Otra vez ya se fue!

I cant believe it is the end of September. I remember a year ago it felt like September took forever to go by! Weird how it seems to go faster and faster.

This week was a good week. But not like an amazing week. We had lots of lessons, but its hard to be excited about a ton of lessons when none of the people are really progressing. I'm kinda in a weird position, happy that we can teach, but sad that we cant get anyone to progress.

I cant believe it is already General Conference again! I really feel like we just had it! So excited to listen to the inspired words of our leaders. 

What is really weird is how many Jehova Witnesses we seem to run into up here. I think we have taught like at least 1 a week. And even more interesting is the fact that they arent baptized because they dont agree with everything the JW teach. So they are being prepared to recieve the restored and true gospel. 

Saturday was a good day, we drove like 10 miles out of town to tract this trailer park. We found a cousin of the wife of our branch president, which could end up being a cool investigator. But what really made the day cool was we got a suprise call from the Diaz family from my old area in South Bend, inviting us to eat with them. I loved being in their home again and being able to converse with them. And then since we were already in South Bend I wanted to go stop by Mary, my old investigator. So we went and said hi to her. I loved seeing her. She hasnt been baptized yet, but I tried to remind her of the feelings that she felt so that she would have her desire rekindled. 

Love

Elder Porter

The trailer park we tracked

We visited South Bend

Member from Mexico who visited

Dinner with a member

Segundo translado con mijo

So today starts the first day of the second transfer with Elder H. For the next six weeks (unless absolutely necessary) I will only be speaking to him in Spanish. Wish us luck! Its gonna be hard for both of us, but super fun too! 

We had a pretty good week last week. Taught 28 lessons in total.

Tuesday we had a really good meeting in Indy with president and the assistants. I felt really pumped up, but I felt like Elder H didn’t like it as much because he had to go up in front of everyone and role play contacting someone (President Cleveland) he was the only one who had to do it 3 times, so it kinda hurt his pride, and made him super self conscious. I felt sad for him. Pobrecito.

But the training was really good, and pumped me up to do the work. But that means we lost a day of work. So we were kind of behind on our numbers. On Saturday we were 5 lessons behind where we needed to be. So we had lunch with Choba, and then went to a baptism of a child of one of the Members of the branch. (I had to give a talk) and then we just went out to hit the doors for the next couple hours. It was miraculous. Literally every door we knocked on was a lesson. And the majority of them were new investigators. We taught 10 lessons in like 3 hours. Super awesome!

Had another lesson with Jose, he is so solid but at the same time he is not. He has a huge commitment level, but its just getting him to commit is the problem. We are trying really hard to work with him to get him to come to church. Cuz as soon as he does, he won’t have a problem, but its hard getting him there.

Last pday we went and saw some sights at Notre Dame in South Bend. Felt super awkward being Mormon Missionaries on a catholic campus. 

Display case at Notre Dame.  Super awesome school!

Me on the court at Notre Dame

Doors to the Basilica

South Bend-Notre Dame

Dinner with Juan

Yo siente differente

This week has gone by actually pretty quick. We had a LOT of tracting this week. 

We were really behind on the number of lessons we wanted this week, but then on Saturday we just hit the doors and we taught like 8 lessons that day. It was super cool! We found a lady that might be super solid. But hard to tell on a first lesson. Maybe you will hear more about her next week.

We had a good lesson with Choba, she just came back from Arkansas to help her son move here. We had a good lesson about why we have hard times, because there are some problems in her family.

We had a good lesson with a less active named Luis. We were just teaching the Plan of Salvation, but the Spirit was so strong! 

Then we had a good lesson with a nonmember husband of a member. We just helped him know what his true desires were, and how he could know if the church was true through the Book of Mormon. 

We had a cool lesson yesterday with this girl. Her little sister was talking really loudly across the street, trying to figure out what we were. So we went over to talk to her. And her older sister walked out. She is a non babtized Jehovas Witness. We had a really good resto lesson and hopefully she progresses. She will be passed on to the English elders.

Sadly this week we had to drop Maria. She just wasn’t as solid as we thought. We were super sad. But she will progress one day, just not this day.

We had zone meeting on Friday, and it really changed me. I don’t know what is different about me, but I feel different. I feel like I now have more to give, when before I thought I was giving it all. I really have like this urgent feeling that we need to help this branch out. I want to really work on the less actives, because they are already "candidates for salvation" and it is important to help them come back to activity. It’s kind of weird.

Love you all!

Elder Porter

Todavia se siente como el verano

So this week has been really hot and humid! It’s been almost hotter than it was during the summer. Just sweating buckets!

So last Monday we went on exchanges. I went with Elder Blood’s trainee Elder Ebeling. We had an ok night, but then I got a flat tire.

Tuesday on exchanges was good. We taught this Mennonite preacher. The lesson was soooooo spiritual! Loved it! Then later that day we went to dinner, and when we came out, my tire was flat.

So when on Wednesday we went to the bike shop and had them fix it. And then half an hour later, it popped again. So we walked a lot that day, and didn’t really get anything done, which sucked. But then we took the bike back in, and it was a bad tube. SO they fixed it up again for free, and now it hasn’t given me problems. But all the flat tires I have had in my mission have been when I have been serving in this branch. It’s weird.

But on Tuesday we had the opportunity to go to translate for a less active at his work. That was an interesting experience, because it wasn’t like I was the intermediary, but more like I had a conversation going in Spanish, and then one in English at the same time. It was strange! 

But this week was really kind of slow, we had a really hard time teaching lessons. 

On Thursday we had one of the coolest lessons I have ever taught with Jose (Juan’s Boss) we were teaching about the plan of salvation after death, and we only got to explain the spirit world to him. We ended up talking about the story that President Monson shared about the man who had everything in this world, but when he got to the other side, he had just a little shack. So we ended up talking about the things we can do to put money in our "account with god" like scriptures, and church, and prayer, and most of all, baptism. So then we just left after that and he told Juan a little bit later, "Tus misioneros me han dejado mucho que pensar" which means, "your missionaries have left me a lot to think about". Juan said that he has changed a lot since that lesson, in how he relates to his family, and his work goals and stuff. So he is really changing, which is super cool!

On Saturday we got to go to the first ever Spanish session of the endowment in the Indianapolis Temple! It was funny to see English people wearing the headphones ;) But it was a momentous occasion! And super spiritual! I love the Indiana temple!

So after p-day yesterday, we went tracting because we have nothing else to do, and we knocked this door that we thought was Hispanic, but she turned out to be from Hawaii, but grew up in Guam. I asked how she was and she said not good cuz they were fighting. SO then it was super awkward after that comment. But then she came out on the porch because she feels like she needs God back in her life. We had a super spiritual, super quick lesson and she pretty much bawled the whole time, and like told us everything that has happened in her life that has been hard. So the spirit was just......awesome. Then we told her we would send the missionaries from the English congregation, and left her with a prayer. Then she asked what church we were from (we forgot to mention that part) and then she said that our church was the church that she used to go to when she was in Guam. So I was able to testify to her that God still loves her, and us knocking on her door was a sign that he wants her to come and be a part of our church.

So this week was slow for the most part, but there were some huge spiritual highs intermittently through the week. 

Love you all!

Elder Porter