July 25th Keepin Busy in the Office

Hey!!

So how was the trip to Hawaii? Did y'all enjoy yourselves?  haha I am sure you did :) and that's the good part :) I am sure it was quite relaxing and enjoyable so that's fun.  

 

This week has been a little crazy and we haven't been able to get much stuff done in the area because we have been doing stuff with the changes and such. Before the secretaries of referrals and health didn't help that much with changes but they wanted us to so we did :) We helped set up "La Última Cena" for the missionaries that were heading out and then president invited us to stay and eat... so we did... and then we cleaned everything up.  That was Sunday evening.  

None of our investigators came to church with us... Jesús was moving and Jonathan had to work because they changed his schedule... and there was this other investigator that said she was going to go and we passed by her house and she didn't get up or something and didn't make it either... and then on Monday we were helping out with transfers and all that and spent the whole day here in the office... and then on Tuesday... we did work a little and then on Wednesday a little as well, on Thursday we didn't because we had planning and a conference and mission correlation with the WML and then yesterday we worked :) so it's been a little slow for all the things that have been going on... well not really,  but speaking about the work in the area sense it is...

So a good experience that we had yesterday with Jonathan and also another from this week with him. Yesterday we visited him and we were talking about what he had read in the Book of Mormon and he had a ton of questions... so we were just answering all of his questions for a bit but then we started teaching him about the Plan of Salvation and all that. And again, he had a ton of questions about all that. It was a cool experience because he had a ton of questions and we were able to answer all of them (well, almost all of them, some of them were kinda weird...) and it was something that makes me more grateful for having the fullness of the Gospel, because there are a lot of churches and people that don't have access to all the knowledge and insight that we have in the restored church and they have to live with those questions and doubts until they find the true church or... they die so... it's such a blessing to have the knowledge that we have here on this earth and I am grateful for it :) 

Also, we taught him earlier in the week and we talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this lesson we taught him about receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and Endure to the End and it was great when he totally understood the need of getting baptized spiritually as well as in the water and how it doesn't really have a point to get baptized if you don't receive the Spirit afterwards. He is still excited to get baptized as well because (well he didn't remember the date exactly) he asked when was the day we had invited him to get baptized so he could get work off that day,  haha it was great :) but anyways, he is doing pretty good.

Oh.. I lied... we did have an investigator at church... but we didn't know he was an investigator, well  we did but we thought he lived in a different area. So we were going to pass the reference to another area but then, the other day we are walkin' down the street and a motorcycle honks at us and pulls over. Turns out that it's David (the investigator that we thought was from another area) and so we start talking to him and he tells us that he was headed to institute with his friend, and that he stopped to talk to us because he wants us to teach him in the chapel and we start explaining that he has to go to the ward where he lives and that we would love to teach him an all that but then he says "that's not a problem, I have a house here too!" it's kinda weird with him because he lives all over the place! he lives with his mom, and his dad (they aren't together) and has an apartment when he goes to school and sometimes he lives with his brother... and it turns out that one of those is in the limits of the ward so... we can teach him! :)  he is going to get baptized! Well I am pretty sure he is, and it will be soon :)

But there you have it! That's all I've got for this week, catch ya' next time on weekly letters with Elder Sampson.

 

Thanks for checkin' in, all comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated ;) (haha I don't know why but I just felt like ending it like that, Love y'all!!!! :) )

July 18th Missionaries from your Church

Well, this week was alright, well a little slow to be honest but we made some goals in weekly planning to get things turned around. We have been struggling with finding new investigators and such so we are going to work on contacting more and also going with referrals that we have to be able to find the people who are looking for the truth :) 

 

We had an interesting experience a few weeks ago because it was how we met a family that we invited on Friday (yesterday) to get baptized in August. So one day, we were walking down the street with the one recent convert we have in our area and we had just gotten out of a lesson and we were going to the next one, but all the plans that we had... fell through... so we didn't know what to do in that moment but then I saw my companion start walking up to a house where a lady there had motioned for him to come over.  So he gets to the house (the convert and I follow behind him a little) and she asks my comp if we can give a blessing to a little baby. We say that we can and we walk into the house. Then we start to talk to them a little and find out that they aren't members... What happened is that when we were walking past she was talking on the phone with her daughter that lives in California or something and the daughter is a member. The lady mentioned to her daughter that some of the missionaries from her church were walking past so the daughter told her mom to go out and ask us for a blessing. The granddaughter of the lady (the niece of the member in Cali) was only 2 weeks old and was really fussy all the time so they wanted to have a blessing. So we give the baby a blessing and we put another appointment and we leave. Yesterday we went back and taught them about baptism and we invited them to get baptized and they accepted! I kinda doubted they would to be honest because they don't really talk all that much when we are there and they have a GIANT picture of the virgin Guadalupe on their wall, but they surprised me with their openness and all that so it was great! :)

A little about Jonathan, he didn't go to church because they changed his work schedule but he still really wants to go :) 

 

Jesus is coming along little by little, but he is now reading more and stuff like that so it's good :)

Answers to questions from mom:

I do like our mission president.   He's great!   He is funny :) I haven't really seen much of his family, I only saw his kids once and his wife twice so I think they are usually pretty busy with life.

I will probably be here for 3 months more, the leaders and secretaries are normal in for 3 changes. Maybe president will change that later on but as for now it will probably be like that but we will see. I will be with my comp for this next change as well because he got here one before me, but then he will probably go, and I will be with someone for a change and then probably get transferred. The APs do pretty much all the stuff with the changes so it won't really affect me much.

President doesn't really speak much English... I haven't ever talked to him in English or heard him talk in English and he says he doesn't know much.

But anyways, that's a little about this week!  I love you all :)

-Elder Sampson :)

July 11th I'm Serving in the Office

Hey!

So... the secret is out... I'm in the office... haha :) um... well what I do is... help all the other secretaries! and some other stuff. I have to fill out medical reimbursements, I have to send an insurance claim to the company that the church has to pay for medications and stuff like that so I just have to check the medications they have taken and then send that to the people and then they send money to the mission :) cool right? :D and now... I might start taking the calls from sick missionaries to tell them what to do or things like that, Sister Jordan used to do that but now Sister Ramirez has other responsibilities so maybe that will be my job or maybe they will find someone else, but ya, that's basically my job but I also go with other missionaries or secretaries if they have an errand to run and their companion is busy with something and random things like that.  And my companion is the referral secretary so he has to manage the referrals that the mission receives like from other missions or when missionaries here in the mission have a referral for a different area, they give it to us and we put it into the system (I actually have helped with that a bit) and so ya, that's what we do here :) We are part-time secretaries so we work everyday in the afternoon, so in the morning we work in the office or we have a meeting or weekly planning and then we go to lunch and then we work in our area.  I am enjoying it :) we get to interact more with other elders and stuff so that is fun and to be honest, the mornings here out in the field are always kinda dead so it is nice to avoid a little bit of that time and do something productive and then get to working in the field after that.  It's and interesting change of pace :) We don't live with the other office elders we live in our area.

So now a little bit about our area, we found a really great investigator this week!  Well I think we talked to him last week but then we went and visited him this week and it was really great :) I haven't mentioned Jonathan already have I? He is really great :) He is 18 and really into learning about God and the Gospel. He is really willing to search for himself and find the answer :) He read the pamphlet about the restoration and the one about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He now has a book of Mormon and is excited to read it!  Èl es bombero (firefighter)!!!! que padre no? :) so that means he has time to read when the sit around the station while nothing too exciting is happening (like taking care of wasp nests, crocodile wrangling ;) ) haha we asked him about what he does and it seems pretty fun :) He just started there and still isn't like a full time bombero but he has to go all the time, he spends 24 hours there and then has a 24 hour break... isn't that exciting? So on the down time they can do whatever they want like read, watch tv, sleep, whatever, so he is going to read a lot... :) I hope and I really think he will :) He totally invited himself to church, they were talking about his schedule and when he talked about Sunday he just threw in the phrase "and Sunday I'm going to church" and he was talking about the LDS church... so that was great :) and so ya, that's a bit about Jonathan.

And with Jesus, well he hadn't read yesterday when we visited him so we read with him and then the JAS (Young Single Adult) that accompanied us invited him to go to institute with them and they got him excited about it so I hope he goes and then there could be some serious fellow shipping going on and it would be great :) He was actually going to go to a jam session with one of the youth in the ward but he had to go to a photo shoot and couldn't make it... but things are going good with him, he said that he likes going to church and when he is there it seems like the time goes by super fast so I think that is a good sign :)

So that is a little about what has been going on this week and a little about the office, I only have one picture of the office right now, it's a picture of the secretaries of the mission, one is the financial sec. and the other (the bigger one) is President's Sec.

 

 Les amo mucho :) quídense!!!!

-Elder Sampson :)

July 6th We Have a New President!

Question... Where did June go? it was here just a second ago...

Does time go by really fast for anyone else? for me it does...

A little about this week, Jesus is doing good. He has been reading a little more in the BOM and went to church again :) We straightened him out a little but maybe not all the way but we are working on that and it is improving so that's good.  We started teaching him about the plan of Salvation this week and he has a ton of questions... that's fine it just is a little hard sometimes because he asks about whatever... The questions he asks do have to do with the plan but sometimes he just wants to go really far out of the order so it gets a little confusing but it's all good :) He is doing well but maybe he could progress a little faster. 

 

Some of the other investigators we have.... Well, I don't know if I commented about Salvador and Adela... they are an older couple we found one day and they are pretty willing to listen to us. An interesting/sad experience that we had with them this week... well I am going to explain the whole thing. So we went to visit them on.... Thursday (I believe....) and when we got there Salvador was in pretty bad shape... he was just lying on the bed and hadn't gotten up all day because his legs and feet hurt really bad (he has diabetes BTW) and so we told them that we could give him a blessing. They were super excited to hear that and were more than willing to let us in and give it to him. Obviously it was a good experience to give him the blessing and we could see the faith and hope that they had. They were so sure that everything was going to be OK after we gave him the blessing it was special and strengthening to see, but then we started talking about their day and what was going on and we found out that they hadn't eaten anything.... all day, and it was like 7:30 at night... so my companion after hearing this was like... We need to buy them some food! So we bought some bread and ham and cheese and we took it to them because they really don't have money (Salvador is blind, they are both old and Adela is always taking care of Salvador) so they were super grateful and all that and we felt good right? Then we have to leave because it is getting pretty late so we say goodbye and we walk out and then Adela asks us, "so how do we get to the church?" and we tell them that we will get a ride set up for them because she didn't know where it was and Salvador is blind... So we go to a recent convert's house and we had a lesson with him and it was great, (his name is Roberto and he got baptized like 4 weeks ago) then afterwards I realize he has a car and that he could give them a ride to the church!  light bulb... :) and so we ask him and of course he says "of course" so perfect.. all set up :) We get to church on Sunday and BOOM! THEY WERE THERE!!! it was great to see them and it happened to be fast and testimony meeting and Salvador wanted to share his testimony, so he did :) but then the sad part... when we were heading to the Gospel Principles class... Salvador was walking with my comp and he told my comp. "consíguenos una despensa" which is basically, "get us some money for food" and my companion was upset... because now he felt like they only went to church because we gave them food and that now they think the church is just going to give them money and they aren't going to go with real interest in the gospel... so my comp was kinda divided... because he felt so bad for them that they were basically starving but now he feels like he has ruined the process of their conversion... if that makes sense to you guys... but anyways... we don't know if they went because they want to grow closer to God or just to get welfare... obviously they need it but it is like...something that can get in the way... I don't know... but ya... that is what happened with them this week :)

About Tomas, well we had an appointment with him but he wasn't there so we don't know what's going on with him...

We got to meet President and Sister Ramirez on Friday! it was good :) They are great and kinda young... they have 3 daughters one is 18 the other 16 and the other 12 and then they have a 3 year-old son.... how crazy is that?  Well we met them in a big meeting with a few zones but today I was able to talk to him a little bit more because I was in a meeting with him for like 2 and a half hours.... he is pretty great and his wife too.   I kinda hadn't mentioned that I am an office elder right now... I am the Health Secretary! haha surprise! I have been that the whole change but I hadn't really said anything about it (as you may have noticed) but ya, we had a meeting with him and we talked about how things are going to work in the mission :) but, just a side note... my P-days are now going to be on Saturday! Just a heads up :)

Umm... It is sad that two apostles have died recently... I did hear about Elder Packer... it was sad... but it is kinda the same thing as with grandma, he was suffering a lot it looked like and I am sure that he is very happy to be on the other side :) I just want to know who the new Apostles are going to be! we only have 10 in the Quorum right now... It is going to be interesting to see who's next :)

Anyways... this has been kinda long... I hope you enjoy it :) I love you all! BYE!

-Elder Sampson

June 30th New Mission President Tomorrow!

WOW! It is sooooo weird, tomorrow we are going to have a new president! it's crazy... I sure am going to miss President and Sister Jordan.... they are the best :) I think they are great!  Sister Jordan is pretty funny :) We always just talk about random stuff with her and well she always tells some crazy stories from the mission... it's great :) and President is really great too. He always can help me with any problem I have and is always super patient with everybody, they are the best! I am sad they are leaving... but I am also excited to have a new President! But it's going to be really weird at first...

Anyways, today we went to the Temple!!!! It was super awesome!! I love going to the temple, it is like the best place on the whole planet! (and I don't need to go to all the places in the planet to know that ;) ) I love the peace and tranquility that I feel just being inside and all the things that I have learned just for the spirit that can be felt in that special place. I am so greatful for the opportunity I have had to go and experience such wonderful things and I know that the temples truely are Houses of God and that His Spirit dwells there and wants to teach us and help us understand the love He has for us :)

This week was a good one I would say, we had more lessons with members present than in past weeks and we were able to get Jesus to come to church again.  

 

This week our zone leaders gave us a challenge to give away Books of Mormon! We had to carry a BoM in hand each day and give it to someone and if one day we didn't give it away, the next day we would have to carry the one from the day before AND the other one for that new day so if you didn't give one away you would have to give two the next day! It was a little crazy... but it's all good, I have had some cool experiences with giving it away more and it also helps us to find new investigators! A win win :) 

Like... This week (yesterday) we went to the house of a contact we did once and we found his dad there so we started talking to his dad and we just taught him about the BoM and he was really interested. We gave him one and he wanted to read it and we invited him to get baptized and he accepted! It was great! His name  is Tomás! He is an older guy and is a carpenter. We hope he will progress because he seemed really excited to read.

Jesus... he's doing fine.  The biggest thing right now is that we have to change how he sees us because he sees us more as friends than missionaries so we are going to have to help him change his point of view towards us. Like... he sees us as friends, then missionaries instead of missionaries then friends... I hope that makes sense... but ya, right now those are the biggest things with him right now. He did go to church but only because we go by to wake him up... well he would go if he was already up, but he never is... so we have to try his faith a little...

But ya, that's a bit about this week :)  But, mom to answer some of your questions: It is a nicer area, it's in the city, kinda near downtown so it's not really poor or anything, there are some big stores all around our area but in our's there is only a store called Chedrauí which is rather large and has many

American products. By our area there are some big stores like Walmart, Office depot, and others so it is pretty nice I would say. 

My comp and I get along quite well and I (that's right, me) am always talking to him... like... I don't know, with him I am a talkative person and we talk about whatever so it's great. We joke around a lot and so it's fun :) We were talking on Sunday about what we can do to help the area and to improve as missionaries so we are going to make it a great week :)

Anyways.... I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week! BYE!

-Elder Sampson

June 22nd 4 Investigators at Church!

Hola! como están? :)

Bueno... esta semana fue buena! Pues por lo de la asistencia a la iglesia! :) Tuvimos 4!!! Oh right, We had 4 investigators at church! :) Jesus went! we had to go to his house and wake him up because he didn't go to bed until 3 in the morning! But he went and it was great.  Also, Alicia went to church, she lives with a member family and has listened to the missionaries before and all that but she doesn't always go to church and she had a while that she hadn't gone, but she went! And then the parents of some members that still can't get baptized because they aren't married because one of them still needs to get a divorce...  and it was good :)  

 

Crazy story... it was stake conference and they broadcasted the conference to the chapel from the stake center and... well I don't know why but one member thought the bishop wanted us to be separated into men and women and so every time someone got there, he told the men to go to one side and women to the other... it was weird... and nobody argued with him because the conference had already started when most of the people got there... :/ but ya, we had a segregated conference and we asked the bishop why he did that and he said that he never told anyone to do that and that he thought that everybody just decided to do that... it was super weird... but whatever, it was funny because the member that thought it should be like that (I think he might just be a little crazy... ;)  but yes, we did feel good about the fact that 4 went with us and I think they enjoyed it :)

With Jesus, things are going well, we had a lesson with him one day and his dad showed up and was kinda... drunk and he started going on about stories that he "knows" from the Bible and then he would ask us a question and the answer we would give always seemed to be quite delightful to him and that it supposedly supported his view on things and that we were proving ourselves wrong... it was rather interesting... but it was funny because he would always say "Tu lo has dicho!!!!"! so... ya, interesting experince haha :) 

 

Something else that happened was when a family called us one day and asked if we could pass by the house because they needed a favor and they didn't tell us what it was... so we got there and the husband was kinda waiting for us in the window I think and then his wife walks in and starts calling to her 20 year-old daughter to come downstairs because there was something that she had to tell us about... I kinda thought it was weird... 2 missionaries in a members house wanting their daughter that's twenty to talk with them... but anyways she gets downstairs and the mom starts telling us that she has a huge favor to ask us... and it has to do with her daughter... weird... and then they start talking about their daughter's love life.... and that they want the missionaries to ..... teach her boyfriend because he isn't a member but that they had put a goal (the daughter and her boyfriend) to get married in the temple in some future date. that's cool! So we agreed to teach the boyfriend and then pass the referral to the mission where he lives. So... yesterday we taught the boyfriend, Gamaliel the first half of lesson one and it was a pretty good lesson.  I am sure he felt the spirit and was able to recognize it at least a little.  I feel like he is going to be a great investigator and that he will get baptized soon :) it was a good experience and I hope something good comes out of it. 

Anyways... those are some of the experiences we had this week teaching :) I hope you all have an amazing week. I love y'all! bye! :)

love,

-Elder Sampson

June 15th Getting adjusted to my new Area

Helllllllllo!

Sorry if my email last week was lame... I had a lot going on in my head and very little time.... I don't know, maybe I can prepare a little bit before I get here so I don't have to think so much about what to tell you... but... anyways... some crazy news... My mission president is goin' home!!!! We are all getting ready to meet the new president. He gets here July 1st! that is just a few weeks away! It's kinda crazy for me... I don't even really think I am taking it in right now... but anyways, the new president is from Monterrey and is going to come with kids and everything, it's going to be strange.... But this week we had the good-bye president conference and it was pretty good and sad and happy and weird and a whole bunch of other things at the same time... so ya... but anyways something that is going on around here in my area....

Well, right now there are some problems in the ward I feel like... some conflicts between members that have been going on for a long time... but we are trying to get them to leave it all behind so the ward can progress ... it is quite a daunting task but we are going to try to help so pray for us! :) The area here is kinda struggling... we don't have many investigators and we hardly found any new ones this week, we are going to turn everything around! We are even going to clean up the house!!! It was a mess when I got there and it has definitely improved a little throughout this week but I am going to keep working on it so that it isn't a gross place to live...

 

Right now we have an investigator whose name is Jesus and he is 20. He doesn't really do anything really... he is living with his family (I believe his parents but I am not actually sure...) and has a really strange sleep schedule, like yesterday he slept in and didn't go to church but... the thing is that he didn't get up until 6 in the evening! So it was kinda sad but he did go to a family home evening that we had in the house of a part member family and I think he enjoyed it.  

 

There is also a really great recent convert that got baptized the Saturday before I got here... how sad... but not really, it would have just been cool to be at his baptism but he is doing great, he is 25 and understands everything really well, he was an atheist before and now he's a Mormon! He actually gave like a 10 minute talk in sacrament yesterday and it was really good :) he nailed it! 

 

And also yesterday we found 2 new investigators!!! They are good, we are going to visit them on Tuesday.

This week was kinda hot and hard and there are a ton of mosquitos but it's good. We are going to have a much better week :)

My comp and I get along quite well and we tend to talk in English a little more than I am used to... I want to talk more in Spanish so I don't lose my accent... so ya, he actually speaks spanish well, we just start talking in English sometimes and I do remember Mountain Green now and he does know that lady... her kids are his age... or one of them I believe.... but ya, I believe it is going to be a fun change!

I love you all! have an amazing week! bye.

-Elder Samsung/Simpson/Panasonic/Sansón and all the other names that one hears when he gets to a new area... ;) hahaha