother Manzur had only met him once. It was the best activity ever! Everyone had so much fun and there were a ton of people.

I have so much more to talk about, but time is almost out, so I will have to make this quick.

At church we had: Miriam, Sergio (Luis Terron's friend with whom we have been trying to meet for a long long time), the three Camelus children, and Jason. It was great. We had 95 people total who attended sacrament meeting according to Brother Hillsamer! It is amazing that the branch has grown so quickly in such a short time. It was great!

Anyway, I need to go! I love you all. I know the church is true and that Jesus is the Christ. No matter how many downs you have in your life, just keep getting up and just keep swimming! Make sure to go on Mormon.org and Make a profile. It is an amazing website and everyone should have a profile. The church is pushing to get every member to have one. Get familiar with the website. It will bless lives and it is an amazing missionary tool which you can use to help other people learn about the gospel and share your testimony.

Bye everyone!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! We had an amazing week!

The Book of Mormon has been such a powerful tool for us this week. For companionship study, we made flashcards and put scriptures from Preach My Gospel in the "Questions for the Soul" section in Chapter 5. We also added in our own. We had a lesson with one of our investigators, Linda, and we shared several scriptures that talked about faith in Jesus Christ. It brought the spirit into the lesson and the scriptures have become a powerful way of teaching these people. We also used the scriptures to teach Ghaelle about Obedience and the Word of Wisdom. As she gets more familiar with the scriptures, her love for them will grow. We saw this with Linda after she read the first two chapers of 1 Nephi. She was excited to read on and see what happened to Nephi, Laman, Lemuel, and Sam as they tried to get the plates from Laban. She realizes that the family problems that they are experiencing is very similar to what she is going through. The scriptures are coming alive to her little by little.

We did as you said and harvested 9 homes by Wednesday. We saw so many blessings. We had a branch activity and there were around 90 people there, over 10 of which were not members of the church. Many of them were our investigators. Plus many of them came to church and they are integrating very well with the branch.

Bye President! I love you! I am doing my best to endure to the end and keep going. We have had amazing experiences together and I will remember them for the rest of my life.

Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Elder Pearce CT scan OK; Scary neighborhood confrontation; Christ can heal all pain and strengthen all our weaknesses

 June 4, 2012

Hi Everyone! This week was really eventful. We got the results for Elder Pearce's CT Scan and it turned out okay. That is good. They found a lesion in his neck, but they said it wasn't bad. There was another one that they couldn't tell what was going on with it, so his parents are going to get other doctors second opinions on it. But everything will be fine.

We continue to cook rice with different meats and sauces and it is very delicious. Elder Pearce has taught me some techniques for cooking, which I can use to cook for all of you when I get home. We bought enough rice for the rest of the transfer because we cook it on a daily basis. We bought other items so that we won't need to buy as much on preparation day for now on.

We had a great Fast and Testimony meeting at church today. We had two investigators at church: Jason, and Paul. Paul is an Italian man who was raised in Brooklyn. He is very nice. He has a 15 year-old daughter and is remarried to a Latina woman named Monica. They are having marriage troubles and they are now separated. She has talked to him about getting a divorce. She is a member of the church along with the children who attend the Coconut Creek Ward. He has decided to take lessons from the missionaries and get baptized so that he can fix their relationship and create a happy family environment. We want to make sure that he is doing it for his testimony and himself as well as for his family. He was in Publix the other day and he slipped and fell and had several fractures in his ankles and his wrists. They are very swollen and he showed us. His back is also in a lot of pain. Despite all of that, he knew he had to come to show that he was really committed to all of this. We got in contact with him over the phone on the 18th of May, but because of his Plumbing job, which is on call, he has been very busy and the accident and going and getting x-rays and doing doctors appointments/therapy for it has taken a lot of time. He was very happy to come to church and he said he always feels good when he comes to the church. He went to church in the Coconut Creek building and at the Coral Springs building a few times.

Jamie and Elizabeth, the new recent converts both bore their testimonies yesterday. Their testimonies are very strong and Jamie started to cry. It is so awesome that they are doing so well. Jamie has had the new member lessons with the Branch Missionaries: Sister Isaacs and Sister Maurer, and she has also been to Family Home Evening at her Father-in-law's, Brother Vega's, house weekly. She has her own quad and she reads regularly. Elizabeth is still fellowshipping Ghaelle, one of our investigators who is 15 years old. She has also read a ton in the Book of Mormon and given out many copies of the Book of Mormon. She has a very strong testimony. Jason, our investigator who was raised in a Jewish education, also went up and bore his testimony. He has been very argumentative lately so anytime he wants to say something, we always expect him to voice his opinion on how he doesn't agree. Lately, he has just come to church just so he can find people who will listen to his view. But when he bore his testimony, he told how the story he heard in Priesthood last week about the Martin and Willy handcart company had really touched him. He loved how Brigham Young sent people after the companies through the snow, risking their lives so that they could get their brothers and sisters to safety. He also remarked on how he remembers studying in a book about how the church has gone through all of the persecution in its early days, and he admired that Brother Preston, who was teaching the class, didn't express any bitterness towards anyone for that persecution. He said that he felt something. Also, during Gospel Principles class, we taught the class about the life of Jesus Christ. We now teach the Gospel Principles class weekly for Sunday School. It is the class that all of the recent converts/investigators ages 18 and up go to. Jason said that he admired Christ's compassion and humility. We talked about how Christ died for us and took on all of the pain and sins of every human being who has or ever will live on the earth. He said that that was amazing that Christ suffered all of that. We have high hopes that over time his heart will continue to be softened and that he will see the positive influences in the world and in his life.

Also we taught Ghaelle this week. We have decided that we need to get to know our investigators and build a relationship with them to create trust so that they know that we care about them, instead of just instantly jumping into the lesson. It has seemed to work so much better. We did the same thing with Alex, one of our other investigators that we found before Ghaelle. Alex is in a program, we are pretty sure it is a half-way house or something like that. The program provides housing and also other things. He graduates from his school on the 6th. It is a special school where they teach skills such as how to work with air conditioners/refrigeration units and other skills like that. He is thinking of going into that and there are a few companies that have already accepted him on if he chooses to pursue that route. Also, he likes medieval fantasy books. He is a really nice guy. He is 18 years old. He is a lot more open with us now.

We also saw Rose, an 18 year old Haitian girl who has graduated from High School. We reviewed Alma 7:11-16 with her and talked to her about the atonement. We committed her to read the part about repentance in Gospel pamphlet, because she doesn't know very much about repentance. She was very happy by the end of the lesson and she loved it! We are glad that our investigators are understanding us and feeling the spirit. We have come to realize that we need to help them be converted step by step and not try to push baptism on them the first few lessons every time. We don't want to scare these people off. As they feel our love and the relevance of our message in their lives, they will want more, and we can then proceed to give it to them.

With Rain and lightening, getting the medical results, and some other unexpected circumstances, we haven't been able to teach as many people as usual the last few weeks, but we have learned a lot and we are trying to bring the gospel to some people. Sometimes, that is all we can do.

On Friday we had an interesting situation. We were in a less active member's home named Marsha. She lives on nw 43 st. in Oakland Park. Before we went to her house, we went down the road and parked our bikes on different stop signs. After that lesson we went across the street to see Michelle and Widzernaud, and Mikael, some of our investigators that were outside playing dominos. But they ran inside and didn't want to talk to us. So we went down to get our bikes, but all the way at the end of the street where our bikes were, here was a large white man with a white braided beard and he had tattoos on his arms. He was facing our direction and pointing straight at us and yelling. He was swearing a ton and he yelled some thing like, "I am going to *&*^*(*& blow your faces off!". Then a woman next to him went up to my bike and looked down at it with a disgusted look on her face. I didn't notice any of that though. I was focused on other things. I did notice the woman go up to my bike and Elder Pearce told me he thought that she wanted to steal my bike. Elder Pearce said that we should go look for one of our tough friends that could deal with them for us. We hid around a car next to an apartment complex. Then the guy swearing at us got in a truck and his buddy in the truck drove him down the street towards us. We ran up the stairs and went down and through the back of the apartment complex. We didn't have anywhere else to go, so we went back around to the front. Meanwhile when we were running up the stairs, the white bearded guy got out of the truck and ran up the stairs as well to find us. By that time we had already circled around to the front of the building again. His friend in the truck saw us and called his friend to come back down the stairs. The guy started swearing at us and told us that we didn't have a right to put our bikes on his property. Mine was the one locked on the stop sign on his yard. He told us that he was going to blow our faces off us and slit our throats. He had a knife in a sheath strapped to his left leg. He looked like he had been in prison a few times. He also had a ton of friends watching us from inside the house. We got our bikes off the sign and we biked away. I wasn't going as fast as I probably should have because most of the details of what the guy was doing are things that I didn't even notice. Elder Pearce told me most of them. But I did see the knife on his leg though. I didn't hear the yelling from down the street, and I didn't notice a ton of other things. It is a good thing Elder Pearce was observant enough to pick up all of those details. I decided that I would work on being more observant of my surroundings after that. We are no longer permitted to go in the area where that guy lives and in the vicinity, so we have to drop several of our investigators. Plus we aren't going into any ghetto areas, which means many more of our investigators will have to be dropped as well. Elder Pearce doesn't feel comfortable going into anymore run down areas where something like that could possibly happen. That is definitely a good thing.

Well, the work is going great! We are trying to find some new investigators to replace the ones we had to drop. We will continue to keep moving forward. I know that God is real and that he is refining us every single day to shape us into the type of people he would have us become. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that he can heal all pain and strengthen all our weaknesses. I love you all and I will write you next week. Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! How are you doing? Our recent converts are doing very well and we are continuing to share the Book of Mormon with other people. We shared Alma 7:11-16 with one of our investigators named Rose. We went through verse by verse to make sure that she understood it and we asked her questions. She felt the spirit and by the time we left, she was smiling and she had opened up so much. We feel her desire to learn more about the Restored Gospel growing.

We are doing well after the encounter with the man that threatened us and our companionship is doing great. We are happy and we are doing our best to increase our companionship unity and we are learning so much. I love you and I will make sure these last three weeks of my mission experience are the best I have ever had.

Love,

Elder Seamons

Companion health problems and being grateful for the spirit

 May 29, 2012

Wow! So much has happened this week. I really don't even know where to begin. Missionary work wasn't even the main part of this week. Elder Pearce has been having headaches and pains in his head as well as dizziness and mysterious bumps on different parts of his body, which we assumed to be lymph nodes. Most of them are on his head and neck. These headaches have been going on daily since he first entered the MTC and we felt it was about time to figure out what is going on. On Friday, we went up to a doctor's office that accepted walk-ins. But that office had a whole bunch of paper work asking strange questions and it didn't seem like the best doctor's office. We went home and decided to try somewhere else another day. We rode the bus that day and it took a long time. It took several hours. Then on Saturday we got permission to go to an Urgent Care Center and Elder Pearce got a perscription of a CT Scan. The doctor told us to go up to North Broward Hospital and told us they take walk-ins, so we went up. But the Out-Patient Center wasn't going to be open until Tuesday, today, and we tried to see if we could get approval so that we could go to through the emergency room to get it all over with and out of the way, but the mission wouldn't give us approval because it costs too much. So we came up today and Elder Pearce got the CT Scan. We left at 7:00 and we got back around 12:50. We will get the results of the blood work that they took at the Urgent Care Center on Thursday. The Doctor can also review the results of the CT Scan. We hope everything is all right.  That was a very short version of everything that happened with that and it has taken hours of time between riding on the Bus, calling Sister Sommerfeldt, the mission nurse, and going through all of the medical procedures.

But on a small missionary note, we saw Gaelle with Elizabeth and Brother Hillsamer, we saw Natasha, a really nice Haitian woman and her family with the Sommerfeldt's, who gave us a ride around that day because of the lightning outside, and we talked to her about family home evening. We will see her Thursday. It has been frustrating because we haven't been able to do as much missionary work as usual just because of a lot of things. But we will work through it. I love you all and I will talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President!

This week on an exchange with Elder Dean, I had some amazing experiences. We took to heart what you said a while ago about praying not just once, but many times to pray for help continually throughout the day and while harvesting. This exchange we both focused on the feelings of the spirit and how we felt so that we could be guided to those families that needed us. I was with Elder Dean in my and Elder Pearce's area on Wednesday. We had planned an area close to Atlantic Blvd. to harvest. On the way up there, as we were biking up NE 18th Ave, which we normally don't ride on, I felt the distinct impression to stop and start harvesting right there. The first door we knocked on Frank answered the door and let us come in to pray with him and Ashley. He said he wouldn't normally let us into his home. They told us how important prayer was to them. We were grateful that we ran into them. We continued to knock in that area, but we didn't feel it was where we were supposed to be, so we went up north. We both concluded that we needed to stop for just that one family, but it was time to move on. We went up north and we were guided to 5 other families that responded to the harvest invitation. Erika, Diana, Liz, Yvette, and Jennifer. We are so grateful for the spirit and how it helped us make more out of the exchange than we could have done alone.

Elder Pearce and I have been reading the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes every day and we have been preparing scriptures to read with our investigators. We gave the Book of Mormon to a man named Niles who came into the church and we testified of its importance and what difference it has made in our lives. I wrote my testimony in a copy of the Book of Mormon a few days before, and I gave him that copy. Diana, who I met on the exchange, is really interested in repentance, which is awesome considering what you told us about repentance in the zone conference. We have some really good scriptures to share with her the next time we teach her.

I love you President! Take care!

Love,

Elder Seamons

"Jesus Christ lives and has been lifting me up"

May 21, 2012

Hi Everyone! We had a great week this last week. So much has happened, especially yesterday. We had two people walk in from outside. This branch has had more walk-in's than I have ever seen before. The first one's name is Ken. He has been in religious seminary and tutoring and has even preached sermons. But he is super super open. In fact, he says he is attracted more to the way our church does things because we focus so much on families, and we focus on developing individual relationships and personal ministering.
Other churches focus more on just preaching a sermon. His parents have died and he is forty years old. He is unmarried with no kids and has no family that live close by. He says it is a sore spot for him because families are so important to him. He is very friendly and outgoing. The ward members instantly fellowshipped him. We are going to see him during the week. We also had a homeless man named Niles that came in. I had a Book of Mormon with my testimony in it and I gave it to him. I hope he reads it and gets something from my testimony.

Elizabeth C gave a talk in sacrament meeting about what it means to her to be a daughter of God. She was really nervous, but she did really well. As they announced that, they said that Jamie's turn will come in a few weeks. They are both doing so well. When we were in Gospel principles, we were teaching about the Plan of Salvation because that is what we felt that Ken needed to hear. Elder Pearce asked Jamie to bear her testimony. She talked about how she felt peace when we were teaching her and that she knew that it was the
right decision for her to get baptized. Jason came to church too, and we were worried that he would disrupt the spirit with all of his off topic questions during the Gospel Principles class, but Brother V was just having a conversation down the hall with him. Jason loves to talk so much that he will completely forget about anything else. That way the class could continue on.

The last three Sundays in Elder's Quorum, they have been focusing on the less active member rescue effort. The ward has about two hundred families on the list, and there are now only 17 names that the ward doesn't have a status update on, which is really good. We are really excited about how the ward is trying to rescue all of these people. They found one less active family named the C family. They have two children who aren't baptized yet and they would like the missionaries to come and teach them. But before they do, they
want to come to the church at least once. They will be coming to church this week. We are really excited.

Also, Gaelle and Oliver went to mutual. They had combined volleyball with the Young Men and the Young Women's. We usually go to the church at 7:30 to see the Daily Dose English class. We went to see them for a second, and then we went to see how the youth were doing. We saw Elizabeth, Gaelle, and Oliver out there. They were all happy and involved. Also, Jamie was there because she is the Young Woman's secretary. They asked us to play with them, so we did that for 20 minutes. It was a lot of fun and we were able to talk to our recent converts and investigators. We are so grateful that all four of them were there. We went back to the English class and it had just barely gotten out. We talked with Berta, one of our investigators. She is struggling to find a job. She also has a lot of health problems, but she can't pay for bills to get a sonogram and other tests and treatments done. We really hope she is able to get what she needs done. We also talked to Marius. He didn't say much to us. He was on the phone. He didn't seem as excited to see us as usual, so we were wondering what happened. We invited both of them to come to the branch activity this last Saturday, and they both accepted. It was going to be a picnic at the park, but it got cancelled because of the rain.

We had so much rain, thunder, and lightning this week. We still had 17 lessons, but the weather ruined some of our plans. We spent quite a bit of time indoors. We had one day where is rained so hard that we were soaked from head to foot and our shoes were full of water and completely drenched. They finally finished drying out yesterday. But then yesterday with our dry pair of shoes, it rained so hard that the same thing happened. There are some pictures that I will send to you today.

We had a zone harvest yesterday from 5:30 to 7:30 and we found five families: 1-S 2- Marcos (Brazilian man who has a date!) 3- Paige and Kim 4- M (nicknamed Val) and 5- Shari, Jim, and Alex. We actually continued after 7:30 to find the last family, because we decided to spend the rest of the time harvesting. It was amazing. And it was also amazing the night before Elder Pearce got very sick and we didn't think he could even bike. He decided even though he felt like throwing up, we would go out. I am so glad we did. As we went out, he started feeling better and by the time we got up to our spot, he felt completely healed as far as I could tell. He didn't say anything else about his sickness. It was amazing.

Well, I need to go! I know that Jesus Christ lives and that he has been lifting me up and will continue to do so until the very end. I love you all so much!

Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! We are doing really well.

We had a zone harvest yesterday from 5:30 to 7:30 and we experienced the power of being guided by revelation to where we need to be. We prayed about where we should go. We threw out different suggestions beforehand, but when the time came, we both felt impressed on the same place. As we followed the spirit and were persistent, we found amazing people. One of them was someone that I had met
five months previous in a completely different area far away from where we were harvesting. But she had moved and she was happy to see me. I am grateful that Elder Pearce listened to the spirit and suggested that we knocked on that door. We also found a family who really needed more of God in their life: Shari, Alex and Jim. It was not a coincidence that we met them.

Well President, Thank you so much for the letter you sent to me a few days ago. It really provided me with the comfort and assurance that I need now to finish strong  to the end. I love you so much!

Love,

Elder Seamons

"I will finish out my mission here in Cypress Creek"

May 15, 2012

Hi Everyone! This week was a great week. We got transfer information and they told us that Both Elder Pearce and I are staying together and I will finish out my mission here in Cypress Creek. It is so crazy that I only have six weeks left. I will just endure to the end and make the most out of the end part of the mission the Lord has given me. Elder Pearce and I are both very excited that we are staying together and we talked a lot last night about all the changes we want to make in the area and how we want to do things differently this next and last transfer we will have together. We cooked up a teriyaki chicken meal that a member bought for us and while Elder Pearce cooked that, I cooked the rice that he taught me how to make. It was so good. I didn't get a picture of it.

We had two people come to church: Gaelle and Oliver, who are brother and sister. Gaelle is 15 and Oliver is 11. He turns 12 June 9th. Gaelle is someone we found when we harvested her friend's home, but then we ran into her when we were knocking doors a street down from her friend's house. We began to teach her. Then last week Thursday or Friday, we took them on a chapel tour with their mom. Their mom's name is Roseline and she is really nice. She goes to a Haitian Baptist church with her children. She works Sunday morning though. She said that she wanted to see the location of the church and know a little bit more information before she let them come. She saw the building and we did a tour, and she said it would be fine. Gaelle goes to North East High School, which is the same place that Elizabeth C goes to, and plus Gaelle is in the ROTC and so is Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a Lutenent and she is one of the "Big Dogs" as she calls it. Gaelle is in the beginning level and takes it 4th period, but Elizabeth helps out with that class, so Elizabeth and Gaelle recognized each other when they met at church. Elizabeth and Gaelle are becoming really good friends. Elizabeth is working on helping Gaelle and she even offered to come to our next appointment. We are really excited. We told Gaelle about young women's and we told her about the young women's activities Wednesday night. We are seeing some good progress with her. Oliver is shy and he seemed a little bit uncomfortable, but he did pretty well. The young men fellowshipped him and went out of their way to talk to him. They both enjoyed church. Gaelle was comfortable and she seems like she wants to come back. We are confident that Oliver will become more comfortable as he gets to know people in the branch better. Plus, when he gets baptized, he will be able to be ordained in about two weeks afterwards as a deacon. We are really excited for the both of them.

We were harvesting farther north in our area this week by Atlantic Boulevard, which is a more English speaking area. We made several stops as we went to go up to the area. Elder Pearce wanted to see how much the pier up there cost and in doing all that, we passed by a man at the exact right moment who asked if we were Latter-day Saints and said he wanted us to come by his motel. He was kicked out of his housing, with a wife and baby and he said he needed the message really bad. Their names are Travis, Justina, and Serenity. They were staying just barely out of our area, so we passed them to the other elders in Coconut Creek. Travis called us multiple times to make sure we were coming. He said, "I am not playing games. I am in a messed up situation. I want to come closer to Christ through your message." The next day the other elders texted us and told everyone that Travis and Justina had a date for baptism. We are really excited. Also we met someone named Christian, who had drug problems, but he is changing his life around and he is in Drug rehabilitation now. He was baptized as a baby, but he says that he has fallen so hard in his life from where he used to be that he has been thinking about being baptized again. We committed him to mid-June for baptism, and he accepted. We were about to finish harvesting that area right before we found him. Satan works hard to put ideas of quitting into one's mind right before we are about to find someone who needs us. The amazing thing is that we had an appointment with him yesterday, and we called to confirm, but he said he would let us know at 1:00 pm. if he could, he didn't call us at that time. We were biking away from our apartment shortly afterwards to go to the area we would be for the day and both Elder Pearce and I saw him outside of a drug rehabilitation center 1/2 mile away from our house on commercial just west of the inter-coastal. We talked to him and he was glad that we ran into him. We will try to see him this week.

This transfer we are working on dropping investigators very quickly if they are not progressing, because it is time to focus on those who the spirit is testifying to us are ready for the Gospel. We don't have many investigators right now, but that will change this week. We passed all our Spanish investigators, which was most of our teaching pool, but we will find more.

Well, I have to go. I love you all! Bye! I will write you next week!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President! Thank you so much for letting Elder Pearce and I be together for the last transfer that I will spend on the mission.  We are so excited and we will hit the ground running.

We were harvesting in a neighborhood and we weren't finding anyone that was interested and we had been there for longer than an hour. We were thinking of quitting, but we decided to try one more door. We met Christian, who readily accepted us into his home without argument, who after the blessing told us of his falling into drug addiction and his recent turn around that he has made in his life to overcome it. He told us how big of a role prayer has played in his life and how he was baptized as a baby, but he has been thinking about being baptized again because of how many mistakes he has made in his life. We testified of the power of the atonement and we committed him to baptism in the middle of June, which he readily accepted. We are so thankful that we didn't listen to the adversary as he attempted to get us to quit right before we finished what we were sent to do. We are so grateful that we tried one more door. The spirit will tell you when you have accomplished the work that you were sent to do by the spirit following your prayer for guidance. The spirit will never fail you.

 We are going to hit standards this transfer. No matter what. We will baptize this transfer. That is a promise. We will have success. As we are obedient, we will see direct and indirect blessings coming from heaven that will be so great that there will not be enough room to receive them.

I love you President! I will write you next week!

Love,

Elder Seamons