Dear Family and Friends,
This week has been a pretty good week, but a little bit
frustrating
with members and investigators. No one is really wanting to do
missionary work right now, and a lot of the investigators haven't been
progressing. So we might drop the few that we do have. It is though
to find new investigators through street contacting, no too many
people are that interested, then the people who feel promising to
visit with, we never have contact with them again.
Anyways, Monday was a pretty good day. We got in with the Fonua
family and they are all super cool. They really want to change their
life around and starting coming to church again. They said that they
are supposed to be at the luau that we are having today, so hopefully
they will be able to make it there. We had an appointment on Friday
with them, but they weren't home at that time.
On Tuesday afternoon, we went and helped the Mroski's out by doing
service at their home. They both have health and back issues that
allow them not to do certain things. We helped them to change a
lightbulb in the high ceiling room, then pulled a few weeds, and
washed their truck for them as well. I am glad that we could be able
to help out and provide service, but we aren't supposed to be
replacing the job of the members that live here in the area. He then
gave us a ride and dropped us off at Burger King, where we had a quick
and short dinner, then we biked quite a ways over to see Brother and
Sister Howe to introduce the member menu to them. We didn't realize
how far away that they lived, so we pushed back the Justin's
appointment. At Justin's, we had another interesting conversation
again, but it still didn't feel like we taught that much. He did tell
us that he has had baptism dates set for him in the past while livi in
Colorado, but there was also something that came up each time. He was
very open to us about his family situation between his mom and dad.
We are trying to get Justin to understand the importance of reading
through the entire Book of Mormon to fully grasp and gain his answer
of the truthfulness of it all. He said that he wold start reading it,
but from where he committed him to read from last time, which was 2
Nephi 31. We wanted him to start from the beginning, but hey, at
least he is reading.
We woke up super early at five Wednesday morning to go and teach the
plan of salvation at Sister Parisi's house for seminary. I don't
think that it was the best lesson that we have had, and we could have
been much better prepared, but it was a lot of fun. There were five
seminary students there. It was different to teach the plan of
salvation to people who already knew all about it. I am so used to
teaching it to people that have never heard abut it before. So that
was a nice change. After District meeting, we had to take the car
into the dealership so that the latch to the trunk could be fixed. It
toke them a lot longer than what they told us. So we then went back
home to finish our studies after they were finished with it. That was
when we got a phone call from the dealership saying that they has left
a $500 dollar drill in the back of the car. So we then had to drive
all the way back to return that to them. It feels like we pretty much
got nothing done today. On our way back over to the car dealership, I
accidentally took a wrong turn into the Sarasota airport, and ended up
going through the parking area. We were afraid that we were going to
have to pay for our parking, so we toke a ticket stub and then got
lost trying to find our way out of the parking lot looking for the
exit. We finally found it and ended up not having to pay for parking.
We got a pretty good laugh out of that. We really needed a laugh for
the day because of how frustrated that we were getting. We did meet
with the Innes which lifted our spirit's up a ton.
Weekly planning and doctors appointment for Elder Hicken took up
pretty much the entire day today. By the time that we were able to
head out, We went and visited with Brother and Sister Lazenby to
introduce the member menu to them. We also went and had a lesson on
the plan of salvation with Calvin Bryant. We talked about the three
kingdoms of glory, and how we can make it to the celestial kingdom.
Calvin still has his heart and mind set on being baptized in Utah with
his two daughters he adopted, Sister Fox and Sister Turner. He told us
that Sister Fox actually called him early today, and said that she
would be coming to visit with her family in two weeks. Hopefully we
can meet with her and talk to her about encouraging Calvin to come to
church and be baptized here in Florida if he is going to continue
living here.
Friday was a much Bette day. It started off with going to go and
visit with Sister Hill to introduce the member menu to her. She loves
watching videos, so today we showed her one of Elder Bednar's Patterns
of light. We then walked up the street to try to contact a less active
who we found out that lived there, but three years ago. We ended up
giving the guy the Book of Mormon, but I don't know if he will read it
or not since he tried handing it back to us. We then wen and visited
with Sister Heflin. We found out that she is 92 years old, and you
would have never guessed that because of how spunky and outgoing she
still is. Her husband is not a member, so when we went over, he stayed
in the back room the entire time and didn't want to come out. Sister
Helfin said it is because he is afraid that we are going to fill up
the bathtub and dunk him if we got the chance. Of course we wouldn't
do that, but I thought it was kind of funny. Afterwards, we went and
visited Gene Stratman again. We had heard that he is doing better
than the last few previous visits that we have made with him. We read
through the Book of Mormon with him about Samuel the Lamanite. Then
Brother Strattman asked us if we would sing for him. We sang Praise
to the Man at his request, then we sang A Child's Prayer. He got
really emotional and choked up when we sang to him. It was really
sweet and the spirit was really strong. So we were supposed to visit
with the Fonua's this evening, and they ended up not being there when
we got there. I felt that we needed to stop by and visit with the
Banerjee family. It has been a long time since we have seen them. It
is kind of funny the because the days that we seem to show up on, is
always a special day for them. I have been to Sonia's 31 birthday,
their wedding anniversary, and now a birthday celebration for one of
their gods. If you don't remember, they are Hindu. They treated us
very well, and they told us that whenever they have guests, the treat
them like gods. Sonia had made some really good Indian food. We
tried paneed, kied, zafron rice, and ladoo. It was all very
delicious. I told them that Elder Ronfeldt and I had gone to Tandoor
(an Indian food restaurant) to eat, and the food that Sonia had made
was much better than there. We had a really good visit with them and
really enjoyed our time there getting to know their culture and belief
more. We wanted to tell them more about our beliefs, and we told them
why we left home for two years to share this message, but we didn't
want to get into it too much because we didn't want to offend them. We
will try to share more with them when then come to the Labor Day luau
on Monday. They want to come and see what it is like there to get an
idea of what it is like and if it would be a good place to bring Romi.
Which it is the best place ever to teach Romi about Jesus Christ.
They told me since I always seem to be there at their home on special
days, that I am now like their family. It was pretty cool to hear
that they love us that much. We also got our picture taken with Romi,
Sonia, and her sister Fritolee. It was a really good way to end the
night.
Saturday morning we had to travel all the way up to Brother Hoynacki's
for ward correlation. With it being the very end of the month, we
really don't have too many miles to go too far. Ward correlation took
a quite a while to get through it all. We are all getting pretty
frustrated with how the members haven't really been doing too much to
help out with missionary work, and how a lot of our investigators
haven't really been progressing too much. We all want to see things
change and to find some way that we can get the work moving in this
area, and that we can see some sort of success with a few things. We
then arrived late to the Horth's becaus of how long that ward
correlation took us. This time, they actually feed us KFC chicken
instead of Hungary Howie's Pizza, so that was a nice change. Sister
Horth wanted to talk to us all about the new things that she has
figured out about the history of the Book of Mormon and where they had
traveled in the Americas. We also gave Sister Horth another
priesthood blessing to help her with quitting smoking. She is going
to try again, which is awesome that she has kept on trying and she's
not giving up. I have faith that she will be able to overcome this
addiction as she puts her heart and mind into it. Brother Horth
hasn't smoked in the past five weeks now, and he seems to be doing
great. After the Horth's, we went to provide service for the
Eberle's. Sister Eberle asked us for our help to move some big items
into a new apartment right next door to where she is at now. Sisters
Skeem and Vanderhoff were both there helping out, and so was Sister
Carrau. The only big item that we helped move was the couch, and we
ended up taking that to Sister Carrau's home for her. That sure was a
lot of fun for us and Chris Eberle to try and fit it into the super
small elevator. It took us about five or six tries until we could
finally get the angle right to fit it by standing it up inside the
elevator. It was a good challenge that I really don't want to relive.
After the Eberle's,we went and helped Kevin McKinley move a flat
screen tv from his apartment to his car. That didn't take us more
than ten minutes. We were glad that we could help him out. He will be
staying at Sean O'Fallons apartment for the next few days until he
gets accepted into the Salvation Army to help him with his drug
addiction. The last lesson of the evening was with Justin. Brother
Sweat came with us to go and see him. Once again, we talked about
sincerely praying after reading through the Book of Mormon so that
Justin can find his answer for himself. Brother Sweat bore a strong
testimony about how he knows how it is true. They seemed to hit it
off pretty well, and Justin said that he wouldn't mind talking with
Brother Sweat again.
Sunday morning at 7am, we got a phone call from Marcus, who was a guy
we meet on the street about 2.5 weeks ago when we biked for 12 miles
to visit a media referral and didn't see anyone until the last mile.
We called Brother Touchstone and asked him if he would be willing to
give him a ride to church. I guess that when he went to Marcus' home
that he wasn't there, but down the street. So they arrived a little
bit late to sacrament meeting. Marcus seems to quite enjoy his time
at church during all three hours, and for the linger longer. He asked
some great questions in gospel principles class about being sealed in
the temple for all time and eternity. The lesson was on temples and
family history and Marcus had never heard about being married for
eternity in all of his reading from the Bible. He had a great
knowledge of the Bible, and reads it quite often and on a regularly
basis. During the Linger Longer, Brother and Sister Mroski, Brother
Touchstone, and Sister Greenwood all sat around him and had some great
discussions about the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the
Pearl of Great Price, and walking him through all of the books. They
definitely did a great job at fellow shipping and making him feel
welcomed. That was really good to see today. In sacrament meeting,
Elder and Sister Greenwood both gave talks about faith, hope, charity,
and love. They did a great job at it today. There was also a special
musical number where a young women sang "Come unto Christ" with Sister
Owen accompanying her on the piano. She has a beautiful voice, and
did an incredible job at bring the Spirit into the meeting. Since it
is the fifth Sunday today, Priesthood and Relief Society were
combined. Bishop asked us and the Sisters to teach about the member
missionary menu to get the members excited to do missionary work. We
didn't really have anything prepared, but I think that it came
together pretty well. We only had about 15 minutes at the end though
because Bishop spent some time talking about home and visiting
teaching and what it really is. That it is not going into someone's
home and leaving them with a spiritual message, but rather an
assignment from The Lord to become friends with these people to help
them feel important and to be there it they ever need assistance with
anything. The Elder Greenwood asked us if he could start up the
meeting. He started by talking about the important dates of the early
church that we all need to know as members, the birth of Joseph Smith
in 1805, the first vision in the Sacred grove in 1820, the Angel
Moroni appearing to him in 1823, the plates being given to him in
1827, the priesthood restored in 1829, then the Book of Mormon coming
forth and the organization of the church in 1830, the Kirtland temple
was finished in 1836, and the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in 1844. He
then talked about the hastening of the work in today, and how we now
have 88,000 missionaries. I think that this will really help get the
ward involved more with missionary work and they are seeking for
opportunities each day. We then had a Linger Longer with some good
food. Elder and Sister Greenwood are going home on September 10, so
the ward wanted to do something for them since they were leaving.
Love,
Elder Leavitt,
P.s. Last day of being a teenager
with members and investigators. No one is really wanting to do
missionary work right now, and a lot of the investigators haven't been
progressing. So we might drop the few that we do have. It is though
to find new investigators through street contacting, no too many
people are that interested, then the people who feel promising to
visit with, we never have contact with them again.
Anyways, Monday was a pretty good day. We got in with the Fonua
family and they are all super cool. They really want to change their
life around and starting coming to church again. They said that they
are supposed to be at the luau that we are having today, so hopefully
they will be able to make it there. We had an appointment on Friday
with them, but they weren't home at that time.
On Tuesday afternoon, we went and helped the Mroski's out by doing
service at their home. They both have health and back issues that
allow them not to do certain things. We helped them to change a
lightbulb in the high ceiling room, then pulled a few weeds, and
washed their truck for them as well. I am glad that we could be able
to help out and provide service, but we aren't supposed to be
replacing the job of the members that live here in the area. He then
gave us a ride and dropped us off at Burger King, where we had a quick
and short dinner, then we biked quite a ways over to see Brother and
Sister Howe to introduce the member menu to them. We didn't realize
how far away that they lived, so we pushed back the Justin's
appointment. At Justin's, we had another interesting conversation
again, but it still didn't feel like we taught that much. He did tell
us that he has had baptism dates set for him in the past while livi in
Colorado, but there was also something that came up each time. He was
very open to us about his family situation between his mom and dad.
We are trying to get Justin to understand the importance of reading
through the entire Book of Mormon to fully grasp and gain his answer
of the truthfulness of it all. He said that he wold start reading it,
but from where he committed him to read from last time, which was 2
Nephi 31. We wanted him to start from the beginning, but hey, at
least he is reading.
We woke up super early at five Wednesday morning to go and teach the
plan of salvation at Sister Parisi's house for seminary. I don't
think that it was the best lesson that we have had, and we could have
been much better prepared, but it was a lot of fun. There were five
seminary students there. It was different to teach the plan of
salvation to people who already knew all about it. I am so used to
teaching it to people that have never heard abut it before. So that
was a nice change. After District meeting, we had to take the car
into the dealership so that the latch to the trunk could be fixed. It
toke them a lot longer than what they told us. So we then went back
home to finish our studies after they were finished with it. That was
when we got a phone call from the dealership saying that they has left
a $500 dollar drill in the back of the car. So we then had to drive
all the way back to return that to them. It feels like we pretty much
got nothing done today. On our way back over to the car dealership, I
accidentally took a wrong turn into the Sarasota airport, and ended up
going through the parking area. We were afraid that we were going to
have to pay for our parking, so we toke a ticket stub and then got
lost trying to find our way out of the parking lot looking for the
exit. We finally found it and ended up not having to pay for parking.
We got a pretty good laugh out of that. We really needed a laugh for
the day because of how frustrated that we were getting. We did meet
with the Innes which lifted our spirit's up a ton.
Weekly planning and doctors appointment for Elder Hicken took up
pretty much the entire day today. By the time that we were able to
head out, We went and visited with Brother and Sister Lazenby to
introduce the member menu to them. We also went and had a lesson on
the plan of salvation with Calvin Bryant. We talked about the three
kingdoms of glory, and how we can make it to the celestial kingdom.
Calvin still has his heart and mind set on being baptized in Utah with
his two daughters he adopted, Sister Fox and Sister Turner. He told us
that Sister Fox actually called him early today, and said that she
would be coming to visit with her family in two weeks. Hopefully we
can meet with her and talk to her about encouraging Calvin to come to
church and be baptized here in Florida if he is going to continue
living here.
Friday was a much Bette day. It started off with going to go and
visit with Sister Hill to introduce the member menu to her. She loves
watching videos, so today we showed her one of Elder Bednar's Patterns
of light. We then walked up the street to try to contact a less active
who we found out that lived there, but three years ago. We ended up
giving the guy the Book of Mormon, but I don't know if he will read it
or not since he tried handing it back to us. We then wen and visited
with Sister Heflin. We found out that she is 92 years old, and you
would have never guessed that because of how spunky and outgoing she
still is. Her husband is not a member, so when we went over, he stayed
in the back room the entire time and didn't want to come out. Sister
Helfin said it is because he is afraid that we are going to fill up
the bathtub and dunk him if we got the chance. Of course we wouldn't
do that, but I thought it was kind of funny. Afterwards, we went and
visited Gene Stratman again. We had heard that he is doing better
than the last few previous visits that we have made with him. We read
through the Book of Mormon with him about Samuel the Lamanite. Then
Brother Strattman asked us if we would sing for him. We sang Praise
to the Man at his request, then we sang A Child's Prayer. He got
really emotional and choked up when we sang to him. It was really
sweet and the spirit was really strong. So we were supposed to visit
with the Fonua's this evening, and they ended up not being there when
we got there. I felt that we needed to stop by and visit with the
Banerjee family. It has been a long time since we have seen them. It
is kind of funny the because the days that we seem to show up on, is
always a special day for them. I have been to Sonia's 31 birthday,
their wedding anniversary, and now a birthday celebration for one of
their gods. If you don't remember, they are Hindu. They treated us
very well, and they told us that whenever they have guests, the treat
them like gods. Sonia had made some really good Indian food. We
tried paneed, kied, zafron rice, and ladoo. It was all very
delicious. I told them that Elder Ronfeldt and I had gone to Tandoor
(an Indian food restaurant) to eat, and the food that Sonia had made
was much better than there. We had a really good visit with them and
really enjoyed our time there getting to know their culture and belief
more. We wanted to tell them more about our beliefs, and we told them
why we left home for two years to share this message, but we didn't
want to get into it too much because we didn't want to offend them. We
will try to share more with them when then come to the Labor Day luau
on Monday. They want to come and see what it is like there to get an
idea of what it is like and if it would be a good place to bring Romi.
Which it is the best place ever to teach Romi about Jesus Christ.
They told me since I always seem to be there at their home on special
days, that I am now like their family. It was pretty cool to hear
that they love us that much. We also got our picture taken with Romi,
Sonia, and her sister Fritolee. It was a really good way to end the
night.
Saturday morning we had to travel all the way up to Brother Hoynacki's
for ward correlation. With it being the very end of the month, we
really don't have too many miles to go too far. Ward correlation took
a quite a while to get through it all. We are all getting pretty
frustrated with how the members haven't really been doing too much to
help out with missionary work, and how a lot of our investigators
haven't really been progressing too much. We all want to see things
change and to find some way that we can get the work moving in this
area, and that we can see some sort of success with a few things. We
then arrived late to the Horth's becaus of how long that ward
correlation took us. This time, they actually feed us KFC chicken
instead of Hungary Howie's Pizza, so that was a nice change. Sister
Horth wanted to talk to us all about the new things that she has
figured out about the history of the Book of Mormon and where they had
traveled in the Americas. We also gave Sister Horth another
priesthood blessing to help her with quitting smoking. She is going
to try again, which is awesome that she has kept on trying and she's
not giving up. I have faith that she will be able to overcome this
addiction as she puts her heart and mind into it. Brother Horth
hasn't smoked in the past five weeks now, and he seems to be doing
great. After the Horth's, we went to provide service for the
Eberle's. Sister Eberle asked us for our help to move some big items
into a new apartment right next door to where she is at now. Sisters
Skeem and Vanderhoff were both there helping out, and so was Sister
Carrau. The only big item that we helped move was the couch, and we
ended up taking that to Sister Carrau's home for her. That sure was a
lot of fun for us and Chris Eberle to try and fit it into the super
small elevator. It took us about five or six tries until we could
finally get the angle right to fit it by standing it up inside the
elevator. It was a good challenge that I really don't want to relive.
After the Eberle's,we went and helped Kevin McKinley move a flat
screen tv from his apartment to his car. That didn't take us more
than ten minutes. We were glad that we could help him out. He will be
staying at Sean O'Fallons apartment for the next few days until he
gets accepted into the Salvation Army to help him with his drug
addiction. The last lesson of the evening was with Justin. Brother
Sweat came with us to go and see him. Once again, we talked about
sincerely praying after reading through the Book of Mormon so that
Justin can find his answer for himself. Brother Sweat bore a strong
testimony about how he knows how it is true. They seemed to hit it
off pretty well, and Justin said that he wouldn't mind talking with
Brother Sweat again.
Sunday morning at 7am, we got a phone call from Marcus, who was a guy
we meet on the street about 2.5 weeks ago when we biked for 12 miles
to visit a media referral and didn't see anyone until the last mile.
We called Brother Touchstone and asked him if he would be willing to
give him a ride to church. I guess that when he went to Marcus' home
that he wasn't there, but down the street. So they arrived a little
bit late to sacrament meeting. Marcus seems to quite enjoy his time
at church during all three hours, and for the linger longer. He asked
some great questions in gospel principles class about being sealed in
the temple for all time and eternity. The lesson was on temples and
family history and Marcus had never heard about being married for
eternity in all of his reading from the Bible. He had a great
knowledge of the Bible, and reads it quite often and on a regularly
basis. During the Linger Longer, Brother and Sister Mroski, Brother
Touchstone, and Sister Greenwood all sat around him and had some great
discussions about the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the
Pearl of Great Price, and walking him through all of the books. They
definitely did a great job at fellow shipping and making him feel
welcomed. That was really good to see today. In sacrament meeting,
Elder and Sister Greenwood both gave talks about faith, hope, charity,
and love. They did a great job at it today. There was also a special
musical number where a young women sang "Come unto Christ" with Sister
Owen accompanying her on the piano. She has a beautiful voice, and
did an incredible job at bring the Spirit into the meeting. Since it
is the fifth Sunday today, Priesthood and Relief Society were
combined. Bishop asked us and the Sisters to teach about the member
missionary menu to get the members excited to do missionary work. We
didn't really have anything prepared, but I think that it came
together pretty well. We only had about 15 minutes at the end though
because Bishop spent some time talking about home and visiting
teaching and what it really is. That it is not going into someone's
home and leaving them with a spiritual message, but rather an
assignment from The Lord to become friends with these people to help
them feel important and to be there it they ever need assistance with
anything. The Elder Greenwood asked us if he could start up the
meeting. He started by talking about the important dates of the early
church that we all need to know as members, the birth of Joseph Smith
in 1805, the first vision in the Sacred grove in 1820, the Angel
Moroni appearing to him in 1823, the plates being given to him in
1827, the priesthood restored in 1829, then the Book of Mormon coming
forth and the organization of the church in 1830, the Kirtland temple
was finished in 1836, and the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in 1844. He
then talked about the hastening of the work in today, and how we now
have 88,000 missionaries. I think that this will really help get the
ward involved more with missionary work and they are seeking for
opportunities each day. We then had a Linger Longer with some good
food. Elder and Sister Greenwood are going home on September 10, so
the ward wanted to do something for them since they were leaving.
Love,
Elder Leavitt,
P.s. Last day of being a teenager
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