Sammy's Mission E-mail July 17, 2007

Everyone:

This e-mail is on Tuesday rather than Monday, for reasons I'll explain shortly.

Tuesday of last week, we did a whole lot of tracting (4 1/2 straight hours) and had dinner with Ernesto Escareno and his girlfriend. Ernesto is a less active member, and his girlfriend Michelle is not a member, so we answered a lot of her questions while we were eating and hope to continue teaching her this week.

Wednesday last week, we tracted some more, had dinner with some members, and met with the bishop to discuss some possible less-active and part-member families in the ward to contact.

On Thursday, we had our planning time as usual, tracted, had dinner and correlation meeting with Ian Salas, our Singles' Branch Mission Leader, and saw the new shirt-decorating equipment he bought for the t-shirt company he and some of the other branch members are running.

On Friday, we had District Meeting, and then Elder Escobedo started feeling ill so we went back to our apartment and he rested until he stopped feeling ill.

On Saturday, we tracted for a little while, and then we had the great privilege of going to the Los Angeles Temple Dedication Commemoration program. We went up to the Solemn Assembly Room on the third floor of the temple and listened to some of the temple presidency and other people speak, and then attended an endowment session. Then in the evening a member sent us out to eat and we met a member family that had the same last name as Elder Escobedo.

On Sunday we had our usual Sunday meetings, and Vicky, who is the caretaker for an older couple in our ward and who we had been teaching, actually came to church for all three hours! This had been the one thing she really had trouble doing before, so we're hopeful that she may be ready for baptism in a few more weeks now.

Yesterday, we had apartment deep cleaning--we were told to spend the entire day making our apartment as clean as it has been since it was built. I'm not sure we quite managed that, but it is very clean now, which is nice. Because we cleaned all yesterday, today (Tuesday) is our Preparation Day for the week.

Elder Samuel Stephens
Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever. --D&C 122:9