Wedding, Transfers, English Class

Hey y’all,

So this week was a little bit of an interesting one.

First of all we have had a good time with the new Elder, Elder Roy in the apartment. He is a pretty funny dude, and is very enthusiastic. There was a member at Church this week that described all of us in one line. Roy: talks a lot, Groll: eats a lot, Magee: pretty quiet, and me: needs a haircut (which is true). So yeah there you go, that is what is going on in the apartment.

Another story from this week is that we were invited to a wedding for a man named V and a member named K. V has visited Lafayette ward a few times, but he is from Texas, he is a really cool guy. But anyways back to the story, we (Elder Magee and I) show up to the wedding a little early to see if they need help setting up. When we show up V walks out and says, "hey what’s up best man,” and so I laughed it off but then he hands me the ring he bought for the wedding and...... well I became the best man and had to stand in front of everyone and sign the marriage license! It was pretty interesting haha. 

Lastly this week we have been advertising starting a English class for Spanish people that want to learn.  We have already gotten a lot of feed back from people saying they would be interested in attending, so that is awesome! We hope this gives us more opportunities to meet and mingle with Spanish people and it may bring more teaching opportunities!

And that is all for the week, love all of y’all, talk to you next week!

Elder Gessel

Goodbye Sister Gamble

Elder Smith

This is the goal for starter housing packages in Lousisiana

Transfers, D ,A, J

Hey y'all how's life?

Transfers were this week and I am staying in Lafayette for another one with Elder Magee! I'm excited to see what these next 6 weeks bring!

Anyways, this week we had some fun experiences. The first one was when we went to go and see a Bible referral named D. We went to his house and talked to him outside for a little bit until his neighbor across the street started yelling, "Go easy on those Mormon boys D, you might just convert them to Christianity!" He shouted other things like that for a bit then I turned around and just said, "Hello sir, how are you doing?"  Then he yelled back, "I'm doing good, I'm heading on the path straight to heaven, I wish I could say the same about you.” So pretty much after that we all just ignored him and D told us that he knows we are Christians, and that he really wanted to get his hands on the Book of Mormon to read since he already uses the church app that sends out a bible and Book of Mormon scripture every day. So everything ended up good and D got his Book of Mormon and Bible.

Then another fun story we have from this week is when we tracted into a lady named A that had had experiences with Mormon missionaries before. She invited us back to come and teach her and told us some questions she had for us that she wanted us to answer. So we go back and start answering her questions and while doing so we begin to learn a lot of interesting things. Haha she pretty much told us that she believes that Christianity is true, but that it has lost a lot of truths that are within other religions.  One example was reincarnation. She believes that we all get reincarnated from animals and we progress through the animal kingdoms until we become human and then after we die as humans we finally get resurrected (or in her words reincarnated into a perfect human body). Haha so it was by far one of the more interesting lessons I have been in. We will see what happens cuz she wants us to visit her and her family again this week sometime. 

Then the last cool story from this week actually happened just an hour ago. We had a lesson today with a guy named J who is an old Bible referral that the missionaries visited before I was in the area. I had heard good things about him, and so we had been reaching out for about a month when finally he answered and invited us over. We went over today and he is awesome! We reviewed the restoration and Book of Mormon with him and he loved it. When we talked about priesthood authority and how we (Elder Magee and I) have it, he asked how he could get it; and now has committed to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon is true. He also invited us to come visit him every Tuesday and Thursday, so we are excited to keep teaching him. 

Oh also J was on date to be baptized this weekend but him and his family have moved it to the 15th of April because a lot of their family would not have been able to attend this week. Lets pray that that date goes through and he can get baptized.

Love you all!

Tabasco factory

That is a butt ton of tabasco made!

Tabasco ice cream

Random tank

Johnel's dog (1)

Johnel's dog (2)

Johnel

P, J, & N

Hey everyone, 

This week has been a pretty good one.

We had a good lesson with one of our investigators named P.  We really hit on how important the priesthood is since it is Gods authority given to men, and how important it is to be baptized with the priesthood authority to make sure it is valid in the next life. He understood really well and committed to be baptized on the 15th of April. We hope that he sticks with it and continues to progress. 

We also had a great lesson with J this week where we taught the plan of salvation to him. He loved what we said about the pre-earth life and agreed whole heartedly. But once we got to the point when we talked about the 5 steps we need to follow during our life on earth (faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, endure to the end) he started to ask us questions about baptism and asked us about people like his mom who died without being baptized with the authority or even knowing about the authority. We then talked to him about the spirit world and how those people who didn’t have the chance to accept the restored gospel of Christ will get their chance there, and mentioned baptisms for the dead. Then even later when we talked about the qualification for going to each of the three kingdoms he came out and asked us straight up if he would go to the terrestrial kingdom if he decided to not get baptized... and after an awkward pause, I felt like we should be straight up with him too and we told him yes, he needs to be baptized with the authority from God to make it to the Celestial kingdom. Surprisingly he really liked that we answered him so straightforwardly without trying to beat around the bush, and said that once he read more of the Book of Mormon he would pray about being baptized, he even made the joke of if he dies before that point and wakes up in spirit prison he will for sure accept a proxy baptism there haha. 

Another great moment this week was during sacrament. While we were singing the sacrament hymn I got a text from our 1 councilor in the bishopric telling us there was a Spanish man in the foyer and that we should go and invite him to come sit down. So Elder Magee and I walked out and introduced ourselves to him and had him come sit with us... well he sat with Elder Magee, I had to go and translate for him, so I was sitting closer to the front of the chapel; which I was super excited to translate again. After the meeting we found out that he was a less active member from Honduras who finally decided to come and start back up with the church again. He is super cool and even went and got an interview with the bishop to get going down the right path again. He is a super cool dude and we are planning on visiting him to get to know him better this week.

Also some other exciting news is that we had 3 investigators at church this Sunday! It has been a while since I had that many show up so that was a great blessing!

Love you all, I hope you have a great week!

Sometimes people aren't home

Exchanges in New Iberia

The monster we found in a parking lot