August 29th David is going to get Baptized in 2 hours! Yay:)

YAAAAYYY! He's gonna get baptized! In like... 2 hours... crazy right? And then we have a stake activity that we planned...  it is going to be right after the baptism so that is what we are going to do all day, hang out in the stake center! :D haha it's alright... but I hope it turns out well... 

 

This week only David and another investigator came to church, the other investigator is an eternal investigator so we don't know if she will be getting baptized soon...   She has been going to church for like 5 years now and only hasn't gotten baptized because she isn't married to her boyfriend... but he finally asked her to marry him and only need the money to pay for the papers and she can get baptized! So maybe she will be able to in this upcoming month... who knows? but as of right now... it only seems like Jorge will be able to get baptized in Sept  He is still doing really well by the way, we thought we had kinda lost him but he has just been really busy with school and all that. but he is still really interested and wants to keep learning and get baptized! So we have hope for him! :)

Sounds like things are coming along in the back yard getting everything ready for the big day! :) Thanks for sharing that experience about going to the temple and all that, it is really such a great place :) It's the best! 

 

Well... we kinda have a lot of things to do so I am going to end this email and I will tell you about the activity and the baptism and all that next week and I will probably have some good pictures!

Oh and by the way... it seems like my comp is going to get transferred... but we were already expecting that, we just don't know where he will be going yet...

I love you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Sampson

August 15th Pray for us that we'll get our 5 baptisms

So our week went pretty well.  It is kind of a good thing that they pulled the sisters out because it gives us a few more people to work with but it's now kinda hard to work out how we are going to cover the whole area because we had it all figured out before and now the house isn't in a very convenient location because it is pretty far away from some parts of the sisters' old area. And they aren't just going to replace the sisters at least in this change because right now in the mission, there aren't very many sisters... actually, something kinda interesting... there are only two American sisters in the mission right now... and one is actually from Argentina but has lived in Idaho for the last 9 years but ya... just one... and so with that in mind... there aren't very many other sisters either.... and actually less missionaries have been arriving to the mission.  Like... last change about 20 went home and... 7 got here... so it's a little crazy because we aren't as many as we used to be and that is kinda going to keep happening at least for a little bit...

The goal for my comp and I and each companionship is to have 5 baptisms at least in our zone, in September.   Other zones have other goals.   

 

David is doing very well, this week we taught him about the Gospel of Christ and the Word of Wisdom... He took it well but... wasn't so strong on the accepting the challenge of keeping it, he said he would try... but wouldn't give a firm yes so we are going to see what happens... he does have a date for the 29th and is pretty excited about it :) 

 

Jonathan didn't come to church... again... he had to work late and didn't get out of work until after church... (his schedule is pretty tough and then they ask him to stay longer!) but he has been reading and it is great :) we went to just check up on him and we talked about what he had read and a bunch of  other stuff and it was great to know that he is liking it and wants to keep reading and learn even more. 

 

We haven't really found any new prospects per se... but we did "inherit" some from the sister missionaries that are pretty good, like La Familia Duarte, they are a middle aged couple with two young kids, one is 8 and the other is 2. The husband had talked to the missionaries before, like a long time ago but told us that when he read the intro and the testimonies of the witnesses in that time, he got a super bad headache and had to stop reading and hasn't read it since... but we are going to get him to read again, they are a really great family and really want to get an answer from God about the truth. We talked about faith when we visited them and it was a really good experience :)

Things are going well with my comp, and we still talk a lot and it's good :)

A good experience from this week would be when we taught Larisa about the Restoration. She had already kinda heard it from the missionaries in her boyfriends ward but we explained it again and it was a really great experience :) I could feel the Spirit as we taught and testified of the first vision and when we taught her about the apostasy, later she said "now I get it! why you call it the true church, because it is the same church but had been lost and now we have it again" it was really great to see that the Spirit could teach her that important truth and confirm our words :)

That's about it for this week,  I love you all :) take care!

-Elder Sampson

August 8th Goal for September...421 baptisms! Pray that we'll reach it:)

Hey! 

This week is going pretty well, but we just got an interesting tidbit... The ward we are in until... like an hour ago had 4 missionaries 2 sisters and my comp and I but... now... the sisters are going to be in a different area because of some health problems of one of the sisters and we now have the whole ward! It is a little strange... but anyways... we are going to see what happens :) 

We have a goal in the mission right now... we want to have 421 baptisms in the mission in September... and so the goal we have for our area is... 5! In September! and we are gonna do it! 
just... pray as much as you can so we will be able to do it :) We have a few people that we are preparing but we still need a few more to fulfill the goal so pray for us to find a couple more people that can get baptized in Sept. 

This last week David went to church again and is still excited and progressing quite nicely :) 
We taught him about the plan of Salvation this week and it went really well and we could really feel the Spirit when we taught and testified about the Atonement and he understood very well (even though the brother that accompanied us talked about a LOT of slightly unrelated topics) but it was good :) 
Also, something good that happened with Jonathan (he didn't go to church...) was that he had read a bunch of chapters in the BoM and also the pamphlet about the Word of Wisdom and understood most of it! :) (sometimes he doesn't understand completely what he reads... but this time he did :) ) and he was really excited to go to church! He has wanted to go for a while now but hasn't been able to, but he assured us that he will be there tomorrow! So that's good.  

Hmmm... other than that... there hasn't been anything all that crazy going on around here... just workin' in the offices and sweatin' it out in our area :) haha it's great! :) I now feel like 94° is like a normal temperature... a little on the warm side but... normal... maybe I've been in Mexico a little too long ;)

That's about all I've got for now :) I love you all a ton! Have a great week and family reunion!  Tell everyone "hola" for me ;)

-Elder Sampson

(looks like a blast! The family reunion that is :) )

August 1st Love going to the Temple

Hey, it's August! (is that how it's spelled?)

Well, things have been pretty good around here, we have had a better week this week. The only people that went to church this last week were David and this girl named Alisia. Jonathan didn't go because they changed his shift on him and he had to go to work... and Jesus didn't go because he went fishing with his uncle or something like that. I think it wasn't just a pleasure trip, I think his uncle works in that or something... Things have gone pretty well with David. He asked my companion during priesthood meeting, "so in like a year, what would I be?" (he asked that as they were taking roll and he had asked my comp what all the names like deacon, teacher, etc. mean) so he seems be really interested :) and this week... we were able to visit Roberto twice and it is always great to go with him because he is progressing a lot as a new convert. He now has a calling to teach "los valientes in the primary :) it's gonna be great :) This week we talked with him about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon ( with all the recent converts we are supposed to review the 5 lessons from PMG) and so it was great to talk to him. He seems to have a really strong testimony and to be really happy with the Gospel. It's a little crazy because before he was an aethiest... :) he really likes having the book of Mormon and remembers pretty well the details of how it all went down in the times of Joseph Smith and all that.   We were there with him and just talked a little about how great the Book of Mormon is and what it really means for us and it was a rather spiritual experience :)

We had a lesson with Jonathan and we found out that he is the father of a little 5 month baby! That was a bit of a curve ball, he hadn't mentioned anything about that before... we knew that he had a girlfriend but... not that, it was a little bit of a surprise... and so we talked about the Law of Chastity! :) whew!!! que diversión!! haha he understood pretty well and said that he is going to live it from now on :) but ya, it was weird... and then we taught him about the Plan of Salvation.  

A really spiritual experience that I had today was when we went to the Temple! It was really great :) we were able to go today in the morning and I got the answers to several questions that I have had for a bit and it was awesome!  I love going to the Temple :) it is such a wonderful place of learning and inspiration :) It really strengthened my testimony of the scriptures and of the church and helped me understand many things a lot better.  I know that the Temple truly is the House of the Lord and that we can enjoy the blessings of them because of the Restoration and all the blessings it brings with it :)

Well that's I've got for now but things have been pretty great here :) I love you all! Thanks for your support and love :) Have a great week!

-Elder Sampson