Letter #40 August 17, 2014

August 17, 2014

Hey Everyone!!

This week has flown by!! I feel like just yesterday I was writing all of you and now here we are again.  (That’s probably the dumbest way I have ever started an email.)  Forgive me.  But this week was good.  We saw a lot of success and a lot of progress in more areas than one.  This week started off a little hard as my companion and I were still playing the quiet game.  I remembered advice that President Lapierre had given me for my future marriage.  He said "Elder, if you ever have a fight with your wife, do the smart thing and stay home from work to fix things."  So I thought it might work for our companionship too.  I told my comp that I wasn’t going to leave the house until we talked things out like adults.  I expected him to last until lunch maybe, but lo and behold, we stayed inside all day long.  I read ALOT!!!  I actually studied around 10 chapters in Alma, and then had time to read through the entire book, "Our Search for Happiness" by M. Russell Ballard (great book btw).  The next morning even though it was difficult, I felt like I needed to apologize to my comp for giving him an ultimatum like I did.  He still didn’t want to talk, but I can be a little persistent, and we ended up having a great talk, and now, all is well in Zion, Zion Prospered!!  We are continuing our work with The Barbosa family and it is going well.  Hermano is working hard to stop smoking and drinking.  He is doing so much better. Their date to be baptized is this Saturday so we stopped by yesterday to give him some extra encouragement.  We also had a lot of success with one of the families that Elder Silva and I found in divisions.  We have been passing by every other day trying to help them better understand our message and they seem to really like it!! Maximiliana and her 3 daughters always listen, and her husband listens when he is home. This past Sunday all 5 of them came to church!! In total we had 12 investigators in church this week!  The only thing is that we are scared to bring people to church now because of the crazy stuff that always happens with members.   This week, Sacrament meeting turned into a discussion again and the final speaker (1st counselor in the District Presidency), got up and talked for 40 minutes on a variety of topics, just a few of them were.... The Abrahamic Covenant, the Millennium, Satan being bound, and how we are all descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh. He called everyone to repentance, and ended by talking about Patriarchal Blessings.  My comp and I were dying!!! Our poor investigators had no idea what he was talking about.  It was super frustrating!!  After church we went and talked with Maximiliana and her family to see what they thought.  They told us they loved it!!! We decided to teach them the Gospel of Jesus Christ using the cross.  At the end when we revealed the cross, they all freaked out and thought we had really performed a miracle!!  It was the best reaction I have ever seen.  Normally when we use this example it’s with kids.  These women were 15, 20, and 21 years old.  We had to hold back our laughs. It was such a good lesson.  Overall, this week was full of awesome experiences, but like every other story, more detail will have to wait till I am home.

Stay safe and know you are in my prayers!!
Elder Ollerton