Monday 12/23: I learned how to slackline with the zone leaders. Well, I say learned. I didn't really master it yet. However, I did manage to walk a whopping 5 steps on it. That evening our investigators continued to hide from us.
Tuesday: We stopped by several less active families, hoping that missionaries would be semi-welcome on Christmas Eve to talk about Jesus for 20 minutes. Not so! However, we did go caroling with the sisters which was really good. We went to the home of one of our potentials, Alfredo. We found out that he had passed away due to kidney failure on Saturday. I only met him once, but it made me profoundly sad for the family. When we sang to the house, which was full to bursting with his family, everyone was totally silent. Those who have heard a house full of grieving Hispanics will know how incredible that was. We set up an appointment to teach Cecilia (Alfredo's daughter) and her sons.
Wednesday: Christmas! Thank you so much to everyone who sent cards, packages, letters, etc! I am truly grateful that you took some time out of your busy holiday season to send me something. You're all great! After opening a bajillion presents we made peanut butter balls to take caroling that night with the sisters. Which we forgot to take caroling with us. :P After a great dinner with the Spencers, we went to the ward mission leader's house so I could call my family. Which was pretty coolio. I tend to like those people. We went caroling with the sisters again that night, and picked up a new investigator at the house of a less active family. There will be more on them later.
Thursday: We had another zone meeting. This time we learned how we were to use facebook for proselyting, which I am now officially authorized to do. Pretty cool huh? I'm still working on making sure everything on my account is cleaned up and representative of my calling. But still, that'll be coming soon. I would like to let everyone know that I am only going to use my facebook account for missionary work. If you message me there, or put something on my wall, or otherwise tag me in something that is not reflective of my sacred calling, I'm going to have it removed. Just a heads up :) You are more than welcome to message me about your missionary efforts, post church videos, mormon messages, etc. I would love to see what you find!
On Thursday we taught Cecilia and her sons. We did a very surface level going over of the Plan of Salvation, but mostly just listened to them talk about their religious beliefs and Alfredo. After that we visited the Duenas family (New investigator from Christmas). Sis Duenas and her sons are members, however, her boyfriend Efran lives there and is now investigating. He is very sensitive to the spirit, and is very smart. He asks really great questions. The sons also had a friend, Victoria, over. She expressed some interest in coming to church and meeting the Young Women.
Friday: On Friday we did our weekly planning, and had a meeting with Bro Peck to discuss how we would go about helping the members get going in their personal missionary work. He also made us brunch. Brunch is yummy. Friday night we tried to find Andre and Lina from last week, but to no avail. They are super interested, but really hard to contact. Hopefully using facebook will make that easier.
Saturday: We rode a lot of buses and went to a lot of stores trying to talk to people about the restored gospel. Got a couple referrals for other missionaries, but didn't find anyone in our area. That's alright though, filling other missionaries' planners always brings blessings. We had an appointment with the Duenas family to talk about church with Efran, but he wasn't there. We talked with the Duenasssssss (????) about how the church is for sinners, and that no matter what they've done they will always be welcome there. I think Sis. Duenas really appreciated hearing that. This was the night we found out Elder Ramirez would be getting transferred.
Sunday: We had correlation in the morning, and came out to find Efran and the Duenas family already there! This was a surprise because that morning Sis. Duenas told us that he probably wasn't going to go. But he stayed and said that if he felt bad about being there he would walk out immediately. I promised him that he would feel the holy ghost today, and that it would be a great experience for him. And wow did the Lord deliver! The sisters spoke in sacrament, and he loved it! One of them moved him to tears. The third speaker gave kind of an incoherent talk, but Efran was still feeling it. Then in Sunday School, several converts bore their testimonies throughout, and got him crying again. By the time we got to the third hour he was openly participating in discussions about our duty to do missionary work. It was pretty awesome. Efran is great. Hopefully he can remember the good feelings he had at church until we meet with him again tonight!
Sunday afternoon we did the transfer and had dinner at the ward mission leader's house. It was good timing to introduce him to Elder Justensen.
The church is true! Jesus Christ is coming again! How wonderful His love for us, and for our brothers and sisters! In the words of Lehi, How great the importance to make these things known to the inhabitants of the Earth!
Love you all,
Elder Whitney
