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

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

"Pray for me that I will have a fantastic end to the mission"

April 30, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,
 

This week has been pretty good. We don't have any investigators that are seriously progressing at this point, but we did meet some amazing people though. We met one person named Alex, on the 20th, who lives in government housing for a program and he was kicked out of his parent's home and he has had a rough time. He said that the blessing we left with him left him hopeful. He wants to be baptized. We hope he ends up getting to that point. We took Brother Manzur, who is 21-22 and is married and has a child and another one on the way, over to his house yesterday and he helped Alex open up a ton. He was a great fellowship for him. Our exchange yesterday went really well. There was also a woman named Wisline who was Haitian that we came across. We were about to leave the area we were working in, then I saw a woman at the top of the stairs leading up to the apartment complex. I felt that we should talk to her. She walked away before we could, but we went up to the complex and started knocking doors. We didn't find her, but we found Wisline and she has accepted a return appointment for Tuesday. You never know what will happen if you don't try.

We also had another cool experience. We were out on bike on Friday and Elder Pearce saw a man and we passed him, but he was thinking about giving a card to him. Later on, Elder Pearce's bike was going flat again and we had to stop multiple times to pump it up. Then we passed the same man that Elder Pearce saw earlier and we talked to him. If we hadn't had all of those problems, along with several other things that happened, we wouldn't have seen him. Elder Pearce recognized his shirt. Right as we passed the second time, He was digging in the trash and drinking something he found in it. Elder Pearce thinks he is probably homeless. His name is Kevin Olmar. He also told us that he is Hypo-Glycimic, which means he has a low sugar count. Elder Pearce gave him some granola bars for him to eat and we gave him our phone number. We were happy that we could be their right when he needed us, even if he doesn't end up calling. He will have the card and remember how he felt and how we were there, even years down the road.

Marius has been unsure about baptism lately. He used to understand that he needed to be baptized to receive the Holy Ghost (Act 19), but now he is starting to second guess it. Fernand has been impeding his progress. We gave him a scare when in the last lesson we told him that he had heard our message and that it was time for him to accept it or reject it. He asked if we said that because he wasn't being baptized a second time. Both him and Fernand begged us to have patience with them and he said that eventually, he may come to the decision. They both testified of how much of a difference we made in their lives and Fernand started crying. She said that we were there for her when her sister died and she said that it would hurt really bad when I left and I would no longer be their to translate anymore. I promised them that I would stay in contact with them after the mission. They know I am almost done. Marius assured us that are efforts were not in vain. We gave him a whole bunch of copies of the Book of Mormon and he has agreed to share them with his pastor friends in Haiti, as well as with his sunday school class. They are a great family. We hope that us telling him these things has motivated him a little more to act.

I have been worried about my teaching ability lately. I feel a lot less confident than usual. Sometimes I notice that if I have a companion that is a lot more assertive, then I stand back and they move forward, then I feel more nervous about teaching. We have been learning about teaching to the desires of the investigators verses just teaching a lesson. We teach the why so that their desires to act will increase. It has been challenging to find a why for each individual and knowing how to ask the right questions to get to the root interests and wants of the investigators. But it will come. I realize that I just need to love the people and keep teaching them and getting to know them and God will bless me with my desires. I will just let God direct me. Sometimes I have noticed that thinking about something too much inhibits my abilities. I need to keep it in my mind, but continue to move forward while I do. Then God will give me the ability to improve.

Well, I need to go. I love you all! Pray for me that I will be able to have a fantastic end to the mission and that our investigators, Especially Alex, will continue to progress and feel the power of our message!

Bye!

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Seamons

P.S.

Just a few quick notes: Elizabeth and Jamie are both active and doing well. And at the service activity where the family from Fort Lauderdale moved in, Peterson was there (the boy whose mom wouldn't let him get baptized and was giving him a hard time). He is baptized, confirmed, and he has made friends with the boys his age. He has changed a lot and he is doing so well. It made me so happy to see him.

Hi President! We are doing well! We don't have people that are progressing super well, but we have found a lot of amazing people that have potential. We realize that in order to sift through these people and find the elect, we need to hit standards so that we can teach and effect as many people as possible. We have seen wonders and the work has picked up since we have been obedient to your counsel. It has been great. We are a little worried about what will happen to this area in the next few transfers. There are so many Spanish and Creole speakers that we are teaching, that if there were only two English missionaries in this area, it would be very hard for the work to be progressing the way it has. We feel their needs to be at least one language missionary, preferably two (one English and one Creole). But we are doing our best to refine our skills in teaching and to improve the area. We love you President!

Love,

Elder Seamons

2 baptisms and "Don't know what will happend, but whatever does, the Lord is in it"

April 23rd, 2012

Hi Everyone!

We had a really great week. Elizabeth and Jamie were baptized this Sunday! I have some pictures I will send to you. The service was super spiritual and they both have very strong testimonies. They were both ready and God worked miracles and enabled them to get baptized this week.

Elizabeth (16 years old) has been meeting with the missionaries for two years. She used to go to the same high school as Luis. He befriended her and introduced her to the missionaries. She is so involved in the church. She has given out five books of Mormon, she has born her testimony several times, and she has been involved with the young women's group. She left her record with some other paper from school that she needed to be signed. She went back to retrieve them later and saw her Mom's signature on the baptismal record. We found out when we went to the church on Wednesday and everyone was gathered together for mutual activities. Everyone was so excited. 

Jamie (21 years old) is Brother V's daughter-in-law (Brother Vega owns Pop-eyes). She lived in Kendall/Miami for her whole life and she moved up here within the last month. Her husband, Brad, has been less-active since he was about 18. He is starting to come back. They have an awesome family! Jamie and Brad came to church for the first time April 8th at 10:00. We met them and scheduled an appointment. Elder Pearce and Elder Marsh who were on an exchange taught her for the first time on Wednesday the 11th and gave her a Book of Mormon. On April 13th Elder Pearce and I taught her. We focused on how she was feeling from our message and from what she read. She said that she felt peace from what she read. We asked her if she wanted to feel that more often. She said yes. We invited her to be baptized on the 28th and she accepted. She came to church again on Sunday the 15th. Then Monday night (the 16th) we had Family Home Evening at Brother and Sister V's home with Jamie and Brad. We taught them about eternal families and the blessings that come from them. Everyone in the room was crying, most of all Jamie. We recommitted her to the 28th, since before she wasn't 100% certain. She said that she would, but the V's would be out of town that day. We told her we would do it that week. She accepted!

Setting up the service was a fiasco and everyone was shooting out ideas of what time to do it and there was so much miscommunication, but the service came together and it was one of the most spiritual services I have ever been to. We had the service in the V's backyard, which boarders the inner-coastal waterway and has a swimming pool. I actually like it better than a baptismal font, because their backyard is beautiful and it is a lot easier to baptize someone when the water is deep like that. No problems getting them all the way under. Luis baptized Elizabeth, and Brother V baptized Jamie.

The service started at 8:30 in the morning, so we walked from our apartment and got there by 8:00. They had several chairs in the back facing the pool with the piano on the side. I was asked to play the piano for the service. The opening hymn was Come Follow Me (116). Brother T gave the talk on Baptism and Sister V talked on the Holy Ghost, after which Elder Pearce and I did a musical number When I Am Baptized (103) from the Primary Children's Songbook. The spirit was so strong. Jamie was crying, and then it was Elizabeth's turn to be baptized. She needed to go under twice because Luis didn't say the right words. Then Jamie got baptized. We had a testimony meeting while they were changing, and then the branch and auxiliary group leaders welcomed them to the branch and to Young Women's/Relief Society. Then we had church at 10:00 and they were both given the Gift of the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting. Jamie went through this journey for two weeks. Elizabeth went through this journey for two years. It was amazing.

Bye!  I love you all!

Love,

Elder Seamons

Hi President Anderson!

What a great week we had! Through the power of the Spirit we were able to lead two people to motivate to act through increased desire. Jamie V came to church for the first time April 8th, and through helping her recognize the reasons for baptism and the blessings it can bring, she is now baptized two weeks later. Elizabeth C, after nearly two years of growing and building her testimony, she felt the motivation to act and summed up the courage to get her Mom to sign her baptismal papers. They both have the Gift of the Holy Ghost and they have super strong testimonies. One knows a ton about the church, and one knows not very much, but they both know it is true.

In our companionship, we learned that if we keep the commandments, obey the mission rules and the counsel given to improve our teaching, we will be happy missionaries. There were times where we felt that the standards were too much about the numbers, but we have come to balance the numbers and the souls in such a way that they work in harmony and it propels us forward so we can accomplish our maximum potential. God has called you to be our mission president, and I know that as I follow you and your counsel for the last transfer and a half of my mission, I will be blessed, and so will our companionship. I don't know what will happen with these last transfers, but whatever does, the Lord is in it.

I love you so much President! I will talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Seamons