Dear Family and Everyone Else,
I'm sorry if I didn't explain who President Lyman was. He is the 1st councilor in the Stake Presidency. When I also said that I drove in Jackson, that was because Elder Roudabush didn't have a license to drive. I also drove again today. It is a red corolla. It's pretty nice. We will be driving it for 2 days. After district meeting, I will be driving it back down to Modesto after district meeting on Thursday. Right now, Elder Wardle is preparing to go home next week. He is watching a few videos for a program for retiring missionaries. It talks a lot about lasting conversion, and service after this mission. We should forget ourselves, and love others.
This week, we got a new phone, so at the moment, we have 2 phones to take care of until the 3rd of March. Then the phone gets retired permanently. We are switching to a 209 area code instead of 916 from the old Sacramento mission. Other than that, the work has been pretty good this week. We have had a total of 6 lessons with investigators. The first one being Ray. We brought brother Parker, our ward mission leader, with us, and he bore his testimony of church attendance. He was less active for 40 years at age 17. He didn't get active again until 5 years ago. Now he's our Ward Mission Leader. He's still trying to understand how to better magnify his calling. We have been teaching Ray for some time now. I might have mentioned that he has talked to missionaries off and on for the last 14 years. He still is trying to find God through the scriptures, but is not willing to act on faith, hope, and trust in the lord and our Savior yet. Brother Parker was saying we should drop him soon. I think we do need to find the faith to drop him and hope he will prepare himself a little more by reading a lot more of the Book of Mormon. He's just not ready for the Lord yet, and I need to accept that. We will see how this week goes though.
Next was Felix. We went over the Plan of Salvation with him, and he made it interesting with his own story of what it will be like at the judgement day. He included the different points we just taught him. I've never been in a lesson like that before, so it was fun. On Wednesday, we went on Splits with Christian Sawyer and Sam Kelly. It was fun. I went out to Lockeford for 2 hours with Christian. We found a new member with a less active, and also found that a former investigator in the country side moved somewhere in Lodi. So, on our end, we were able to get something done. Elder Wardle; however, had nobody answer the door. It was still fun.
I decided to save the best pieces of news for last. We got 2 new investigators this week. Geraldine and Cody. They are a married couple of a few years. Both are very into computers and programming. They have 2 boys. One is 2, and the other is 3. They are a nice family in the trailer parks on Cherokee and Vine. Cody is not really religious but does know God and the basics. Geraldine started out as Catholic. She then got baptized into the Jehovah's Witnesses. She got offended, and her extended family was torn apart. She started looking for a religion that is really family oriented. Then, they met the Spanish sisters while they were tracting. We brought Brother Parker with us, and we were able to convince them to try out our message before being quick to shut us out. We mentioned eternal families and gave them a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. Then we set up a time to talk it over, and we then went over it. They loved the message and wanted to hear more. We then explained what the Book of Mormon was in our next visit on Saturday. We looked over the sticker I put into some of the Books of Mormon we hand out. Then they asked about infant baptisms, and we read from Moroni 8. It all made better sense to her now. She also said that she has come to know Father in Heaven more than ever before. We also mentioned the word of wisdom, and she agreed with it because of the Jehovah's Witnesses. She questioned the coffee part, and we told her to be obedient to God's commandments, and then we will know spiritually why. We also said that coffee is addicting anyways. She was convinced because she's been eating healthier because she had her gall bladder removed. So, all in all, they have been really prepared.
The best news of all, Gary came to church last minute. It was a huge surprise to us. We were hoping for Cody and Geraldine, and then he pulled through. We will be seeing those 3 tonight. It's all so exciting to see all these people progress in learning the gospel. I forgot to mention that Jenny's sister, Sandra Mendoza, finally got baptized. It was truly a happy day for her and the Spanish sisters. She has investigated for a year and knew the church was true. The only thing that stopped her was that she was living with her boyfriend. She now moved out and dumped him. She also got a new boyfriend recently too. Now, the elders just need to get their dad and step-mom, and their family will be complete--for the most part.
This is what happened this week. Next week, Elder Wardle goes back to Houston, Texas on Wednesday and leaves the area Tuesday, and I get a new companion.
Sincerely,
Elder White
I'm sorry if I didn't explain who President Lyman was. He is the 1st councilor in the Stake Presidency. When I also said that I drove in Jackson, that was because Elder Roudabush didn't have a license to drive. I also drove again today. It is a red corolla. It's pretty nice. We will be driving it for 2 days. After district meeting, I will be driving it back down to Modesto after district meeting on Thursday. Right now, Elder Wardle is preparing to go home next week. He is watching a few videos for a program for retiring missionaries. It talks a lot about lasting conversion, and service after this mission. We should forget ourselves, and love others.
This week, we got a new phone, so at the moment, we have 2 phones to take care of until the 3rd of March. Then the phone gets retired permanently. We are switching to a 209 area code instead of 916 from the old Sacramento mission. Other than that, the work has been pretty good this week. We have had a total of 6 lessons with investigators. The first one being Ray. We brought brother Parker, our ward mission leader, with us, and he bore his testimony of church attendance. He was less active for 40 years at age 17. He didn't get active again until 5 years ago. Now he's our Ward Mission Leader. He's still trying to understand how to better magnify his calling. We have been teaching Ray for some time now. I might have mentioned that he has talked to missionaries off and on for the last 14 years. He still is trying to find God through the scriptures, but is not willing to act on faith, hope, and trust in the lord and our Savior yet. Brother Parker was saying we should drop him soon. I think we do need to find the faith to drop him and hope he will prepare himself a little more by reading a lot more of the Book of Mormon. He's just not ready for the Lord yet, and I need to accept that. We will see how this week goes though.
Next was Felix. We went over the Plan of Salvation with him, and he made it interesting with his own story of what it will be like at the judgement day. He included the different points we just taught him. I've never been in a lesson like that before, so it was fun. On Wednesday, we went on Splits with Christian Sawyer and Sam Kelly. It was fun. I went out to Lockeford for 2 hours with Christian. We found a new member with a less active, and also found that a former investigator in the country side moved somewhere in Lodi. So, on our end, we were able to get something done. Elder Wardle; however, had nobody answer the door. It was still fun.
I decided to save the best pieces of news for last. We got 2 new investigators this week. Geraldine and Cody. They are a married couple of a few years. Both are very into computers and programming. They have 2 boys. One is 2, and the other is 3. They are a nice family in the trailer parks on Cherokee and Vine. Cody is not really religious but does know God and the basics. Geraldine started out as Catholic. She then got baptized into the Jehovah's Witnesses. She got offended, and her extended family was torn apart. She started looking for a religion that is really family oriented. Then, they met the Spanish sisters while they were tracting. We brought Brother Parker with us, and we were able to convince them to try out our message before being quick to shut us out. We mentioned eternal families and gave them a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. Then we set up a time to talk it over, and we then went over it. They loved the message and wanted to hear more. We then explained what the Book of Mormon was in our next visit on Saturday. We looked over the sticker I put into some of the Books of Mormon we hand out. Then they asked about infant baptisms, and we read from Moroni 8. It all made better sense to her now. She also said that she has come to know Father in Heaven more than ever before. We also mentioned the word of wisdom, and she agreed with it because of the Jehovah's Witnesses. She questioned the coffee part, and we told her to be obedient to God's commandments, and then we will know spiritually why. We also said that coffee is addicting anyways. She was convinced because she's been eating healthier because she had her gall bladder removed. So, all in all, they have been really prepared.
The best news of all, Gary came to church last minute. It was a huge surprise to us. We were hoping for Cody and Geraldine, and then he pulled through. We will be seeing those 3 tonight. It's all so exciting to see all these people progress in learning the gospel. I forgot to mention that Jenny's sister, Sandra Mendoza, finally got baptized. It was truly a happy day for her and the Spanish sisters. She has investigated for a year and knew the church was true. The only thing that stopped her was that she was living with her boyfriend. She now moved out and dumped him. She also got a new boyfriend recently too. Now, the elders just need to get their dad and step-mom, and their family will be complete--for the most part.
This is what happened this week. Next week, Elder Wardle goes back to Houston, Texas on Wednesday and leaves the area Tuesday, and I get a new companion.
Sincerely,
Elder White