Dear Family and Everyone Else,
This week has been pretty good. We did hand out 2 Books of Mormon Saturday night. It was very rewarding for me after waiting patiently from what good can come out of our work in the Lodi 2nd ward. Our investigator, Jenny, decided last minute to go on vacation to Mexico to see family I think. I'm slowly losing my patience with her. We teach her many things and she said many times that she would go to church. Every week, she comes with a somewhat good excuse most of the time, so we won't be having a baptism for this transfer after all. I had such high hopes to see Jenny baptized a little while ago. It was 4 weeks ago that we had a good church tour with her and her friend. We are still waiting for the address of her friend. She seems interested enough last time we met her.
For Shannan, our recently new investigator, we will be meeting with her tonight at 5:00 with her boyfriend Vincent. He was the one who referred us to her. Now the spirit has worked on him and he became interested to hear from us. I just hope she doesn't flake out on us. We are sacrificing an hour of our Preparation Day for her. This better be good. As for Ray, we are planning to see him this Friday and watch the Restoration with him. Visuals are a great way to learn. He knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He's just not sure about joining this church yet. We are continuing to invite him to church so he can receive the revelation he needs from that, the Book of Mormon, and personal prayer. Each of them are essential and powerful.
For John Piplono our less active we are working with, we plan on addressing some of his questions of the church tomorrow. Sadly, I will be on an exchange with Elder Simms up in Galt, the northern most point in the mission. John said in his past he was a vile teenager that did some bad things in front of the church. I see him as somebody who has changed and can continue to change. He can experience the atonement and ask for the Lord's forgiveness and acceptance from the ward as well. For 15 years he felt this burden. I think it is his time to let this go and move on. As we work on him, we might just get to his wife as well and get her baptized. It will take a while though.
Thanksgiving...we had it with the Stake President, President Anderson. He has a huge house up in Clements. Dinner was really good. However, they didn't believe in Pumpkin Pie so I didn't have any. I did have some the next day with the Daley's though. That was pretty good. That's about it for this week.
Oh yeah one more thing, the church launched a new video Sunday morning called, "A Savior is Born." It was short and powerful. We watched it first at a dinner appointment last night at the Tingey's. It brought tears to my eyes. I am grateful for this time of year to have Thanksgiving to have a month of gratitude, and December to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. May we all have the spirit with us this Christmas season.
With love,
Elder White
This week has been pretty good. We did hand out 2 Books of Mormon Saturday night. It was very rewarding for me after waiting patiently from what good can come out of our work in the Lodi 2nd ward. Our investigator, Jenny, decided last minute to go on vacation to Mexico to see family I think. I'm slowly losing my patience with her. We teach her many things and she said many times that she would go to church. Every week, she comes with a somewhat good excuse most of the time, so we won't be having a baptism for this transfer after all. I had such high hopes to see Jenny baptized a little while ago. It was 4 weeks ago that we had a good church tour with her and her friend. We are still waiting for the address of her friend. She seems interested enough last time we met her.
For Shannan, our recently new investigator, we will be meeting with her tonight at 5:00 with her boyfriend Vincent. He was the one who referred us to her. Now the spirit has worked on him and he became interested to hear from us. I just hope she doesn't flake out on us. We are sacrificing an hour of our Preparation Day for her. This better be good. As for Ray, we are planning to see him this Friday and watch the Restoration with him. Visuals are a great way to learn. He knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He's just not sure about joining this church yet. We are continuing to invite him to church so he can receive the revelation he needs from that, the Book of Mormon, and personal prayer. Each of them are essential and powerful.
For John Piplono our less active we are working with, we plan on addressing some of his questions of the church tomorrow. Sadly, I will be on an exchange with Elder Simms up in Galt, the northern most point in the mission. John said in his past he was a vile teenager that did some bad things in front of the church. I see him as somebody who has changed and can continue to change. He can experience the atonement and ask for the Lord's forgiveness and acceptance from the ward as well. For 15 years he felt this burden. I think it is his time to let this go and move on. As we work on him, we might just get to his wife as well and get her baptized. It will take a while though.
Thanksgiving...we had it with the Stake President, President Anderson. He has a huge house up in Clements. Dinner was really good. However, they didn't believe in Pumpkin Pie so I didn't have any. I did have some the next day with the Daley's though. That was pretty good. That's about it for this week.
Oh yeah one more thing, the church launched a new video Sunday morning called, "A Savior is Born." It was short and powerful. We watched it first at a dinner appointment last night at the Tingey's. It brought tears to my eyes. I am grateful for this time of year to have Thanksgiving to have a month of gratitude, and December to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. May we all have the spirit with us this Christmas season.
With love,
Elder White