WOW! Ya se fue agosto!

I can’t believe that August is already over! A year ago I was thinking it took forever, still waiting in Mexico to go to the field!

This week has been pretty good. We taught Maria two more times, and she is super awesome! She called us like 5 minutes before she wants us to come over, but miraculously we always seem to have a open slot for her! She has been reading and studying. She will be baptized. We tried to put her on a date, but she realized how important baptism is and she said, "its like getting married." so she said she would think on a date to be baptized. She didn’t come to church this week because she was in Chicago. :/

We were tracting the other day and we ran into this lady named Karla. She is super awesome! She was asking all the perfect questions that led right into the next point of the restoration lesson! We taught her the whole resto including the Book of Mormon on the doorstep.

We taught the recent convert Choba again. She is so crazy and spunky, she reminds me of my Nana (grandma) and how she would act if she was speaking Spanish! 

We have been teaching English classes, and I really enjoy teaching English. Its fun to force them to speak in English, and really see that they really can speak a lot better than they let on.

So there is this eternigator (eternal investigator) who has been taught for 9 years, he just has some legal and word of wisdom problems. He signed himself up for rehab and flew out to California on Friday to fix his drug problems. This should help him a lot! Hopefully!

Funny note. So all the members say that Elder Harris and I are "Harris Porter" which sounds a lot like "Harry Potter" with their accent :)

Love you all!

Elder Porter

Going to dinner with Branch Mission Leader.

Dinner at Alarcon's

Mexican Hot Chocolate and Banana Bread

Saying goodbye to Francisco

Ahorita tenemos un temple en Indiana!!!!!!!!!!!

Super awesome day yesterday, because we were able to watch the dedication of the Indianapolis Indiana Temple!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOO super awesome experience.

On Saturday we got to watch the cultural celebration as well, which was super cool too. I didn’t know that there was actually culture in America we could celebrate ;)

So there was a lot of tracting this week, but we found this super awesome lady from Honduras. I love people from Honduras; they are awesome as well! 

But her story: Her name is Maria and Elder Harris was convinced that we needed to knock this door. So we went over, and we saw her come to the door, and then walk away. So we were like, "oh well" and then as we were walking away she came through the garage, and she told us to sit down. So we did. She used to live in New York and her kids babysitter was a Mormon. So she has had some contact with them before. Had a super awesome resto lesson, and gave her a Book of Mormon. She said she was going to read it. 

On Tuesday we went to Lafayette for a multi zone conference. It was super good. 

Love

Elder Porter

Nice hollow stump we found :)

Mi nuevo compañero se llama Elder Harris

So my trainee's name is Elder Harris. He is from a tiny little town called Mountain View Wyoming. What is surprising is he acts a lot like my brother. It’s actually kind of creepy. Like I’m back home sometimes. We are in Elkhart; the apartment isn’t too shabby. 

This week has been kinda slow, getting adjusted and everything. We did have an awesome lesson with our Branch Mission Leader's boss, named Jose. He is going to get baptized. He always tells Juan after we leave to "enjoy this" which is the feelings that the spirit brings. So he is super receptive and awesome!

We had another awesome experience yesterday to be able to confirm a lady in church yesterday. She got baptized last Sunday, so we got to confirm her yesterday. She is a 70 something year old lady, and she is super spunky, and speaks 90mph. I feel bad for Elder Harris because its so fast I only catch like a third of what she says, but he hardly gets anything. 

We met this crazy guy tracting the other day who told us that red bull is cow piss and other stuff mixed together, and that coke was blood and sugar. He was insane!

Other than that there aren’t many updates to report on.

Indianapolis Temple

Me and my new companion

Love You!

Esoy embarazado! Voy a dar a luz mañana a un bebe ;)

So transfers are here. And the news is that I’m going to be training. And I am also leaving Goshen and moving up to Elkhart. So going to stay in the same branch. 

And this is super funny because my trainer was born in Elkhart, I was born in South Bend, and my trainee in Elkhart. 3 generations of missionaries born in the Elkhart 3rd branch.

But this week was good week. Kind of sad though because we had to drop Juan. We went for our appointment and he said he couldn’t meet today. So we asked if he had five minutes. He hadn’t completed with any commitments, and we talked with him and he said to stop by in a month to see how he is doing. I wish he could’ve progressed more.

Saturday we had the opportunity to go through the temple on one of the very last tours. I love the temple. They had 91,000 people go through the temple open house! Super awesome! Now we are just waiting for the dedication! 

We didn’t get home till 1:15am Sunday morning. We had to play 20 questions to keep us awake! But we got home safe! :) 

The other elders had a baptism yesterday of a super awesome lady named Senobia. She is super spunky and funny.  I will be able to give her the new member lessons :)

Love

Elder Porter

Ultima semana otra vez del translado

So pday got switched to Monday suddenly because of some meetings. But I like pday on Monday’s better anyways!!!!

So this letter will be kinda short because its only been a couple days since I wrote you guys last.

So on Friday we went on exchanges and I stayed in my area with Elder Trapp from Oregon. We had a really awesome lesson with Juan. We read Alma 32 about faith. I have come up with this super cool commitment with this chapter as well. You give them a seed and compare the water, sun, and soil that the seed needs to grow to the three things a testimony/faith need to grow prayers, reading the scriptures, and going to church. And then you tell them that if it is lacking in one, it wont grow right. Then you commit them to plant the seed and every day when they water it to read a certain amount from the Book of Mormon and to pray. As they do this they will watch the plant grow, and their faith symbolically grow. I have had great success with this lesson/seed thingy every time I have done it. People are so excited to show you the seed they planted, and when you ask "are you reading and praying" they always say "YES!" so I hope that this will help Juan make the commitments he needs to make in order to grow his testimony and make it to baptism.

So we haven’t been able to teach Carolina this week, she has been super busy and hard to contact. But we tracted into a friend of hers that works at the same place. SO that was cool. The lady was super solid, and we referred her over to the English elders.

On Saturday we had a wide open day and it was super hard/long. But at the end of the day we went to this guy Javier’s house. And the whole family was there!!!! We had a super awesome restoration lesson. The mom had the hardest heart of them all and couldn’t understand for a while the purpose of Joseph Smith. She kept quoting the scripture that no one can get to the father except through Christ. But we helped her see that we only see him like Moses or Abraham. The lesson was super spiritual, and they even offered to feed us the next appointment we have with them. A good sign of a solid investigator--if they feed you. Being serious. 

Yesterday we had a good fireside with the Spanish branch and the Temple president. I love the temple.

So yesterday morning we went to this HUGE church called Grace Community Church and I was blown away at what they thought was a spiritual experience. IT was really just a rock concert with flashing lights and everything. No wonder our country is going downhill. I am so grateful for the spiritual haven that our Chapels are. I love being spiritually rejuvenated!

Love

Elder Porter

Indianapolis Temple

Indianapolis Temple

Indianapolis Temple