Samuel's Mission e-mail April 14, 2008

Everyone:
Spring has apparently fled the Downey area. We're currently experiencing temperatures in the 90's, so... yes, it's hot.
Anyways, starting with Tuesday of last week: On Tuesday we tracted for a while and worked on contacting some less-actives. On Wednesday we also tracted, and we did some service at a care home by running a bingo game and a "bowling" game for the people there.
On Thursday we had our usual weekly planning, we tracted a bit, and we worked on preparing a fireside for the Spanish-speaking Santa Fe Springs Branch. On Friday we had district meeting, we tracted, and we worked some more on our less-active list.
On Saturday is when it got really hot. We visited some less-actives, tracted a bit, visited an old referral called Gladis, and prepared some more for the Santa Fe Springs fireside.
On Sunday we went to church at the Downey 1st ward. One of the ward members, Justin Medina, is leaving on his mission to Brazil tomorrow, so he invited one of his friends, Rosie, to church, and she came! We talked with her a bit at church, and then we went out and tracted a bit, and then we went to the little party the Medinas were having for our dinner, and Rosie was there. We talked with her some more, and she eventually asked for a Book of Mormon! We gave her one and arranged an appointment with her for Saturday. In the evening after that, we had our fireside with the Santa Fe Springs Branch. It was an interesting experience--I was conducting it (yes, in Spanish). We had a pretend "Flight to Hawaii" that "crashed" on the way, so that everyone ended up in the Spirit World. While we were doing this, the smoke machine we were using set off the fire alarms, so that was exciting, but we were able to continue and have everyone visit the Three Degrees of Glory.
Today has been a pretty normal Preparation Day thus far.
So, that's my news for the week. Keep an eye out for unexpected opprotunities to share the Gospel--'cause they're out there!
Elder Samuel Stephens