Hi Everyone!
So the library was closed again on our P-day so I don't have much time to email today unfortunately. A storm hit us on Friday and lasted until yesterday, it seems to be cleared up now. We got a good amount of snow and it blew around a lot so travel wasn't advised...but that didn't stop us! However, it did slow the work down a lot, and church was even cancelled, which was lame. The biggest problem was most of the side roads weren't plowed, but we could get around town just fine. Since the library was closed yesterday and the town was shut down, we went to the Valdez's and played with the kids in the snow. They were working on an igloo and it was a lot of fun. I got some good pictures.
We did have a pretty good week, well interesting would be a better word. Lots of good things happened. And yes, I'm staying warm. Luckily when I got to DL some missionaries had left a nice pair of warm boots and some good gloves, so I've been blessed. I'd like to tell more about the family with 4 kids but we weren't able to get in with them last week unfortunately. Hopefully we can this week. The Perez's are doing well but Sister Perez got bronchitis...I think, so we haven't seen them for a few weeks. Keith kind of same story, haven't got to get in with him because of weather and work. But we're trying! We did get to meet with some less-actives though and a couple that I have been working with since I got here finally committed to come to church at least twice a month. So hopefully they'll be able to follow through.
We had zone conference this week and it was awesome. We had a lot of good trainings, rebukings and lovings, so it was great. President Layton gave a really awesome training on the importance of the phrase "will you" and how to use it effectively. Basically...thats all you do, haha. President Layton showed us a video of a talk that was given by V. Dallas Merrell (I think his name was) about "will you" and it was really powerful. He told about experiences where he used that phrase with people he didn't know and many baptisms, reactivations, priesthood ordinations and temple recommends resulted. It was awesome. We were also challenged by our zone leaders to commit everyone we teach for baptism, at the first lesson.
Mom, I liked the story about the baby horse you related from your Stake RS Enrichment meeting. Our Father in Heaven truly looks out for us. I heard a similar story on the Joseph Smith lectures CD by Truman Madsen. He's telling a story about when the Prophet and others were meeting in the 'School of the Prophets." Well they were all going around and giving their dissertations and knowledge on faith. The last person to get up and speak his mind was Heber C. Kimball. He said how he couldn't add anymore scriptures or insight to what had already been said, so instead he told a story. It was about his little daughter who was told by her mother to not touch the china plates on the table. Her mother told her if she broke the plates she'd whip her. Her mother left for a little while and the little girl didn't obey her mother. She played with the plates and broke them. She was scared and sad and ran outside and prayed to Heavenly Father. When her mom got back, she was furious. She grabbed the girl and got her into position to give her a whipping and then she broke down and started crying. The daughter took her mother by the face and looked into her eyes and said, "Oh, Mommy, I prayed to the Lord that you wouldn't whip me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I broke the dishes!" My typing doesn't do the story justice, but after Heber C. Kimball told that story he sat down and Joseph Smith stood up and told the brethren that was the kind of faith THEY needed to have. It was a powerful story.
BTW, President told me in our interview that I'm most likely leaving next transfer- a week from today, unless the Lord says otherwise. So all you that are planning on sending me packages or letters this week (haha) do so through the mission office address:
2525 W Main #311
Rapid City, SD 57702
Well, thats about all I have time for today, I hope you all are well! The Church is true!
Love,
Elder Fitt
--------------------------------------
(From Gina's letter to Elder Fitt) The highlight of my week was Saturday. There was a Stake RS Enrichment meeting for all the women with keynote speakers and breakout sessions followed by lunch. It was awesome! There were a couple of things that really touched me. One old gal spoke. She's single and has never been married. She was a professor at BYU and executive assistant to the president for over 25 years and she is quite the scriptorian- well she got paid by BYU to be one for 25 years! Anyway, she talked about when she was 9 years old growing up on a horse ranch in AZ. One of the mares was pregnant. The foal was going to be her very own horse. A month before the foal's birth the mare was struck in the eye by a rope on a gate and blinded. The day the foal was born, the girl's father called her home from school to be present at the birth. After the foal was born, the father left the barn to get some hot water leaving the girl alone with the mare and foal. The mare rolled over to try to stand up, but because she couldn't see, she rolled on top of the baby horse and crushed it. When the father came back, he helped the mare off the baby. But it was dead. Father left the little girl alone with the foal's body to mourn. The gal said "I picked up that little warm wet body in my arms and cried my eyes out. I prayed with ALL my heart that Heavenly Father would bless that little foal to return to life. In a few minutes it started moving in my arms. The foal lived. My father said there is nothing as powerful as the prayers of the faithful." That experience really touched my heart because it helped me to realize that Heavenly Father really does know each one of us and He does love us and longs to bless us. It helped me to understand the importance of caring deeply enough to pray with complete earnestness and sincerety. The deepest heartfelt longings of our souls are the prayers which reach the highest towards Heaven. God truly blesses us as we diligently seek Him.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
January 11, 2010
Hello Everyone,
How's it going? Things here are pretty good. The weather was pretty dang chilly last week but its supposed to get warmer this week for a January Thaw. Too bad it won't last though, it'll all just refreeze shortly after, but the warmth of possible above freezing (32 degrees) weather will be nice. Thats short sleeve weather (provided theres no wind)!
Lets see, not too much happened this week out of the ordinary. It was slow like usual, which is unfortunate. A lot of people that we work with are having their schedules changed around because of people quitting and other reasons so it has been tough to meet with them. But we're gonna keep trying, obviously. We were able to make some more progress with Keith, and he's been reading from the Book of Mormon! Way awesome, not many investigators actually crack it open, at least in my experience (maybe thats my fault?). But he's been taking it to work becasue his supervisor told him to stop bringing his bible because it influences other people to be Christian (he works at a group home) SOO he's been taking the Book of Mormon to read during breaks because it ISN'T the bible so they can't tell him to stop, haha ya pretty cool. He's doing well though.
We were also able to meet with the Perez's a bit and they said they still want to hold off on baptism, which is fine because they still are considering it but are waiting for a solid spiritual confirmation. But they really want to learn and we finally have some spanish speaking support which helps lot. So thats good and we're gonna keep working with them, thats all you can do.
So crazy story this week. The garages for our apartment building caught on fire this week! Some dodo was trying to heat his engine up by putting a propane heater underneath it and he left it unattended. Something caught on fire which ended up torching 3-4 of the garages and not only destoying his car but badly damaging 2 others. Luckily there was fireproof sheetrock installed which stopped the fire spreading further down the row. Our garage is at the very end so we still had 5-6 garages inbetween ours and the fire, which is nice, though most of the stuff in our garage got badly smokedamage so we'll have to trash them. But luckily it was mostly just papers and pamphlets. My bike got a nice new black finish to it though!
So thats the exciting news for the week. But I did have a really neat experience at church. I won't go too much into detail but I had an overwhelming feeling of God's love for all of us and that came through observing and interacting with some sweet little children. I couldn't stop smiling all through Sacrament meeting because of all the little children, especially a little or 3 year old girl that was playing peek-a-boo with me. It made me think about the Savior and his love for little children. Then it made me think about the Prophet Joseph Smith and his love for little children. They are embodiments of purity, innocence and love. No wonder we are told to become childlike. And that also made me remember a talk I was listening too. The speaker remarked on how little children completely trust their parents. I think that's something we lose as we grow older, and one of the most important things we should to strive to develope, complete trust in our Father in Heaven. There is much to be learned from little children that we sadly unlearn as we grow up. But thats why we have this time to learn and grow our testimonies and help others do so as well.
Well I'll get off my soapbox and hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Fitt
How's it going? Things here are pretty good. The weather was pretty dang chilly last week but its supposed to get warmer this week for a January Thaw. Too bad it won't last though, it'll all just refreeze shortly after, but the warmth of possible above freezing (32 degrees) weather will be nice. Thats short sleeve weather (provided theres no wind)!
Lets see, not too much happened this week out of the ordinary. It was slow like usual, which is unfortunate. A lot of people that we work with are having their schedules changed around because of people quitting and other reasons so it has been tough to meet with them. But we're gonna keep trying, obviously. We were able to make some more progress with Keith, and he's been reading from the Book of Mormon! Way awesome, not many investigators actually crack it open, at least in my experience (maybe thats my fault?). But he's been taking it to work becasue his supervisor told him to stop bringing his bible because it influences other people to be Christian (he works at a group home) SOO he's been taking the Book of Mormon to read during breaks because it ISN'T the bible so they can't tell him to stop, haha ya pretty cool. He's doing well though.
We were also able to meet with the Perez's a bit and they said they still want to hold off on baptism, which is fine because they still are considering it but are waiting for a solid spiritual confirmation. But they really want to learn and we finally have some spanish speaking support which helps lot. So thats good and we're gonna keep working with them, thats all you can do.
So crazy story this week. The garages for our apartment building caught on fire this week! Some dodo was trying to heat his engine up by putting a propane heater underneath it and he left it unattended. Something caught on fire which ended up torching 3-4 of the garages and not only destoying his car but badly damaging 2 others. Luckily there was fireproof sheetrock installed which stopped the fire spreading further down the row. Our garage is at the very end so we still had 5-6 garages inbetween ours and the fire, which is nice, though most of the stuff in our garage got badly smokedamage so we'll have to trash them. But luckily it was mostly just papers and pamphlets. My bike got a nice new black finish to it though!
So thats the exciting news for the week. But I did have a really neat experience at church. I won't go too much into detail but I had an overwhelming feeling of God's love for all of us and that came through observing and interacting with some sweet little children. I couldn't stop smiling all through Sacrament meeting because of all the little children, especially a little or 3 year old girl that was playing peek-a-boo with me. It made me think about the Savior and his love for little children. Then it made me think about the Prophet Joseph Smith and his love for little children. They are embodiments of purity, innocence and love. No wonder we are told to become childlike. And that also made me remember a talk I was listening too. The speaker remarked on how little children completely trust their parents. I think that's something we lose as we grow older, and one of the most important things we should to strive to develope, complete trust in our Father in Heaven. There is much to be learned from little children that we sadly unlearn as we grow up. But thats why we have this time to learn and grow our testimonies and help others do so as well.
Well I'll get off my soapbox and hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Fitt
January 4, 2010
Hello Everyone,
I hope you're all excited for this new year as I am. Its a time to start changing for the better. This year is going to be great! We had a slow week last week but the holidays are over with and the people here have no more excuses to dodge our appointments...unless we're snowed in or something. But we're looking forward to a new slate.
We were blessed to able to to soft commit the Perez family for baptism on sunday. That means that they are going to pray about it and we'll see how that goes when we visit them next. They seemed excited to do so and began asking questions and what they have to do to be baptized and what is required of them. The only problem might be coffee for the husband, Alvaro, but we're praying that they'll be sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit and that they'll accept the Lord's will for them.
We found out that Stephanie's mom kinda intimidating her out of asking for permission for baptism. She still wants to be is scared to ask. So we told her to keep praying about it to see if the Lord wants her to ask now or wait until she's 18. But she still loves coming to church and has been really consistent.
Other than that we're trying to contact and work with the callbacks that we've gotten recently. Its been tough with the holidays but hopefully we'll be able to find them home now.
I hope everyone is working hard to have missionary experiences to help move this work along. Some of the members were thinking about ways to help us do our job better and some were saying that they should make a goal to go teaching with us more. Though that is good, we already have a good support with that. What the full-time missionaries want, and what we told them, was that rather we'd have them make a goal to have a family or friend taught in their home by the missionaries. So I'm going to challenge each of you to pray and ask the Lord for guidance to find an individual or family to be taught in your home by the missionaries by the end of March. That gives plenty of time to figure it out, fellowship them and break the ice to invite them to listen to the missionaries. I can promise you that the Lord will pour out his blessings upon you and that you will feel a greater love in your homes, families, and individual lives as you help another child of God along the path that leads to eternal life. So I'm challenging you all do that and would love to hear of any experiences you have regarding that in the future. I know this work is true and the Lord is guiding it. All we have to do is follow the Spirit and have the courage to open our mouths.
Love,
Elder Fitt
I hope you're all excited for this new year as I am. Its a time to start changing for the better. This year is going to be great! We had a slow week last week but the holidays are over with and the people here have no more excuses to dodge our appointments...unless we're snowed in or something. But we're looking forward to a new slate.
We were blessed to able to to soft commit the Perez family for baptism on sunday. That means that they are going to pray about it and we'll see how that goes when we visit them next. They seemed excited to do so and began asking questions and what they have to do to be baptized and what is required of them. The only problem might be coffee for the husband, Alvaro, but we're praying that they'll be sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit and that they'll accept the Lord's will for them.
We found out that Stephanie's mom kinda intimidating her out of asking for permission for baptism. She still wants to be is scared to ask. So we told her to keep praying about it to see if the Lord wants her to ask now or wait until she's 18. But she still loves coming to church and has been really consistent.
Other than that we're trying to contact and work with the callbacks that we've gotten recently. Its been tough with the holidays but hopefully we'll be able to find them home now.
I hope everyone is working hard to have missionary experiences to help move this work along. Some of the members were thinking about ways to help us do our job better and some were saying that they should make a goal to go teaching with us more. Though that is good, we already have a good support with that. What the full-time missionaries want, and what we told them, was that rather we'd have them make a goal to have a family or friend taught in their home by the missionaries. So I'm going to challenge each of you to pray and ask the Lord for guidance to find an individual or family to be taught in your home by the missionaries by the end of March. That gives plenty of time to figure it out, fellowship them and break the ice to invite them to listen to the missionaries. I can promise you that the Lord will pour out his blessings upon you and that you will feel a greater love in your homes, families, and individual lives as you help another child of God along the path that leads to eternal life. So I'm challenging you all do that and would love to hear of any experiences you have regarding that in the future. I know this work is true and the Lord is guiding it. All we have to do is follow the Spirit and have the courage to open our mouths.
Love,
Elder Fitt
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