"Seamons, it's hard. I can't do it." "We have seen miracles this week"

Elder Seamons is doing very well this week. Kent sent him a question while he was on e-mail and he said he was at a 9 out of 10. Several people sent him letters of advice on the companion issue and he seems to have worked it out. This is a long letter, and it would have been easier to read if I had divided up some of the paragraphs, but I sent it as Eric sent it to us since I have little time right now. If you don't have time to read it all, at least read the third and fourth paragraph. One thing I know about Eric is that he is the most persistant person I know. He does not give up, and it paid off.



Linda


January 31st, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was an awesome week. Elder Rybin and I are working very well together. We are having a lot of success right now. I hope I don't move areas, because we have 7 people who will be baptized next transfer, and most of them are pretty solid. President said that I might stay for a little bit longer. It just depends on what the Lord wants. So we will see. At least I will know that I played a part in these people being baptized if I don't get to see it for myself.

We met this girl named Gennger last week. Her Mom's name is Itasienne and her sister is named Jenny. They are an awesome family. Gennger has read Alma 11-13, Alma 32, Helaman 5, Moroni 10:3-5, LDS.org, and the Picture Book of Mormon, and we assigned her some verses in the bible that she said she would read. She read the first 21 chapters in the Picture book with her sister, and they were both recounting the stories in great detail. They have the best understanding of the scriptures that I have ever seen in an investigator before. We have taught them a lot, and they love the gospel. We told Itasienne about Eternal marriage and forever families and baptisms for the dead and she loved it! It made her so happy. Her husband died 8 months ago and it has been hard on the family, especially Gennger. Gennger has had a lot of hard experiences in her life. She struggles a lot with self-esteme and she isn't the most confident of people. But she is very intelligent and she asks great questions. She loves everything we have taught her and it all makes sense to her. We taught Itasienne and Gennger about the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, the Gospel, Tithing, Fasting, and Offerings. They are taking it all in and they love it. Elder Rybin and I are so happy with their progress. We gave them a baptismal date for the 6th of March and they are very on track for their date.

There is just one problem though. We had the craziest experience with Gennger the other day. I will never forget it. We were teaching Gennger the Plan of Salvation on Tuesday and then we committed her to being baptized on the 27th and coming to church that Sunday. She told us that she had been isolating herself for a long time and that she rarely went outside anymore. She used to do part-time home school and public school, but it got bad enough that she did full-time home school. She is afraid of even going on to the front porch and having people see her outside. She stays inside all of the time and only goes out if she really has to. She said that it was a miracle that she got so comfortable with us so quickly because she doesn't like talking to people very much. I am still shocked, because she acts like she has known us for a long time but she isn't good at getting to know other people very well. She was terrified of the idea of going to church because of all the people who would be there. She told us that she would go to church if we were the only ones there. She asked why everyone had to meet in church together. She told us that she was trying to find an online church so she didn't have to get out of the house. She was telling us all of these weird things. It is really strange because she is perfectly normal apart from that. She is a normal girl with normal interests and she is very intelligent and is very sane. She just has a huge fear of people for some reason. She said that she used to go to therapy but that her therapist said that she was perfectly fine. She just wouldn't say anything to them at all. We realized that if she didn't conquer that fear now, she would never do it. We needed to help her conquer her fear so that she could go to church, get baptized, and receive all the blessings of the gospel. We told her to go onto the front porch. She shook her head and refused. We talked to her a long time and tried to help her. She wouldn't budge for a long time. We didn't have any appointment for a while, so we stayed there. We were there for a long time trying to get her to go outside. We did everything we knew how to do. She told us all of these things that were horrible to hear. She told me that she liked being isolated from the world and that it made her happy and that she just wanted us to give up on her. I told her that we would never give up on her and that we were sent from God. She knew it and admitted it. She told us that we had the power of God with us because she got the courage to talk to us when she wouldn't have done that and gotten so used to anyone else. We eventually got her to go out the gate in the back yard to the front yard, but then she ran right back inside. Then we were trying to get her to go outside to the front porch again. Elder Rybin tried really hard and so did I. I didn't give up on her at all. Neither did Elder Rybin, but he stopped trying to convince her because we had tried so many things. I pushed it to the limit. Eventually she told us that she would come outside only because she felt so sorry for us because she had kept us there for so long. We got her outside. We had victory. She has been going outside more and more and we even brought people over to the house and she is getting more and more confident. I have seen a miracle with her. I didn't think it was possible. I thought of giving up when she wouldn't budge and just said that she didn't want to do anything with her life and would rather stay inside and abandon her dreams of becoming a nurse and doing all of those things. It was a crazy experience. Thinking back on it, it is so weird because she isn't a weird insane person. She has just been though a lot we think. We don't know why she was acting that way or what experience gave her such a weird phobia. She didn't know. She didn't used to have it. We are thinking it might be something to do with the death of her father. We don't know. We both put so much effort to try to get her outside. But I was pushing super hard. She was saying, "Seamons, it's hard. I can't do it. Why don't you just give up on me already and talk to people who aren't a waste of time." She was saying all of these things about how she didn't think she was anything in the eyes of God and how she had nothing she liked about herself. We told her a huge list of things, and she said that we were lying. She was just beating on herself. I tried so hard to get her to go outside. I even started to cry at one point. It was so hard to watch her be like that. We knew she had so much potential.

But it worked out and we have seen miracles this week. She has gone outside several times for different things. We are so proud of her. And she isn't as nervous anymore about people coming over. Itasienne and Jenny went to church, but Gennger didn't because she didn't feel ready. Gennger told us in a text afterwards that her mom was raving about how wonderful the church was and how perfect everything was. Jenny loved primary and made a bunch of new friends. Gennger said that she regretted not going because it sounded so wonderful. I am so grateful to God and to the chance that I had to play a part in the growth of this family. I can see how it is changing everyone there, especially Gennger. Itasienne loves it when other people come over. She can only speak Creole and French and a tiny bit of English, but she is a very loving person and she is so dear and awesome. Everytime we come over she says, "Mesi Seamons, Mesi anpil." She always has a big smile and says hi. I think jenny likes Elder Rybin a lot. He is really good at relating to younger kids. She is nine and Gennger is fifteen. Gennger's birthday is on March 14th. When Itasienne and Jenny went to church, all of the Haitian members immediately fellowshipped her, talked to her, and greeted her warmly. I am so grateful for these members. I don't think I will ever forget the kindness of the Haitian people. They have taught me a lot.

We were teaching Vonette and she has come to church twice. She likes the church a lot and she has read a ton in the Book of Mormon. She is one of my favorite Haitian women that I have ever met on the mission. I plan on staying in contact with her. She has only been in the United States for a few months. She isn't very good at English yet. She is a Seventh-day Advantist. She told us that she started to believe in the Book of Mormon, but then she wondered why the names in the Book of Mormon weren't in the Bible and Joseph Smith wasn't in the Bible. She also said that we used the Book of Mormon much more than the bible and she said that she didn't want to give that up. She also wondered why she would have to be baptized again. We had talked to her about those things before, but this time we seemed to have the spirit helping us a long and it seemed that in her mind the concerns were beginning to be resolved. She said that she would pray about it and would be baptized when she received a confirmation that it was true. She had been praying, but she wasn't receiving an answer. We weren't sure why. We have come to realize that she is expecting a vision instead of just a feeling. Haitians have visions a lot, but that isn't the only way God will answer them. We committed her to a date, but she wanted it on her birthday in May instead of sooner. At first she utterly refused to have a date. We told her the reason that she wasn't getting an answer was because she wasn't willing to put her faith in God and accept a date. Then she agreed to May. Finally we got her to agree to March 6th.

We were so happy and everything was actually seeming to work out, but then it all just fell apart a few days ago. She had a deeper concern, but she was so stubborn that she was hiding it until now. Her Dad goes to the Catholic church. She goes to the seventh day church on Saturday, but he wants her to go with him to church on Sunday. He is super controlling. She is 41 but he treats her like a child. She came to church twice instead of going with him and he yelled at her both times. She told him about wanting to get baptized and he said that he would throw her and her two grown up kids out of the house if she did. She doesn't have a job and she just barely got here and doesn't know anyone else, so she is stuck. Her dad has a job and is supporting the family. Plus he is paying for the kids' college. If she gets baptized, he also threatened to not pay for their college expenses either. She could get a job and pay for a house, but there is no way she could pay for two kids to go to college too. Plus her dad had yelled at her a lot before and he threatened to beat her the other day. He has her pasport and apparently he said he would send her back to Haiti. I don't know how that works with her being 41, but she is pretty much backed up into a corner and there is no way out.

She called us from another phone at another Haitains house because her phone is shared by the whole family and she didn't want her dad knowing about it. We can't go over to the house with him around anymore because she is afraid of making him even more angry. But she is having us over tomorrow at 2:15 after she gets back from school and before her dad returns from work. Pray for Vonette. We are praying for a miracle to happen so that she can get baptized. Elder Rybin said that it might not be her time yet and that she might have to wait for her situation to change so that she can find the gospel again. That may be right, but I don't know what is going to happen.

We have 7 people getting baptized though. We are super excited. I have to go but will talk to you later. Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

President and Sister Hale with Elder Seamons and his apartment mates January 2011

"We have many promising investigators"

January 24, 2011

Dear family and friends,


We had a very good week. We had a lot of members come out with us and they are fellowshipping our investigators. We have several people who are very promising and are willing to meet with us and do the assignments that we asked them to do.

We had stake conference this week and the theme was "to the rescue." It was about how to bring people back into the church and the gospel who have fallen away. This is a big deal because there are 800 people who are supposed to come into our ward and live in our boundaries, but only 200 of them actually come. Many of them are Haitians and people who got recently baptized. Out of all the Haitians who were baptized in the last year or so, only half of them are still active in the church. It is really sad. Some of them got turned off by Anti-mormon stuff, others just have other priorities, and others have just disappeared and we can't contact them at all. There is a lot of work to do in this area. We need to change things and help the church grow and progress to be the way it is supposed to.

We have someone who was supposed to be baptized on the 30th of this month named Antoniel, but he didn't come to church this Sunday which means he hasn't been to church enough times and we talked to his cousin Isenada, who is a recent convert and she said he has a girl friend here, which is a problem because he also has a wife in Haiti. It is a common problem with Haitian men. Many of them have wives in Haiti and have a girlfriend or something else. Many of them have many kids, which have different moms. We are going to have to push back his baptismal date and talk to him about that on Tuesday night when we see him.

We are teaching this girl named Gennger and her Mom Itasienne. Gennger is awesome! She loves reading and writing poems and she has a lot of questions and understands what we teach her really well. She told us that she gets discouraged a lot and has a lot of confusion from the things that so many people have told her about religion. She really wants to follow God. We asked her if she would be baptized when she knew what we were saying was true, and she said yes. She said that her Mom was okay with it too. We are very excited and we can see so many ways that we can help her in her life.

We are also teaching Natasha, who is the daughter of Elder Rybin's recent convert in Fort Lauderdale. She has a family and she said she wanted to go to a church where people lived what they preached. She had grown up as a Jehovah’s Witness. She agrees that there are so many conflicting opinions in other religions. We told her about how she can receive a confirmation from God by the power of the Holy Ghost and she agreed whole-heartedly to that.

We had another situation where the parents don't want us teaching their children. We had a lesson planned with Daline this Thursday, but it didn't work out because she was still at school. We called her (her Mom is the one with a phone) and her Mom answered. She was telling us that we didn't need to come and visit Daline because she was converted in another church already and that she didn't want her going to multiple churches at the same time. We told her that we aren't trying to take away from anything she had before, but that we were trying to build upon her relationship with God. We aren't very happy with that. We know that Daline still wants to meet with us, but her Mom doesn't like it. We want to talk to her just so we can ask her how she feels and to have her talk to her Mom about how she wants to get baptized in this church, but it is hard because she doesn't have her own phone. If she talks to her mom and she still doesn't let her meet with us, we will let it go, but hopefully that will make things better. We told Peter, who is her neighbor, to tell her to call us when she gets home so that we could talk to her, but she didn't come home until later. We are going to continue to try to get a hold of her. There are so many youth whose parents are holding them back from meeting with us. They think we are there to mess with their minds and force them into joining our church. Hopefully they will find the missionaries when they are older.

I hope I don't get transferred because we have so many people who will be baptized next transfer. I want to be here to see it all happen. I will be very sad if that is the case. We have many promising investigators. We are very excited.

But everything else is going wonderfully. I hope that everything is going well at home. I don't really think too much about that anymore. I love you all! Bye!



Love,



Elder Seamons

"Elder Rybin and are are working well together." "I feel that I am at about an eight right now."

January 18th, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,


This week we met a family of four Haitians: two cousins named Elvie and Bonnie, and their daughters Valerie and Sabrina. Elvie lost everything in the earthquake in Haiti and is now living with Bonnie. Elvie doesn't have a job right now. Bonnie loves the church. She says that Mormons are Christian people and that they look out for each other and teach good principles. She thinks very highly of us. She wants her daughter to get baptized. She knows that the church has a reputation for having high moral standards and is full of honorable people. She told us that she has a problem smoking and wants us to help her with this problem. She also told us that she doesn't believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God but rather that He was a good man who taught good principles. This is really weird for a Haitian. I have only met two other Haitians like this. One was Islamic, and the other was an atheist, but the atheist one was about 25 years old and grew up in America and spoke English perfectly. No traditional Haitian would have those beliefs. If you did, you would be an outcast. Everyone believes in Jesus Christ in Haiti, save very few people. We are going to help her gain a testimony of this. We met them last week and they came to church this Sunday. They all loved the experience, especially Sabrina and Valerie. They said that they felt it was very personal, and that they learned a whole bunch. They said it was better than Calvary Chapel, which is very renowned in southern Florida (just look up Pastor Bob. He is actually a disfellowshipped member of the church. He is very anti-Mormon.) They also loved it because it wasn't a Haitian church, which all of the Haitian youth hate because the pastor just yells the same things and it is not edifying at all. I have been to Haitian churches here and I don't like them.

We had an awesome lesson with a girl named Daline who is a freshman in high school. We have taught so many young women. Many of them should have been baptized. The problem is that their parents don't like the church or don't want them changing religions, so we have to stop teaching them because the parents tell us to go away. She is related to one of our Recent converts named Peter Septembre. She is from Gonaiv, Haiti. She speaks perfect English though. I think she has six years in the United States. She is very intelligent and always tries to find out what is true and what is not true. She recognizes that there are many different religions and that there are many people She says that she loved church and that she feels different every time we go over there. She said that she wants to be baptized but she wants to make sure that she is ready. She doesn't care if she is doing things on her own. She told us that she doesn't need anyone else's approval and that she just wants to do what is right. Her mom doesn't like us coming over, but she doesn't care what her mom thinks. We had a lesson with Sister Quintaro, one of the councilors in the Young Women's presidency in the ward and Angela, who is a young woman convert into the church. It was an awesome lesson! We are seeing her Thursday at 2:00 with the Young Women's president, Sister Thurber. The only problem at this point is that Daline is in another church, which she is willing to leave, but her Pastor called her because she missed church to come to our church and she is conflicted about which one to go to. She told us that she would pray about where to go. We also gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon to read. I think we will give her a DVD about the Restoration when we see her again.

Elder Rybin and I are doing very well. We have several potential candidates for baptism right now. Most of our investigators right now are very open-minded and have a desire to change. They have all said that they want to be baptized. Elder Rybin and I are working more closely with the ward leaders, especially the YW presidency. We are telling them about the status of all the potential baptismal candidates who are in their class. We are having someone in their presidency, along with someone in the class to come to every lesson with these investigators. We are also working on getting them to call these investigators during the week to see how they are doing. Our AMT's are becoming more effective and are not done just to get better numbers. We have also eliminated all less active stop-by's and are only do that which is part of the ward mission plan. We haven't had a baptism in this ward for a while now, but we should have one coming up shortly.

Elder Rybin and I are working well together. He has taught me so much about missionary work. We are having a lot of success in finding people. We have a ton of really awesome investigators who are very prepared to be baptized. We just need to do our part to make sure that they are being fellowshipped and prepared well.

I am doing pretty well! I feel that I am at about an eight right now. [8 out of 10]

I have to go now. Bye! I love you all so much! Continue to pray for our investigators.

Pray for

Vonnette (she needs the courage to change religions, it is a bit of a problem for her) , Elvie and her family (her, Bonnie, Sabrina, and Valerie), Antoniel, Daline, Abel, Geudy, Batony, Lionel, Sainy, Marie Vicsamar, Itasienne and her family, Ludna, and Mestine. Those are the main ones. just take a few and choose which ones. If you do no one else, make sure Daline, Vonnette, and Elvie and her family are your main prayer priority. They are our top investigators right now.

Love,

Elder Seamons

"My first encounter with voodoo" "I was scared."

January 10, 2011


This week has been very interesting. Some of it was really good, and some of it didn't turn out so well.

On the 5th we had a really horrible day at first. Elder Rybin was sick with a cold, We had all of our appointments fall through. We had three appointments fall through and all the referrals we stopped by and called didn't answer their phones at all. Luckily one of the appointments we saw later. Her name is Jyna Jean-Fransois. She has been a member of 5 years now. The last time I heard anything from her was the beginning of last transfer when she was in a hospital in Fort Lauderdale and we sent Elder Rybin and Elder Steele to go give her a blessing. We did see Vonnette though. Vonnette has read the whole book of First Nephi and she understands it so well. She has also read the talk the President Monson gave on Charity, which I gave to her before the transfer started. She loved the talk.

Dabinsky got out of the Hospital. Dabinsky is Mona Jean Fransois's son who is 16. She is a recent convert that my MTC teacher Nate Nelson baptized. The day of transfers she called us and told us that her son was in the hospital. I couldn't understand everything she said. Later we found out that he had been stabbed in the heart and that he was bleeding all over the street. Their house is two streets over from the hospital. God really did save his life. They said that if he had been five minutes later to the hospital, he would have died. It is also a miracle that he recovered so quickly. He was stabbed on the 28th of December and he got out on the 8th of January. We visited his three or four times during his recovery in the hospital. Mona wants to move out of that neighborhood after the whole incident. The scary part is that he was stabbed on the street that Mona lives on. He was stabbed a house or so down from where Jyna lives, which is on the same street. Luckily that has not been known to happen very often. Mona is so awesome. She is so nice and she is always asking us to come over and to pray for her. She has so much faith.

I also had an extremely weird experience this week. It was my first encounter with voodoo. I was scared. There is this investigator named Odeline has been visited by the missionaries since May when Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson started visiting with her. All of the family is very cool and likes us a lot. The Mom is just super stubborn. She loves us too, but she isn't interested in the Gospel and she just doesn't pay attention. She sometimes listens, but she is a goof off and she just doesn't care. She doesn't go to church and she isn't even that into religion at all, so we are puzzled as to why she won't let Odeline get baptized. Onide loves us. The other elders found out that she was into voodoo back in Haiti. She used to go to church, but then she got into voodoo and stopped going. Well, we thought that we should focus the lesson on Onide, the mom. We were asking questions to get to know her. We asked the question, "Onide, How is your relationship with God." Then she burst into tears and bent over and put her hands on her face. Elder Rybin and I thought that she might have a hard past and that she was going to go into it and that we finally got her to tell the missionaries. But then she started doing weird stuff. She was stomping her feet and hitting herself, and then she was trying to get away from everyone and she ran into her room. She came out and looked like she was in a complete trance. She was bobbing her shoulders up and down and humming songs. Odeline, Isenada who is her friend and is a recent convert, and the rest of the family said that they were songs that dealt with Voodoo. Onide wasn't even responding when we were talking to her and she would hum, do weird motions, and she would pace slowly around the room. She was leaning up against the wall at one point. She even tried to go outside. It is really hard to explain, but she wasn't pretending. Isenada was friends with this family since she was in Haiti and she said that Onide has done this for years ever since she got into voodoo. Odeline said that she had friends whose parents were into voodoo and had similar things happen. They would lose control and go into fits and hit themselves, cry, scream, and do other weird things. Onide has this happen every year during certain months and it has been a problem that they have dealt with since they have been young. Marie, the youngest, was so scared and was starting to cry. The rest of the family just shrugged it off because they had seen it so much growing up. Elder Rybin and I tried to give her a blessing, but she wouldn't stand still long enough. She sat down on the couch and stayed put for a tiny bit and we started to give the blessing, but then she started freaking out and stood up and tried to get away. We started doing the blessing and followed her and did it while we were walking, but then she got away and ran outside. It was super weird. We left and went to our next appointment. We had a lesson with one of Isenada's friends and she was helping us teach him. We asked her what happened. She said that Onide came around and she asked why we weren't there anymore and she didn't believe them when they said what happened. I don't know why she doesn't. We don't know what to do about the whole Voodoo issue. That isn't the biggest problem. The problem is that she can change, but she isn't very willing right now. We don't know how to help Onide. She has been so difficult and we haven't had success in helping her. We decided to do a morning study where we turned to a part in the book of Mormon and read until we found an answer as to what we should do to help her. Turned to a random part in the Book of Mormon and started to read. I read Alma 59-60, and then I turned to another random part and read Mosiah 27. We received some cool revelation about how we can help her. We decided that we need to bring people over who can help her and be her friend, some of them who have had the Voodoo problem and can help her through it. We also read a scripture about how we can pray with great faith that someone can be brought to knowledge of the truth. We are going to pray that she has an experience that will bring her the gospel and help her realize that she needs to change.

I am learning so much on the mission. I can't even begin to write my experiences down. I will just do my best and let God do the rest. I know that what I am teaching is true and I know that Jesus Christ can help me solve any problem and that as long as we are together, nothing can stop us. It has been very hard, but I am loving it. I just hope that I can make as much change on the mission as I desire and that I can help others come unto Christ.

I have to go now. Bye! I love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons

"I think this transfer will change my entire life."and "I am having to grow into a big boy."

Note from Mom- This is an interesting letter to read. If you know Eric, you know that he is a perfectionist and takes everything hard and expects that he needs to do it all. We will caution him to take it down a few notches and realize that this is normal for missionaries to be overwhelmed when they are suddenly responsible for more things and that he doesn't have to do everything perfectly. I expect in time, he will learn to balance things more, as all of us have as we have gotten older and gotten more complex things to deal with. It didn't help that he, being an anxious person, had to go through the experience of someone accidentally taking his backpack and not finding it for a week.

January 5th, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been such a humbling week for me. It was one of the hardest I have ever had. It was hard in a different way than the last trouble I had. I realize how much I relied on Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson. I let them take the front wheel in many areas. Now I am the one with the most experience in my area. I know how to get to several places from memory, but that was just because I remembered which places to turn at from a certain starting point. I found out that from other starting places, I was just as lost as Elder Rybin. I also realized that I relied on the GPS so much that I just forgot certain places we went to if we didn't go to it to many times. I also realized how many members of the ward that I knew. I didn't go up and talk to any ward members to get to know them. I just listened to the conversations that Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson had with ward members they already knew. I am only familiar with the ones we use a lot, and I don't know where several of those people's houses are. I realize now that I need to get to know everyone, memorize the area and create a complete map of the main roads in my head. I worked hard on trying to learn the Gospel and I focused on the investigators a lot, but I let Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson do many of the planning details. I would make suggestions of people who I thought we should see, but I wasn't thinking about how many miles it would take for all of the appointments during the day or if we would have enough time to get between two appointments. Wow, I have made so many mistakes in this regard. If I could take back the last four months, I would have done those so differently. It has been so hard. I have been so discouraged.


Elder Rybin is such a good teacher! He is really good at teaching "people and not lessons." He really asks people thought-provoking questions and searches and gets to know who they are. He tries really hard to remember all of the details about them. He is a very good missionary. He is very good at balancing all of the important aspects of missionary work. He has a very bright future ahead of him.

There are many things that I neglect just because I am not good at keeping everything in focus. I realize now that I need to put myself out and just press forward. I have felt so low and inadequate these past few days. This is the biggest stretch of my skills and abilities that I have ever had. I really need to grow up and start doing things for myself. I took many things for granted. I just knew that certain things worked out without me putting effort into it and I went on. I need to focus on every aspect of missionary work, including the logistical things like planning out where I am going and plan out when I am going to take the mission car in to be fixed.

Elder Rybin didn't voice it out loud, but there were several things that he was surprised that we didn't do. For example, the car we had had never been taken in to be checked, nor had we done a super deep cleaning of the apartment. Many times we just left certain things the way they are. I just did what Elder Bolz and Elder Anderson told me too. It is not totally their fault. I should have thought about certain details more. I know one of the reasons I am here in Coconut Creek and why I have Elder Rybin as my companion. He has taught me so much this week! I had to be in the same area so that I couldn't rely on someone else leading me around. I needed to step from behind the backs of the people who have been leading me and taking care of me for so long and face the problems and challenges of life with my talents and abilities. I am having to grow up a lot. I think this transfer will change my entire life. I have had to face up to many things which I didn’t fully need to before. I had many skills before which would help me have success, but I wasn't fully ready to live completely on my own with no one managing any part of my living conditions. Mom, even in college I had you to help me with signing up for classes and housing. Now I have the Mission office to take care of many of those negotiations. I am having to learn to deal with things on my own. Well, I am never truly dealing with things on my own, because God is with me, but I am having to learn to use the talents that he gave to me to deal with those challenges. I am having to grow into a big boy. I thought I already was to a certain extent, but I now know that I have a several things to learn before that happens.

I get super nervous when I wake up at 5:45 and realize that in 45 minutes, we will be starting the new day. It just gives me a lot of anxiety. I don't feel on top of everything right now. I feel like there is so much for me to handle. I don't feel l like I am being a very good missionary right now. It has been a rough week.

After the transfers meeting, we had a small luncheon and we got to socialize with the other missionaries. I put my backpack in the back of the cultural hall. Afterwards, I couldn't find it in the place where I had put it. I looked everywhere in the cultural hall and in the chapel, in case I had left it there somehow. We went to the mission office and sent out a mass text to the whole mission about it. I told President and Sister Hale and the assistants about the bag. I haven't had the bag for a whole week. That has also been adding to my anxiety and discouragement. Sister Hale spent an hour and a half at the Plantation church building where the event took place and looked in every area of the church with her kids and a family friend. She got the keys from the bishop so that she could check in his office too, just in case. She found nothing. She says she has been praying about my bag a lot because it has a lot of important items in it. They then sent out another mass text about it again. Then a missionary called our cellphone and said that he had accidentally picked up that bag, thinking that it was his companions, which was the same type of backpack (I think his companion had his bag, so the other one was left unnoticed somewhere.) The senior couples go down south a lot, so they are going to go to the Miami lakes south apartment to get the bag. That was a great thing for me! I am so grateful to Sister Hale for her efforts.

Sorry, but I have to go.

Keep on praying for me.

Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

"I am staying in Coconut Creek!"

Be sure to check out the Christmas card at the bottom!

Tuesday December 28th


Hi Everyone! I am staying in Coconut Creek! I am very excited. Elder Anderson, my companion is getting transferred though. I am very sad about that. I heard from Elder Bolz he is staying, but Elder Rybin is being transferred. Elder Anderson is not training. We are all pretty certain that my next companion will be Elder Rybin. I am very excited about that. He was in my MTC district. We are going to be so busy this transfer. We are getting this Ward Mission Plan mobilized. We have slacked off so much when it comes to working with the ward leaders. That will change very soon. I have several things that I am hoping to change.

We are going to make sure that we keep in contact with the auxiliaries so much more than we have. They are supposed to know all of our investigators by name. We have been so bad at that.

There is no unity between the Haitian and White parts of the ward because of the language barrier. They don't communicate at all. I want to bring up in PEC the idea of starting a Creole class for the English members, so that they can learn how to communicate with the Haitian members. We might even call him this week about that. That would change a lot of things if the English Members started reaching out to the Haitian members better.

I feel so overwhelmed trying to take over this area. I know all of the members and all of the people who are in it, so I will have to take care of a lot of things.

I have had some great experiences this week. We still have about four people with a date for them to be baptized.

Church is one of the most frustrating things. It is so stressful. We have people whose rides are falling through, people who wake up late and say they won't come anymore, members who call asking for rides, people getting upset saying that the ride we sent for them wasn't there, etc. Church is the most stressful three hours of the week. We are running around setting up equipment, solving ride problems, talking to Haitians about welfare issues that they want to bring up to the bishop, etc. It is a lot of fun though. It is very rewarding.

We had a really cool experience with Vonnette, our investigator who has read the first 17 chapters in 1 Nephi. She understands them all perfectly. She had a dream where someone was shooting at her and she fell into a hole. When she felt her back, she didn't feel any bullet wounds or blood in her back. Jesus pulled her out of the pot hole she was in. The thing that she said helped her is that she was holding the Book of Mormon and never let go of it for any reason. She said that it made it so that she couldn't be harmed at all. Elder Anderson and I were so happy about that after that appointment with her. The only thing she needs now is good fellowship and church attendance. She has been praying and still has not received an answer.

We are thinking that it might be because she is expecting God to tell her in a dream to get baptized in our church. She knows the book of Mormon is from God. She just needs to know that what we are teaching her about everything else is true. The book of Mormon is supposed to give that knowledge. It will just take time for the connection to hit.

Christmas is a normal procelyting day, except for the dinner appointments with the members. It just depends on who invites us over.

For Christmas, we went over to the Crance's house at 7:30 in the morning for breakfast. They had muffins, juice, sausage, and other things. They also did a white elephant exchange. They got six ties and each missionary got a bag. When someone opens the bag, they can either keep it or exchange it. It was a lot of fun. Sister Crance and her parents are all converts. Their parents were there too.

After that we went to Oswald's house.

After that we went to the Hillsammer's house. Sister Hillsammer makes the best food. She does everything homemade because Brother Hillsammer has an allegy to dyes in foods and artificial flavoring. So does their daughter Kate. While the food was cooking, we put together a scooter and a car garage car set with tracks for their adopted son Joseph. Brother Hillsammer is 60 and sister Hillsammer is 45ish. They got married in 2004. Brother Hillsammer works in a hospital doing respiratory resuscitation. He works with a lot of newborns. Brother Hillsammer's sister Nancy came over with her husband John, who are both non members. We taught them a lesson. Nancy was very open to it.

Well, I need to go now. I will tell you about what happens with everything this week. Bye! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Seamons

P.S. Thanks for the Packages and letters everyone! I am so grateful for everyone who gave me wonderful Christmas gifts.