Hola familia!
Things continue to go well. We had a good week this past week and were able to find a new investigator.
We were able to teach an older man named Carlos yesterday. It's been a story that has evolved over the last 2 weeks. We were in the New Brighton/Copperfield area one night and had an appointment fall through at the last moment. We had been trying to step back and seek revelation in those moments and so we said a small prayer. We started driving towards a less-active's house down the street. On the way, we really were thinking hard about how we would be able to recognize a Spanish house in the area. The thought came to mind to look for signs and so we drove pondering on every house. A couple houses later, we saw a basketball hoop and the backboard was painted like a Colombian flag. That night, a boy who was 14 answered and was nice, but didn't seem to have too much interest. We had stopped by one other time since then and he again answered and said that his parents were busy. This past Wednesday, a similar situation happened. We had an appointment in the area that fell through and so we went by. We talked to Carlos for about 10 minutes at the door and he invited us back for a lesson yesterday. Wednesday night, we also went by a member that lived near by who let us in and volunteered to go to the appointment with us. We taught him yesterday and he was an interesting man. He wasn't totally accepting to the message, he was actually very honest about his thoughts. But, he firmly commited to keep meeting with us and to read the Book of Mormon. We hope that this will change his heart. When the lesson was winding down, he abruptly stood up and so we followed to the door. While standing near the door, the member and him were talking about English classes and we hadn't had an opportunity to extend a firm invitation to baptism. I thought to myself, how can we get this in adn it be positive? I looked at Elder Galloway told him we should invite him. Elder Galloway was able to extend the invitation which was declined, but accepted well. We then invited him to pray with us and he walked back into the living room and said a prayer. After the prayer, he embraced our hands with both of his to tell us goodbye and I could tell from his countenance that something had changed. He thanked us over and over with a sincerity that came from his heart. He previously had just given us a normal handshake.
Through this, there are a lot of ways that my testimony has been strengthened. The power of prayer and the spirit that it brings to investigators has especially stuck out. I also know that the Lord blesses us with those prepared as we listen to the promptings of the spirit. We're just trying hard to learn to recognize and act on them when they come. We're excited to continue working with Carlos and hopefully his entire family. We know that if he reads, the Book of Mormon will bare witness to him of the truthfulness of the Restoration.
We were pretty low on kilometers at the end of the month adn so we spent all of friday and saturday walking. I'm pretty sure that we walked a total of 25 miles or so in 2 days and were pretty sore getting home on Saturday night. I felt old trying to walk up the stairs.
This week we have zone conference tommorow and then zone leader council on friday. All day meetings seem to make the week go fast because we always have things to prepare. The theme of zone conference is centered aroudn Elder Scott's talk from conference about faith and its relationship to character building.
Nothing else too exciting is happening. We're planning a cultural competition for next preparation day with the mandarin elders in the mission. They're putting together some activities like hot sauce eating competitions for mexico and chop stick picking up jelly bean competitions and ping pong for asia. It should be fun. A lot of the elders are taking it pretty serious.
Thank you for the school preparations. Just keep me informed in there is anything that i need to do and i can get permission.
I've also been excited because a yougn family that I foudn and started teaching my first week in the mission called the elders and decided to get baptized on november 11th. I taught them off and on for the first 7 and a half months in the mission and they were originally going to get baptized last november. They had continued to read the book of mormon adn be involved with the friends they made. Over time, they eventually started coming back to church about 2 months ago and have decided to be baptized on the 11th. I'm pretty sure that theyh chose it because it was the day that they were supposed to be baptized last year. They will make great members. I've never seen someone read and understand the book of mormon as well as he does. He has a marking system for his reading and is making a geneology chart as he reads.
THanks for everything!
Con amor,
Elder DUnlap
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