Teaching Spanish Families - 1-21-09

Well this week is almost gone and I have learned alot about time.

This past week Elder Davis and I have been busy up until yesterday, then all of our apointments fell through. No one really wanted to talk to us because of the Inaguration address. But, we did get done as much as we could.

On Monday we went spanish tracking, (we have a goal to have at least 10 hispanic baptisms this year in Newport News) and WOW. We started out going with a RM from the Hampton Ward named Bro Taylor Redfern. (He went to Ecuador) and we met so many spanish people. I can't believe that we won't get at least one of them baptized, and they are really cool.

Last night we played soccer with them and we lost badly, but it was fun. We are going out later in the week to visit them again and I really pray for the spirit to help me talk with them.
Now do I wish I knew more Spanish and that I could translate it.

Other than that this week has come and gone. Wow, I can't believe I am already in my 3rd month out here and coming up on transfers already.

The weather here has been really cold (not like Utah, here it is really wet and cold). I use to like the cold, but here it cuts through all of your clothing and right to you. I am still trying to make it.

The start of the week was bad though, I got a little sick and was in bed most of the morning and I was sick the rest of the day. Tuesday I still felt a little sick, but I feel great today and at about 6pm we will be working again.

I really enjoy the letters that I get and hope that you send another for this month or the next. I do save them all and will reread them some times.

Thank you for the talk today, I really needed it. I will probably use it today. I hope you are all well and that Benson is working hard in school. Tell him I will miss him and that I will tell him everything he needs to know about a mission when I get back. ( if he doesn't leave early).

I love you all
- Elder Boy

Why didn’t you tell me?” - 1-18-09

Hello William,

I was thrilled to get your email last week. The difference in your attitude was an answer to our prayers. You have grown so much over such a short time, I am so proud of you.

The picture of you in the park with Elder Davis is the one that is going in the display case at church, and your address will be on the ward website. I hope that this will give your past teachers and leaders a chance to send you some letters.

So how are things going for you this week? I hope that you are having some success with the other investigators that you talked about last week. Sister Luebke said that David is having a great time in Texas, and Doug Keyes said that Paul is really enjoying himself in Argentina.

We finished the headboard that we made for Steve and Tausha and it looks great. Mary Ann and I took the old door that was for the laundry room and added some crown molding and crackle paint. I called Steve so we could deliver it and he was taking Tausha to see her little sister, Kayla Barclay, in the Miss America Pageant. She is Miss Utah, and she had to do a reality show, and a bunch of competitions as part of the Miss America Contest.

Doug and James Keyes came by and did a home teaching visit and Doug gave us a lesson based on Br. Eyring’s 1st presidency message from the Ensign. I liked the message so I took one of the stories from it for you spiritual thought this week. It was kind of the opposite side of your Grand Stadium story. What about the people that we meet here and don’t share the gospel with. I think you will like it.

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Let Us Raise Our Voice of Warning
Excerpt from the talk by President Henry B. Eyring First Counselor in the First Presidency

At some moment in the world to come, everyone you met in this life will know what you know now. They will know that the only way to live forever in association with our families and in the presence of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, is to choose to enter into the gate by baptism at the hands of those with authority from God. They will know that the only way families can be together forever is to accept and keep sacred covenants offered in the temples of God on this earth. They will know that you knew. And they will remember whether you offered them what someone had offered you.

Years ago I worked for a man in California. He hired me; he was kind to me; he seemed to regard me highly. I may have been the only Latter-day Saint he ever knew well. I don’t know all the reasons I found to wait for a better moment to talk with him about the gospel. I just remember my feeling of sorrow when I learned, after he had retired and I lived far away, that he and his wife had been killed in a late-night drive to their home in Carmel, California. He loved his wife. He loved his children. He had loved his parents. He loved his grandchildren, and he will love their children and will want to be with them forever.

Now, I don’t know how the crowds will be handled in the world to come. But I suppose that I will meet him, that he will look into my eyes, and that I will see in them the question: “Hal, you knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I testify that we have been given the privilege and the obligation to offer the truth and the choices which lead to those blessings to our Heavenly Father’s children, who are our brothers and our sisters. Jesus is the Christ, He lives, and this is His work.

Well, we are praying for you and can’t wait to read your next letter on Wednesday. Work hard, pray harder. Return with Honor.

We Love you.
Dad, Mary Ann, and Benson.

P.S. I helped Anneke with updating your mission website so hopefully she will spend a little time on it this week.