Samuel's Mission e-mail October 22, 2007

Everyone:

Well, to everyone who might have been hoping I would get transferred *coughlikemymomcough*, I'm sorry to say that I'm still in Watts. But, as for myself, I'm quite happy to be here, since things are really picking up now for us after our hard work last transfer.

I don't have my planner from last transfer with me, so I don't really recall what we did last Tuesday and Wednesday, other than that we did teach Marcelino on Wednesday and set a time for his baptismal interview, which we subsequently had to change to this evening. So yes, that is one reason I'm happy to be staying here.

On Thursday, Elder Bartholomew and I planned a lot for our new week and transfer together, visited Norman and Sherri, and went to our correlation meeting.

On Friday we had ZDM and then visited Hermana Smith. She's not doing so well, and they still haven't operated on her--they ended up just taking a sample of the tumor in her cheek, and when we visited her they still hadn't told her the results. We did have a good lesson with Marcelino in the evening and we also visited the Ayala family, who are less active. David, a friend of Juan Carlos Ayala, told us that he'd told his mom about us and that she wanted us to come over to visit her family, so we set up an appointment to come over on Saturday.

On Saturday, we taught William, the husband of Michelle Armstrong, an interesting lesson involving a lot of analogies. Then we went over to Sherri's house and did some painting and started assembling some new beds she had gotten. Then we stopped by Delia, who is a friend of Hermana Smith, and set up an appointment with her for Sunday, stopped by Sofia's house and ended up teaching one of her sons, and then taught David and his family.

Sunday, we had church, and then we went back and taught Delia and another couple that live in the same apartment with her, Alva and Geovanny. We're not sure how much interest Delia really has, but Alva and Geovanny seem like they'll honestly read and pray. After that we taught Reina, who is a sibling of a man named Nilton (or something like that) that we tracted into a couple weeks ago.

Today we had our traditional first-Preparation-Day dodgeball game as a zone and washed our clothes. This evening we plan to visit Olga, an investigator who was close to baptism but then lost contact with the missionaries before I got here, and to go to a Noche de Hogar that the SGII ward is doing, during which time Marcelino will have his baptismal interview.

Well, I guess the theme for this week was unexpected teaching situations and opprotunities. It's wonderful how the Lord blesses us with these opprotunities and then gives us the Spirit to help us know what to do without any plans or preparation. Of course, that only applies when we couldn't plan--if you have the opprotunity to plan and don't the Spirit usually won't bail you out. And that includes all of us. Remember, the Lord is always bringing people across our paths who are ready to be influenced for good. Keep your eyes open, and remember the Lord's promise, "Open your mouths, and they will be filled..."

Elder Samuel Stephens
The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
-D&C 122:8