Samuel's Mission e-mail Nov 19, 2007

Everyone:

Well, things have been feeling slightly more Novembery around here recently, so we'll have to see if the trend continues.

In terms of the week... Tuesday we had a day of a lot of people not being home, but I did teach the Libro de Mormon clase in the evening. On Wednesday, we met Lola, who is an old friend of Brother Harris in the SWLA Branch. She seems honestly interested and willing to do what is required to find the truth--she said she's been searching for "something more". She also had a question about the salvation of small animals (on behalf of her grandson), which made me grateful for D&C 77. We also visited Reina again, as well as Marcelino. With Marcelino right now we're mostly just working to keep him faithful while he works through the problems he's having with his daughter until things are settled enough for him to separate if that's what's required to obey the Law of Chastity, since the woman he's living with is unwilling to marry.

On Thursday we had our normal planning and visit with Norman, and then we visited Veronica and met some of her family and taught them, too. They also seem interested, although all of them seem to have unpredictable schedules.

On Friday, we had our normal district meeting, a visit with Marcelino, and a Thanksgiving dinner with the SGII ward. I find it interesting how Thanksgiving seems to have several names in Spanish--probably since it's something that only exists here in the US so they have to make up their own name for it in Spanish.

On Saturday, we finally contacted a referral named Mario Rivera that we've been playing phone tag with for weeks. He seems like he has some promise--unlike a lot of people around here, he doesn't seem to have problems with reading comprehension, so our work should be more focused on his testimony of the Book of Mormon rather than his understanding thereof. We also visited Kandy Levine and a couple less-actives.

On Sunday we had church, of course, and we were happy to see Lola and several of the less-actives we're working with there. We also visited Hermana Smith and taught a bit to some of the people who were also visiting her at the same time. We also went to the baptism of one of the children of a family Elder Bartholomew was teaching in his first area. We visited Marcelino because he wasn't at church and found out it was because he'd gone to pick up Lupe (his daugther) from the hospital. We also taught Cindy again. She's doing fairly well--she didn't come to church yesterday because she'd promised one of her Catholic friends that she'd come to mass with her, but she's going to come next week, and she's still reading in the Book of Mormon.

Today we don't have a zone activity, which is why I'm writing earlier in the morning than usual.

I want to speak a bit about patience. Patience is a very necessary attribute, not only in missionary work, but also in daily life. A lot of problems are caused by impatience--speeding, arguments, misunderstandings. We need to be slower to anger than our modern society often is, or we'll be heading down the same broad path they are.

Elder Stephens
37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.
38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.
John 4: 37-38