Sunday, September 7, 2014

Painting, No Power, and SUCCESS!!!‏ - September 1, 2014

Hey that is kinda cool that Donna has published a book. I am also very interested to see what it is all about. She sent me a poem too. She seems to be trying to keep herself busy :) 

And that is awesome that Daren is Ward Mission Leader! It really is a huge help to us missionaries. That it awesome, hope that he can have success in his awesome calling! 

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN!!!!!!! 

Wow. There really is a lot that has happened here in this past week!  

On Tuesday we spent the afternoon painting another house! This time of a member who asked us for help. We invited an investigator and another youth to help us and it turned out great! The family bought us hamburgers afterwords :) The Member is Karla, who is like 20, who lives with her family. She and her Grandpa are members, but the rest of the family isn’t. When they invited us in the house, I sat down in a rocking chair, and noticed that the shelf behind me moved! I tried to slowly get up, because the base of the rocker was underneath the shelf, but it moved again, and I almost caused the statue of the Virgin Mary (her mom is catholic) to fall off and shatter into pieces! Luckily I caught her, and all that broke was a candlestick.... But afterwards we thought about how funny or ironic it was, and how easy it is to destroy Graven Images, A reminder of the power and stability of a living God! 

Wednesday morning just before we left, we noticed that the power had gone out, but expecting it to return soon, we left to work for the day. We had a Family Home Evening with a part member family with a lot of problems, and it turned out great. When we got back to the house, we still didn’t have power! After calling the owner and trying to figure out what happened, he told us that we hadn’t paid the power bill, which I had paid Saturday! Turns out that I paid the power bill of the neighbor instead. The owner, who also owns the apartment of the neighbor, said ´´well you guys paid´´, and had them pay our bill. That night and the next we slept in another room upstairs (that he rents out, but no one is currently living there) so that we could have light and we could plug in fans, because our house is really hot! 

The next day we still didn’t have power, so I bought ice to put in the freezer to keep the milk and other food cold. Finally we got it back on Friday! We found a great member to help us fellowship Martin, who has had a drinking problem, but who is doing much better. This member, Hermano Ibarra, helped us out in the lesson and helped us invite him to church. We have not had much faith in the members helping us out here, but this week we saw how great they can be. Friday there was a stake wide mutual that we invited an investigator to, Alejandro, who is 17. We ended up bringing him and two of his friends! We understood that it was going to be a soccer tournament, with a spiritual thought right before, but the spiritual thought turned out to be an hour program, first talking about the Word of Wisdom, and them about first aid. Alejandro and his friend stayed almost to the end, one of the friends leaving early. Even though the activity didn’t really turn out all that well, Alejandro was able to meet the few youth in the ward and it really helped him to feel comfortable, and also know where the chapel was to go to church on Sunday! 

This week in church was sooo much better. Martin showed up and was there the whole time, and Alejandro came late, but HE CAME! Michel, the only young man in the ward (and recent convert), invited him to seminary as well, and he went today at 5:30 in the morning! He is really getting involved, and it is great! This ward really needs more youth! What seems to be the young men in this ward consists of Michel, a recent convert, his friend who is an investigator Bryan, and now this Alejandro, also investigator :) Only one is actually member :) 

So with two investigators coming to church after a long time without any, I am feeling really good :) 
And by way of Transfers this week, my companion Elder Hernandez and I are both staying. This will be our third Transfer! I was totally expecting and ready for a change, but just like last time, our entire district is staying the same. I have accepted it. And really, it is a good thing, because I really need Elder Hernandez´s help with Alejandro, they are good friends :) 

Today while shopping a lady came up to me and starting speaking pretty good but broken English, and asked me where our chapel was. We told her, and ended up seeing her like three times in the trans course of shopping :) We also ran into a few less active members that we hadn’t met, and they invited us to come to their house. I am glad that we decided to go shopping today when we did! I am seeing Gods hand quite a bit this week :) 

So yeah, I think that that is the news from around here. We are seeing success and we are going after it. 

Thanks for the support from home! 


Love Elder Hayden Redford

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