Letter: October 15, 2012

Hey family!!

It has been another fantastic week out here in Garden Grove. We have

once again seen a lot of miracles. We were tried this week too, but we

tried our best to work diligently and it paid off.

So we spent a lot of time this week at a certain house/street. The

family we often visit is the home of two recent converts. They are the

Familia Gomez. They are awesome. They've invited so many of their

family members to listen to us and to come to church. Many accepted

the invitation. I'll give you the names and what is going on with

them. They actually end up being about half of our investigators.

So first we have Ines and her daughter Kate. They were listening to

the missionaries before I got to this area. They never really

accepted baptism until my first week here. They have a date for the

fourth of November. We kind of got really worried about them because

they actually live outside of our area. President Bowen has given us

permission to teach them though. We don't really have the time to go

out there, but if we get lucky we can catch them at the Gomez home. Up

to about Friday we hadn't seen them, which worried me because we need

to see them in order to be able to teach them what they need to know

and do in order to be prepared to be baptized. We went over to the

Gomez home to celebrate the birthdays of Hma Gomez and one of her

daughters Jocelyn. We went and sure enough Ines was there. She

brought up a great question. "Why don't you believe in drinking

coffee?" I took this opportunity to teach her about the Word of

Wisdom. I even pulled out the Doctrine and Covenants to show her what

it says and the beautiful promise that is given to us if we follow

this commandment. She loved it, and she told us that she is going to

give up drinking coffee and drinking. It was awesome, and she also

committed to church and came. She loved the classes too. So she is

doing really well. We just need to see her daughter Kate. We'll get

there "poco a poco"

So the next person is awesome. Her name is Daisy. It is the cousin of

the familia Gomez. I guess she had seen the missionaries before and

when we got here she asked her cousin Dania (one of the recent

converts) if she could get taught by the missionaries. She is about

sixteen years old, and is a faithful Christian. Which is really good.

The first time we taught her was on Saturday night. We taught her in

this huge group of like ten people at the home of the familia Gomez.

We taught her, Ines, and their neighbor. It was kinda crazy. We taught

her the restoration. She showed a lot of interest in reading the Book

of Mormon. She even came to church as well. She thought it was very

interesting. It was a lot different than the church she attends, but

she wants to learn more. We are seeing her tonight as we do a FHE (Family Home Evening) with the familia Gomez.

We also have Ana. She is doing better. We finally got her to commit

to a date. We wrote a plan out with her about how we are going to help

her get baptized. She picked the date for the 16th of January. We are

going to work with her and get her for that date. In the meanwhile we

actually talked to her 11 year old and 8 year old sons about the Word

of Wisdom. They loved it and committed to live it. The 8-year-old son

has a really big desire to get baptized. So we believe that we are

going to put our main focus in them. They both (the sons) actually

came to church. It was a miracle. So we are doing good there

too.

We also had a HUGE miracle last night with Gudelia. We went over

yesterday morning to invite her to church. She had already gone to a

Catholic church with her family. We decided to comeback later that

night. We did so, it was perfect timing too because she showed up

right when we did. We played around with the kids for a minute and

then had a lesson with them. Afterwards we went and taught Gudelia. We

had planned about a week back to teach her about the covenant of

baptism and the importance of being baptized. So we started by reading

with her in 3 Nephi 11:37. Then we explained how baptism is a

commandment. Then the spirit really kicked in. It got to be so strong

that I was literally opening my mouth and not even knowing what I was

saying. It was awesome. I had the prompting to open up Mosiah 18:8-10

and read it with her. I followed it. She explained how she knows what

we teach is true, and how the Book of Mormon is true. And how willing

she is to keep that covenant. I told her to read verse ten. You could

feel it strike all of us with the powerful feeling of the spirit. Then

I had another prompting to invite her to be baptized again. She has

been invited at least 100 times by the missionaries that have been

teaching her. She accepted to be baptized. She accepted  to be

baptized on the 11th of November. We are going to have to work so hard

to get her ready, but we can do it. It was such a great lesson. It was

so cool to see Doctrine and Covenants 84:85 fulfilled. It was

awesome!!

So that is really who we have right now. We are still teaching a lot

of great people who are reading out of the Book of Mormon and are

praying. We have also faced a lot of difficulties as well. We went

over to see Araceli on Friday and she opened the door and yelled, "I've

been trying to hide from you guys! Here is your book, and I don't want

you guys to come back to teach us ever again, Thank you and Goodbye!"

It was pretty devastating, but we decided not to let it bug us and

press forward, and we have been blessed with so many miracles.

I'm so grateful for all of the blessings our Father in Heaven has

given us. We still have a lot of work to do here. I know that as we

work diligently we will be blessed. I have been reading a lot about

that in the Book of Mormon. In the book of Helaman is all about when

Nephi goes out and preaches. He was rejected, but it talks about how

he went about with "unwearied diligence" In the end we can see that as

he did that the Lord made him so strong. In 3 Nephi 7 we learn that as

he worked diligently that his testimony and teachings were so powerful

that the people, even though they didn't like it, could not deny it to

be the truth. So amazing, and I know that that is true. So always be

diligent, no matter how hard things or times may be, and then "if thou

endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high"

I know this church is true! Thank you for everything! I love you all

and can’t wait to hear from you soon! Les Amo siempre, y tengan una

buena semana!

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton