Can a leopard change his spots?

We have been visiting Less Activie members and finding investigators along the way. Life is so hard for some people and so that I can understand.  But others have it really good and still don't bother with having Heavenly Father in their lives. But this all can change and that's the nature of missionary work.

We have a wonderful AP.   He is an Assistant to the President of the mission. To be an AP means you were a missionary, District leader, and Zone leader first. It means you are EXACTLY obedient to the mission rules and what the Lord is requiring of us on the mission.  It means you love the Lord, and the other missionaries.  It means you conduct many meetings and teach many trainings and still find time to go out and do missionary work AND learn the new language (in this case, Spanish).

Like I said, he is amazing.  But this Elder has to always wear long sleeve shirts here on this mission where even Elder Pack wears short sleeves.  That's because his body is covered in tatoos.  In his "former life" he didn't know the Lord.  But the gospel changes people.  The trick is to turn around, accept the gospel and stick with it and the Lord will literally shower you with blessings. 

Navajo Missionaries

We met another senior missionary couple who are Navajos.  They put in their mission papers and requested the Navajo reservation.  Surprise, they were called to the California Fresno mission!  They accepted the call and came anyway.  They arrived and were assigned to Porterville, California. And they discovered there are some Navajos there.  They have already met the chief and got his OK to proselyte the people.  They also have found some Navajo members and are visiting them. The Lord has a plan and all we have to do is have the faith to follow it!

Party Animals

Glen and I drove around to 17 families' homes to invite these less actives and investigators to our Branch mother's day dinner on Thursday.  On Friday we had the dinner.  Not everyone came.  But some came!
One of the sisters hasn't been to church in over a year.  She brought her mom, sister, and four kids.  And says she wants to come back into the church.  Tomorrow will tell.

Another sister is an investigator that we saw for the first time this week with a member accompanying us. She brought her mom, sister, and kids.  The mom is 86 and when we visited Tues. she said she felt something telling her to ask this man (Glen) to give her a blessing. She has great pain in her legs.  So Glen did and I knew it was going to help her and it did!  At the dinner she said the pain is much less.

We also worked hard to get a family to come that had been offended by a church member and wasn't coming to church anymore.  And they came!

We also had district and zone meeting on Tuesday morning.  I was asked the day before to give a 10 minute talk on Accountability.  Giving talks is nothing anymore if I can just do it in English!  So I gave the talk and near the end I was talking about the accounting that is done in the Temple ceremony and I had the best experience with the Holy Ghost! It is so wonderful to be on a full time mission and have the opportunity to work so close with the Lord.

I would like to take a moment to wish my daughters and daughters-in-law a Happy Mothers Day. These mothers are the best mothers I know and I love them. Keep in mind that Adam called Eve the mother of all living and God agreed.  And this was before she had any children! And Happy Mothers Day to all you good women reading this too.

A much better Sunday

We broke 30 for our attendance at Sacrament Meeting Sunday.  Don't laugh.  That's a 20 percent increase!  One of the young men that we got there passed the Sacrament which is a big help.  And the sister we are working with in the Chowchilla branch (30 minutes away) who hadn't been to church for thirty years, came for the second time, stayed all three meetings, and bore her testimony in Relief Sociey on Fast Sunday.

The two less active families that we were helping move (along with the missionary Elders and some members of the branch) finally got moved!  Now we can move on to other things. But those two families were really grateful and now introduce us as their friends from the church. That's exactly right.

We sure do enjoy hearing that our children and grandchildren are doing well.  The family is coming along nicely and we really appreciate their support of our mission. Dana's family sent these beautiful flowers for Mother's Day a week early which really confused Lori so she fixed Grandma B a great mother's day dinner-yesterday.  Kind of funny really. But nice.

Do you have enough faith to NOT baptize?

Do you have enough faith to baptize?  Do you have enough faith to NOT baptize?  That is what our mission President Gelwix asks the missionaries here and I learned what that meant today when all the Less Actives we have been working so hard with still didn't come to church.  Not as much fun but we work hard again for another Sunday.

We had a fantastic Zone training Friday that lasted from 8:30-5:30 and I wasn't bored one minute of it. And then on the way home (which took an hour) we stopped at a fireside given by Doug Brinley.

 He was so informative and good.  He spoke about the Priesthood, Temple and Marriage.  For instance, our signature to our covenant contract with God is when we do the ordinance.  Like baptism. And covenants are what gives us power to live in a fallen world.
 The first Five chapters of the Book of Moses is the Temple endowment for Moses. (Ann would love this speaker!)
  He also explained that the twelve oxen holding up the baptismal font in the temples represent the twelve tribes of Isreal which we all know.  But then he explained we are gathering Isreal through the work for the dead done there.
 He told that we are to get married in the Temple so God can assign you the elect portion of the premortal spirits. (found in Mormon Doctrine).
Our homes are to be MTCs for our children.  (Everyone should be doing Family Home Evenings out of the Preach My Gospel book and the children should be doing the teaching.)
It was such a wonderful experience for another hour and a half.  And at the end he said, "If your parents didn't have any kids you probably didn't either". (That's for Taylor)

Egg Picking Party

We went over to Mike Hernandez and his wife Cindy's place to teach a first discussion.  What a place! They had chickens, and geese and doves and a peacock.  There were a couple of animals from the ostritch family and a tiny horse and a lot of dogs!

When we started to teach them the husband said he thought the Catholic church and our church were about the same.  To our credit we didn't even crack a smile.  We just asked if we could start at the beginning and maybe he would see where we were different.  By the time Glen finished the Restoration lesson and finished up with the Joseph Smith story, the man just sat there staring at him.  I think we can honestly say he will never say THAT again. He gave us a tour of the place and let me collect the eggs for the day.  He also g
gave us two  goose eggs. Haven't decided what to do with those yet.

Not a day of rest-but a great day!

We started by calling Christian for his birthday and got to talk with TJ and Jenny too!

Then we went to the branch in Chowchilla.  Mission Pres. asked us to scope that branch out too. It was Glen's idea to go today.  I personally would have waited until we got Merced going better.  But no, it had to be today.  The branch there is English speaking with real nice people and a few Spanish speaking using head sets. The meeting was very good with the High Councilman explaing why Korahor was wrong.  But after Glen caught this older couple leaving (yes, older than us) and that was the amazing part.

They had come because her son (about 40) had recently got baptised and he told his mom and step-dad to go to this Mormon church and just look for the missionaries!  They didn't find us but Glen found them and they asked us to come to their home this week to teach them.  You know, the thing missionaries dream about.

Then we came back to Merced and went to our own branch where 5 men and young men came to the class to learn about receiving the Priesthood. That would be so great.  And Pres. Estrada asked us to teach a Temple prep class!  This is looking better and better.

We are also enjoying the luscious fruit in this area and the great fruit markets. A lady vendor there asked us for one of our books!  Glen had to run to the car and get one. This is really fun.