Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Letter from January 22, 2013


Hey all!!

What a great week it has been, once again. Just the chance to be a missionary right now in the world is so great. I love it so much!

First of all, I want to wish my Mom a Happy Birthday!! I hope that you had a great birthday mom. I just want you to know of the love that I have for you and all you have done for me. You have always been there for me. You are the best! I love you and hope that you know that I will always love you.

So we have had a few great experiences with the people we are teaching. First, we have Daisy. We had a few great experiences with her. I went on exchanges with Elder Centeno and taught her. We had a great discussion about church and why we go to church. About how it's a great time to partake of the Sacrament and also we can receive a lot of revelation for questions that we might have. She committed to come to church and she did come. It was awesome. Also, during the week we were talking about baptism. I ask her this question/statement "So Daisy, it's not that you don't know if you want to be baptized. You just don't feel prepared to be baptized, correct?" She nodded her head as I made that statement. On the inside I wanted to jump up and down. Because she knows this is something that she needs to do. Now she just needs to be prepared. We were able to set a goal to have her prepared and ready to be baptized by the 10th of Feb. It was awesome. So we are going to have some great experiences with her.

We have also been talking to Anita, the mother of Anthony and José. She is progressing. It’s a very slow progression, but nonetheless she is progressing. She is reading the Book of Mormon. She is praying. We had a great lesson with her like we did with Daisy. She is getting there. We were helping her try to recognize an answer from God about this message. I asked her "Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is inspired by God?" She was able to answer that “yes, it is”. We read in Moroni 7:13,16-17 about how anything that invites us to follow Christ and His teachings is inspired by God. She believes it. So then we read the introduction of the Book of Mormon. In the very end it says that those who gain a testimony will know that Jesus Christ is our savior, and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet and that the true church of Christ has been restored. We told her this and invited her to be baptized. She said that she would prepare, because she feels like she's not ready either. Which is where we come in. That is our job, to help them prepare to be baptized. So we tried to make a goal, but we were unable to agree on one. Because she believes she won’t be ready for years. We are going to work with her on that.

We found this cool new guy to teach. His name is Abel. He is a referral from our zone leaders. We found him and at first he wouldn't have anything to do with us. He was just leaving us at the door and trying to kick us off his porch. We were able to chat a little more and he invited us into his home. It was really cool. We had a great discussion about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and to be baptized. He feels very content with his baptism in the Catholic Church, but he said he was going to read the entire Book of Mormon and research it out. We came back a few days later and he was through 1 Nephi 7. It was awesome. He denied our invite to church. We even went to his house on Sunday to invite him, but he couldn't come. He loves us, he always likes to invite us in and we talk. I think there is a good reason why he likes us. The Spirit is touching him. So we'll get him.

We are still seeing the Villegas family. They are doing the same. They haven't read or prayed about the Book of Mormon. Only the 13 yr. old son did and now he was asking us about what they need to do to become Mormon. Ha-ha it was awesome. He prayed for the first time in his entire life with us. It was great. We had a great discussion with him on Sunday because they still hadn't read what we had left them. We talked about the importance of reading and praying. In fact, the sister of the Hermana that we are teaching was there. She was the one that referred them to us. So we were able to talk about their conversion. It took her eight years before she got baptized. We talked bout how key it was for her to read and pray about what we were teaching. Without doing it it's impossible to receive an answer. They have to do both. If they miss one part they might miss out on an answer. So we hope and pray that they read and come to church this Sunday.

Oh another great thing that happened was we got a cool referral from a less active family. We taught him about the restoration and it was a great lesson. Afterwards we decided to stop by Brenda's and see if she was home. It's been very difficult to reach her. She not only works in the mornings, but now the afternoons as well. She's nearly impossible to find. I had been praying for days that we would have a chance to see her and talk to her. God answered my prayer because when we decided to stop by, she was coming home from her first job. It was a miracle. She told us that she's reading and praying still. We set up an appointment this week with her. We are hoping that we can have a miracle with her and get her baptized this Sunday. Please pray for her and this situation. We know we can get a miracle with her.

That's all I have. Thank you so much for all of your support. I love you all so much.

Elder Dallin M. Ollerton

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