We had 34 lessons this week, most of which were Spanish

Note from Mom- Eric is a Haitian missionary in his mission, but he has had the opportunity to use his Spanish in this area, which has been fun for him.   

Hi Everyone!

This week has been a really awesome week! We had 34 lessons this week, most of which were in Spanish. We have been leaving Harvest the Field blessings like crazy. We blessed 21 homes this week. The stake president, President Current said that the people could choose whether they would rather go to this branch because it is closer, or go up to Lauderhill, which is a Spanish Ward. We decided that we will have the Spanish Elders from that ward, which cover our area, come and teach all of these people, around 15 or more families, but they will come to our branch and a member will translate, and Sister Terron or Sister Contreras, who are only fluent in Spanish, will teach a Sunday school lesson to them.

Note from Dad: I told Eric that his 34 lessons this week is probably more than I taught my entire 18-month mission to England!

Edwin and Miriam are from Guatemala and they are progressing very well. We took Brother Terron over there with us last night and their interest was sparked by the message of the restoration. We thought that families and the plan of Salvation would interest them, since they have a whole family and two small girls, but somewhat know about it already. Miriam has had questions about how to know if someone was a true or false prophet. She has agreed to come to church, I think with her husband and family as well! We are really excited!

The area that we have spent most of our time at nowadays is Andrew's and ne 40th st and ne 40th ct in Oakland Park. There are so many Hispanics and Haitians there. Elder Pearce is really not feeling super useful because our number of language lessons is enormous lately. I have been studying Spanish for language study lately, but then I realized that even though we are teaching that a lot, my assigned language is Creole, so I need to stick to that. My Creole has taken a little bit of a dive since I haven't been teaching as many of them lately. But it is starting to pick up now that I am studying it more.

We found a Haitian man named Clement who studied with the missionaries for 4 years in Porte-au-prince. He was going to be baptized, but the day of his baptism, they put candle displays all around the room to light it up. He said, "there was fire in my baptism." That bothered him, so he stopped going. He is kind of an opinionated person, and makes a big deal of a lot of things. But he seems very open still and has agreed to come to church, when he can get work off. The problem is that he works in the Everglades and now he only works Saturday and Sunday, so he can't afford to get a day off with such few hours. He says that when things get busier are during other times of the year. But he is really awesome.

We met a nice lady named Shawn from Jamaica, which made Elder Pearce really happy because he could actually talk to her, and because she was Jamaican. She says that she has promised God several times that she would get baptized, but never ended up following through with it. She told us how, once, when she was living in England, she wanted to fly a child in to live with her, but she didn't have money for a ticket. There was a man driving a truck who felt inspired to stop and she told him that God wanted him to do something for her. He said that he couldn't do it, but she kept on persisting, so she told him she needed money to pay for a plane ticket, so he gave her the money and he also went with her to pick up her child from the airport since she didn't have a car. She promised God that if she could get the means to do that, she would get baptized. She is looking for a church that she can get baptized in as soon as possible and not need to take a class with them for a year or so beforehand. She has agreed to be baptized, but she has work problems. But we are excited to work with her.

Question from Mom: Is your Spanish good enough at this point that you can understand and help teach these people? How does Elder Pearce deal with all of the language teaching when he doesn't know the languages?

I can teach them a fair amount, but without studying it regularly, it is very difficult. With my skill level before the mission, I wouldn't have had a problem. Elder Pearce, when we first started, wanted me to translate, but now we have both realized that it can be a distraction and sometimes it is hard when I am focusing on what these people are trying to say while trying to translate at the same time in Spanish. My Spanish level now is such that I need to concentrate to be able to pick stuff up. But I can communicate with them very well still. We can have a full-blown conversation. Elder Pearce just lets me teach them, unless it is a serious investigator that we have been teaching for a long time, such as Marius and Fernand.

We saw Marius and Fernand this week. We decided that Fernand needs to be brought up to Marius' level, because she is never in the lessons because she either misses them completely or walks in late. So we went and taught Fernand the restoration and she said that of all things we have taught her, that has intrigued her the most and she feels that she actually understood it. She told us that she feels that God guided us to knock on her door. She says that every time we see her and she always gives us a hug. She is the cutest old Haitian lady. She is around 65 years old. We are going to teach her all the lessons and start focusing on her because we have put too much focus on Marius. If we had put more focus on her from the beginning, Marius may have been baptized already. She wasn't at the same spiritual level and she was dragging him down. He had a testimony, but she didn't, so she put doubts into his mind. But things are going a lot better. Marius shared the Book of Mormon with two people in his Sunday school class and he said he would follow up them the night we met with him, because he had a meeting at his church. We gave them a For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet in Creole, which they were very excited about. Marius told us that every time we came we brought something bigger and greater, which raised his desire, especially since he didn't see us every day and he had a greater desire to see us.

Jamie V and Elizabeth C, our new recent converts, are doing really well. Jamie has been to church every week since her baptism and Elizabeth is staying strong. Elizabeth was made first counselor in laurel's class and she has a super strong testimony of the Gospel. Her Home Teachers are Brother and Luis T, the ones that have been fellowshipping her. Branch missionaries have been assigned to go over to the T's and teach her the new member lessons. Brother and Sister V bought Jamie some new scriptures which they say she has been marking up. She was called to be Young Women's Secretary, so she will be working with her Mother in Law, Sister V, who is the President. She was excited about it. We had 90 people at sacrament meeting, which has been happening for multiple weeks now. We are so excited that the branch has been growing. Jamie now has a gospel principles book, a True to the Faith book, and a Book of Mormon Stories Children book. She is excited to have all these new materials to read in. She has a really strong testimony. She also recently figured out that her Dad and his whole side of the family were baptized into this church. Some of them are still active in it. She had no Idea. Her mom isn't a member of our church, but she is really supportive of Jamie's decision.

4:00-5:00 Elder pearce and I will be skyping from the Vega's home on Sunday. 30 minutes each.

We went sunrising as a district to day and we went to Denny's for breakfast. Elder Pearce and I, Elder Gray and Elder Koleber, and Elder Wood and Elder Marsh. Such good memories.

My time is up. I will talk to you later! Love you so much! Bye!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Dear President!

We are continuing to leave the savior's peace and blessing and many people are accepting it. We left 21 blessings on people's homes this last week.

We saw a woman braiding her daughters hair. We told her we were representatives of Jesus Christ and after she agreed to have the blessing, we told her we would get her information and pass by another time when she was not busy. She then asked if we could leave it then. We entered into the home and the full family, parent and two baptismal aged children were kneeled down with us. They felt the spirit in the blessing and they readily agreed to have us back. Some people are jumping to have us come in.

We also blessed another woman named Shawn from Jamaica who has the desire to be baptized now. She is looking for the chance to commit her to God. God has prepared people to receive baptism.

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

Love,

Elder Seamons