Lots of Appointments and Temple Trip

September 4, 2012

Dear Familia,

That's cool that Elder Sterling showed up at the house to see you. That is definitely like him so I'm not at all surprised.

So this has been an interesting week. On Tuesday we had to run out to pep boys to get our car maintenance done. Ended up being a $500 bill, glad we don't have to pay those. Anyway on the way back Elder Denton wasn't feeling great so we ended up staying in the apartment most of the rest of the day. We had an appointment with Luis and Fior (the people we knocked into who (Luis at least) went to church in Guatemala) which we showed up five minutes early to and Fior answered the door, telling us that Luis had to work late and wasn't home yet. So we scheduled another appointment and left.  As we were leaving we past Luis coming in and told him about the new appointment. Had we shown up on time we might have been able to teach them. Darn punctuality.

Then that night we went over to a family in the branch who we visit a lot. It was their now 4 year old's birthday party so that was fun. After some of the festivities we all sat down for the spiritual thought and the dad actually sat down to listen. Their dad is a member but is not active and has wanted nothing to do with the church, so that was a big step. So all the family plus a few party guests all sat down reverently and we had a good thought, and he expressed the desire to change and admitted that his life style does not make him happy. So that was really good. Then as things were wrapping up and we starting to get more lighthearted again the four year old just rips one. So everyone starts laughing and telling all the best fart jokes they can think of.  Then we get things settled down again for the closing prayer and as I am saying it she rips another even bigger. Ya I had to wrap that prayer up a little earlier than I had expected.

Then Wednesday I had my one-year mark temple trip. Caught me off guard. There were two small groups in a row so they threw ours in with the people from this month. So that was a really cool experience. It is a really small but really nice temple.

Thursday we didn't have too much exciting going on. Friday was appearing the same. We had a few appointments but they juked. Then for the last thing we were going to do for the night we went to try Ari, that one that we knocked into before the DA last week and he was there. We read Alma 36 with him and talked about the joy the gospel can bring and he ate it up. He is probably the most accepting person I have ever met. Everything we tell him, he just loves it.

Saturday was looking to be possibly our most busy Saturday in the area, which is saying something. We had nine set appointments. Unfortunately they were all falling through one by one. At two thirty we went to go meet with Luis and Fior. We were knocking on their door and nobody was answering. We were getting pretty bummed out then we double checked and realized that we were on the wrong floor of the building. We both could have sworn that it was the second floor that he lived on. It's a good thing we write stuff down every now and then. So we went up and tried on the right floor and Luis answered the door. We taught him (Fior and the kids weren't there) essentially the same thing we did with Ari the day before and he loved it too. His closing line of the lesson was "I went to this church as a kid, and think I would like to do it again." He told us that he couldn't come this week but next week he would so we will see.  Sunday all of our appointments fell through again (even Ari) so that was kind of a disappointing day.

Yesterday all of our appointments fell through again. So we just decided to see if Ari was home and he was and let us in. Turns out that he got called into work on Sunday. He works in data entry and something got all backed up on their systems and he has been working three or four hours overtime everyday. He had Monday off for Labor Day but he said that he will be working til 9:30 everyday except he has Saturday off. So we will meet with him again on Saturday. But we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he loved it. We could tell often from the look on his face that he needed a few seconds to wrap his mind around it but in the end he admitted that it made a lot more sense the way we taught the purpose of life. If we can start meeting with him consistently he will be baptized. Same with Luis, and once Luis accepts his family will follow.

Anyway, that's about it for the week.

Love you guys,

Elder Pearce