"We have more investigators coming to church than ever. "

August 29, 2011

Hello everyone! This was an amazing week! We have many great things going on. This week was the "White night" [I assume this has something to do with the baptismal clothes being white] Baptismal night. The stake had a goal for 100 baptisms. There were 18. We were still really happy though. Elder Giorgino and Elder Edwards had 5 baptisms, which was awesome! Merline, one of the people being baptized, was someone that Elder Shipley and I found, so we were really happy. They are all very prepared and have very strong testimonies of the restored gospel already.


We have more investigators coming to church than ever. We had six investigators and one non-member come this week. Kattia, Kervins, and Fabiola, brother and two sisters came. Kattia especially loved the church. They stayed after for the baptism, which is good, because those are very powerful spiritual experiences for investigators and 80% of all people who go to see a baptism end up seeing their own.

Duponte is doing very well. He is very self-motivated and self-reliant. We don't have to get a ride for him or anything. He just made friends and got a ride from some members himself. That is a big faith growing step: when their desire motivates them to come without being asked. We realize that we need to work better on making sure that our investigators have that testimony. They are doing the actions, but now they need to have the conversion.

Ernst, his wife Carrine, and his daughter Karen all came to the Saturday night baptism on the bus. They liked it a lot. Carrine is feeling the spirit. We can tell. When we are in lessons with the whole family, the spirit is so strong. That is how they are meant to be taught, as a family. We won't make the mistake of just focusing on one person in the family alone. The family is the most important unit in the church. I know that is true.

Some interesting things have happened this week. Kattia has a crush on me. It happens with Haitian girls that only speak Creole. They think that a white guy who speaks the same language is interesting. We have been dealing with that the whole week. Last week she called three times a day for two to three days, then I just told her to not call so much but text when she had questions. Then she asked personal questions and she asked me out on a date. I told her that I couldn't as a missionary and she asked me how much time I had left. She told me to do a good job on the mission and that we would stay in contact and talk later. Elder Shipley and I were freaking out about it for a while. We can't pass her to YSA because she only speaks Creole. We wondered if she was keeping her commitments just for me, but then she ready 6 chapters in the book of Mormon and we didn't ask her to read that far. Then she understood mostly everything and had some very insightful questions. But then she wants to know about me to. I told her that I would stop texting if she didn't pull back a little bit and I told her they could send me away. I had Elder Shipley text her, but she threatened to not come to church. We talked her into coming and she actually is doing a lot better than she was. She is turning out to be a very good progressing investigator. I wanted to drop her because I was tired of dealing with it, but she is calming down a lot. We know for sure that she does have a sincere interest in the gospel. She is doing very well. We are going to give her and her brother Kervins a baptismal date.

Cemania is now officially dropped. She stopped texting us for several days. She had done that before. We texted her and told her that we knew that she was to afraid to tell us she didn't want to continue, but that we knew the message is true. We asked her if she wanted to continue. She texted and said no. She decided not to get baptized in any church. She said there is just too much confusion. The other two times that we tried to help her continue the studies, I felt a strong feeling to continue. But this time the spirit restrained me and told me to let her go. I got the impression that she would come and meet the missionaries again in the future, and that she would me more prepared. She said she was really sad to say goodbye and that she loved us. I don't feel too sad, because I know that it will all work out for her if she does what she is supposed to. She has great desires. She just is confused and she needs some time to ponder.

Carlo is back in the mix of people who can get baptized within a week or so. Carlo's Supervisor got a call from a place in Hialeah asking how hard of a worker he was, how reliable he was, etc. They realized that he was trying to leave the job because he couldn't get Sundays off. He has worker at the place for 25 years and he is a very good worker, so they don't want to lose him. His boss let him come to church this Sunday and today he will tell us what his boss said about all Sundays in the future. We pray that the president of the company's heart will be softened as well. His supervisor definitely has been.

Things are going well. We haven't been as obedient as we should have been. We haven't been doing an hour of Harvesting the Field because of how many people we have to teach. It is definitely making a difference in the spirit we feel as a companionship. I have to go now. Bye everyone! I love you!

Love,

Elder Seamons