Easter!

My new area that is right behind sea world! New area, new companion, and new District. My area is another bike area that is about double the size of my last area. It is mostly middle class and is only about 20 minutes away from my last area. Still on the outskirts of downtown San Antonio. My companion is Elder Kariuki who is from bountiful Utah and his dad is from Kenya. His dad is in Spiritual Crocodile Mormon message. Anyway he has been out one less transfer than me and has been in this area for two transfers. He was in band back in high school. I am done training Elder Villeda who I'm going to miss. I had such a great time with him and he was a great Elder. I will also miss Parkwood and the member/investigators that are there.

My district is almost the same as my last one. Another district of only one set of sisters and one of them was also in my last district. Both of my zone leaders are so great. They have helped me and have been answering all my questions. They both play soccer and on pdays they go to an indoor soccer field for $5 and play. They invited us to go which I'm super excited about but we can't go today because my companion has to go to the doctors.

We don't have any progressing investigators as of right now but I'm trying to stop by less actives and part members. They just had a baptism last week in this area and hopefully we can get a couple this upcoming month. I spent about 6 hours cleaning the apartment on Thursday and Friday. My companion kept on trying to have me not throw things away so I would just hide things in the trash when he wasn't looking. Now I'm going to have to rearrange things like Grandma D. does all the time.

Every Tuesday and Friday we go to the food bank with our zone and do service there for a couple hours. It was a great time and I'm looking forward to doing it a couple times each week.We had no investigators at church for Easter but we had several less actives come. Easter was fun and we had a great dinner.  It was so great to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I know that Christ died for each of us and that through him and only him we can be resurrected and live with our friends and family again. Death has no sting and the grave hath no victory because of our savior and his atonement. Christ lives!

Good bye Parkwood!

We set Alex with a baptism date for the 9th of April but he didn't show up to church and hasn't answered his phone in a while now. We hope that we will get a hold of him in the next couple days to see why he missed church and also if he has been reading from the Book of Mormon. We also asked his daughter and son to be baptized but they don't want to go against there mothers beliefs (catholic) and said no but that they want to keep on learning and meeting with us. We didn't have any other investigators or less actives come to church but we are planning on having two less active families come to church on Easter.

We had several lesson and found a couple new investigators. On Saturday we had some unplanned service and we were able to help an older lady weed her garden. It was fun to help her and luckily the weather was really nice and not to hot. She has some Mormon family members and we committed her to reading the Book of Mormon.  We also meet again with Joe Tolman and set up another time to do family history on Saturday but he cancelled once again. One of these days he will come and do family history.

District meeting on Wednesday was really good. We practiced teaching the plan of salvation simply and talked about Christ in each step of the plan. We also discussed what we learned during this transfer and talked about a couple other things.

I am getting transferred to 6th Ward (3010 w. Loop 1604 n. Apartment 4102) tomorrow morning. I have spent 3 transfers in each of my two areas now. I will continue to be the district leader in the 6th Ward district. I have no clue who will be in my district yet but I will find out tomorrow. My companion is Elder Kariuki who has been out I think two transfers less than me. I am going to miss Elder Villeda and Parkwood. I had such a great time training these last two transfers but I'm also excited to go to a new area and work there. I know that it's were the lord needs me now but I did learn a lot here in Parkwood and I going to miss the Ward and area. My new area is still in San Antonio but is closer to downtown.

Praying!

Busy busy week. District meeting, first baptismal interview, zone meeting, and exchanges. On Tuesday I got a call from the zone leaders and they said that I will be giving a 25 minute training for zone meeting on Friday. I gave my training on following up and luckily last week for district meeting that's what I trained on so I was already somewhat prepared for this one. Then I had to prepare a for my district meeting on Wednesday which we talked about how we can better work with less actives so that we can bring them back to church along with their non member friends and families. One of the zone leaders came to my district meeting and he was able to give me some advice on what I can do to make my district meetings more effective.

Then on Thursday evening I had my first baptismal interview who was with a 9 year old kid whose mother was baptized about a year ago. The kid was very energetic. The baptisms was going to happen on Saturday but the sister contacted the father on Friday who hasn't been in the picture yet and he said that he doesn't want his son to be baptized. We decided that it would be best for the baptism to be postponed for a couple more months.

After zone meeting I went on exchanges with the one of the zone leaders into his area. He is such a great leader and I learned a lot from him. He is a very good listener and knows his scriptures. He use to play soccer for Dixie and was the keeper. It was super fun we woke up at 5:15 on Saturday morning and went the there chapel and played chair soccer with 6 elders. They were all pretty bad but it was nice to touch a soccer ball again after 6 or so months.

As of Saturday night after several calls we had 7 investigators and 3 less actives that said they would come to church. But non of them came. Our lesson with Joe at the family history center was cancelled and he had something come up and couldn't make it to church. Two of our members brought investigators to church and they enjoyed it. One of them wants to start meeting with missionaries and we are excited about that. We had a great lesson with Kane (18) and his sister Kendal (12). The father Alex and the mother weren't home when we stopped by but we also have another lesson with them tonight and hopefully the whole family will b there. They said they would come to church but didn't show up. Maybe next week.

We had a couple lessons with some less actives and have been getting a lot of referrals from the bishop and also the new elders quorum president. We will be having a busy week stopping by and trying to set return appointments with these people. We have many potentials and also less actives that we our hoping and praying will come to church and meet with us this week. The girls baptism in the singles Ward is Friday evening and she asked me to say the opening prayer.

Daily Contact!

This week we had a great lesson with one of our old investigators Joe Tolman. He is an older man who loves family history and we have an appointment this Wednesday to go to the family history center at our church and help him with that. Neither me or my companion have ever done family history so we are making sure to have one of the family history consultants there to help him out. He has been doing some on his own and he found out that his grandmother was a member. He loves the church and wants to join but his wife is still a strong Catholic and he feels that if he joins then she will be very upset. She is starting to warm up to us and has recently been talking with us unlike she use to several months back. We are just praying and hoping that one day she will soften her heart and let Joe be baptized. He said that he will come to church this Sunday so we are looking forward to that.

We also had another lesson with the less active Robles family. It is just the father and his son who is a senior in high school. The son plays the guitar and is in a rock band. He also has pretty long hair. Classical rock kid! We have been trying to get the son to go on trek in a couple of weeks and he wants to just still waiting to see if he can get work off. The Robles family our converts several years back and they both have a very powerful testimony. They want to come to church but most Sunday's conflict with work. They study the scriptures and are always seeking opportunities to share the gospel with others.

District meeting on Wednesday went good. We talked about the importance of following up with our investigators and also members. We also discussed how we need to try and have daily contact with them as well. We have been keeping daily contact with Joe Tolman through email in which we send him a scripture, video link, or something else. We also have been keeping daily contact with Kane who is the Cowboys (Alex) son through a scripture text. We haven't had a lesson with him for a while now but he did say that he has been reading the scriptures that we gave to him about how God loves and cares about us. We have a lesson with him this week and hopefully the whole family will be home to listen.

We didn't get a chance to meet with the Obersts or Sarah and the Godwins. We will be stopping by them in the next couple days hoping that that we will be able to catch them at home. They also both didn't come to church but that's okay because I have faith that they will come next week.

The other night I was chasing a possum on my bike. Those things are super ugly. Me and my companion also took down both bunk beds and put them together so now it's like we each have two king size beds. The other night we talked with this lady who was trying to tell us that we aren't all children of God and that even babies have sin also that we don't all have the light of Christ in us. It to bad that so many people don't understand the bible and don't have the Book of Mormon in there life. We hope that she will one day have a chance to read the Book of Mormon and join gods kingdom that has once again been established on the earth today through the prophet Joseph Smith. We did service again with Bro. Auble who also had his last treatment on Friday. He is now cursed from cancer. We put together a flower bed for him and then helped make some flooring in his attic.

Yesterday I saw this lady that I taught a few times when I went on exchanges with my old zone leaders who served in YSA Ward and she will be getting baptized in a couple weeks. She invited us to go which will be great to see her enter into the waters.

"Each one of us has a part to play, and no matter how small or how insignificant you think your part is, it matters to the whole.  We have something very important to do.  We were born to lead and change the world."