Hey Fam,
We had a pretty good week. We had an awesome lesson with a lady named
Jonatalie this week. We taught her the Restoration and it went really
well. She was like bawling the whole time. You could see, in her eyes,
that the spirit was telling her the truthfulness of the message we were
sharing. She said she felt really happy and felt loved. The spirit
testifies to people you teach on a mission more than you would think,
but sadly people's agency often times gets in the way and they forget
those feelings that they felt. Anyway, it was a great reminder of how
strong the Spirit can be. Not just to us as members, but people learning
of the Restored Gospel for the first time as well!
We had a really crazy experience this week. A couple of nights ago I was
driving back to our apartment on the freeway in the very left lane.
Thankfully, I looked over to the right and noticed that a crash was
about to happen so I started to pull over. About 50 yards ahead in the
lane next to ours, traffic was almost to a stop. There was a car who
must not have been looking because she slammed into the back of a almost
fully stopped car while she was going about 60 mph. After the impact,
the car that got hit started spinning and both cars ended up going
through the lane that we were in. If I hadn't have looked and saw that
it was about to happen, we probably would have slammed into both cars at
75 mph. Clearly someone was looking out for us and I'm glad that they
were!
We have started a Book of Mormon class here in the Melbourne Ward. I had the idea for this a couple of months ago and this past Wednesday
we had our first one. The idea was to strengthen members and LA's and
to invite investigators to it as well. Well, since it was my idea, I had
to teach it. haha. Elder Su'a taught some as well. There were about 7
people, all active members in attendance. It actually went really well.
When I got the idea I strongly felt that it was revelation. It's
interesting how as I acted on that revelation, the Lord helped me (and
Elder Su'a) to have a good lesson and for the Spirit to be there. If we
act on the impressions that we get, the Lord will help us accomplish the
things he has asked us to do.
We have a new investigator named Monica. She was taught by missionaries
before and 3 of her kids were baptized. She moved into our ward so now
we will be teaching her. She seems really awesome and there might be
some promise there. Laura came to sacrament meeting yesterday.
The talks that were given were really awesome but she had to go home
after it was over. She said she enjoyed it but that part of it she
didn't enjoy (we are guessing it was the noise level because of the
kids) lots of people are used to when you can hear a pin drop at church
haha. Well there's a little update. Lots of our investigators have
decided to ignore us, but at the same time we are finding new, more
prepared investigators. We are also starting to work with the members
more often and see what we can do to help strengthen them in their
calling as member missionaries. Do your best to help the missionaries.
They need help. Love you all! Have a great week! Sorry, I forgot to take
pictures this week :(
love,
Elder Steed
Friday, January 17, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Email received January 6, 2014
Dear Family,
Well something interesting happened this week. I showed up to transfer meeting to get my new companion. While there I found out that I would be in a trio and would be training when the new missionary arrives. That was a surprise. haha. My new companions name before we got the 3rd missionary is Elder Su'a from UT. If you remember me having someone as a friend on Facebook who was going to my same mission, that's Elder Su'a. We were friends on fb and now he is my companion. Small world. Elder Su'a is hilarious. He reminds me of cousin Mike a lot. He looks like him, just not white, and he acts a lot like him. It cracks me up. My other companions name is Elder Bergman and he is from Syracuse UT. He is excited to be here.
Well things were a little slow this week between the new companionship, the new year, and me being really sick. Despite that, we still had some really cool things happen. We had 2 lessons with Laura this week. Both were about the Book of Mormon. We read Enos with her and it went really well. We got her excited to read the Book of Mormon. We were able to help her understand who is writing, who the Nephites and Lamanites are, etc so that it makes more sense. We also touched on why the Book of Mormon is so important in finding out the truth of the Restored Gospel.
Yesterday was a really good Sunday. The chapel was almost full! Something that I wouldnt have ever imagined seeing in the Melbourne ward when I first got here. Laura didn't come though. She texted and said that she fell asleep reading the Book of Mormon and didn't set her alarm. Coolest excuse for an investigator not to come to church, right? hahaha It was funny. Pray for her. Pray that she might have the strength to act on what the Holy Ghost has testified to her, despite difficult changes that she may have to make in her life. We also met with a man named Sterling who wants to get baptized in February. Things are really looking up. I wish I could write more but I don't have much time. One really cool thing that I realized this week was that I kind of feel comfortable with what I'm doing and I kind of act like I know what I'm doing. Getting a new companion I technically was "taking over" the area since I know all the people. Now that Elder H is gone and that I'm training I am more prepared than I thought I was! I hope you all have a great week and get to feeling better! I love you all!
love,
Elder Steed
Well something interesting happened this week. I showed up to transfer meeting to get my new companion. While there I found out that I would be in a trio and would be training when the new missionary arrives. That was a surprise. haha. My new companions name before we got the 3rd missionary is Elder Su'a from UT. If you remember me having someone as a friend on Facebook who was going to my same mission, that's Elder Su'a. We were friends on fb and now he is my companion. Small world. Elder Su'a is hilarious. He reminds me of cousin Mike a lot. He looks like him, just not white, and he acts a lot like him. It cracks me up. My other companions name is Elder Bergman and he is from Syracuse UT. He is excited to be here.
Well things were a little slow this week between the new companionship, the new year, and me being really sick. Despite that, we still had some really cool things happen. We had 2 lessons with Laura this week. Both were about the Book of Mormon. We read Enos with her and it went really well. We got her excited to read the Book of Mormon. We were able to help her understand who is writing, who the Nephites and Lamanites are, etc so that it makes more sense. We also touched on why the Book of Mormon is so important in finding out the truth of the Restored Gospel.
Yesterday was a really good Sunday. The chapel was almost full! Something that I wouldnt have ever imagined seeing in the Melbourne ward when I first got here. Laura didn't come though. She texted and said that she fell asleep reading the Book of Mormon and didn't set her alarm. Coolest excuse for an investigator not to come to church, right? hahaha It was funny. Pray for her. Pray that she might have the strength to act on what the Holy Ghost has testified to her, despite difficult changes that she may have to make in her life. We also met with a man named Sterling who wants to get baptized in February. Things are really looking up. I wish I could write more but I don't have much time. One really cool thing that I realized this week was that I kind of feel comfortable with what I'm doing and I kind of act like I know what I'm doing. Getting a new companion I technically was "taking over" the area since I know all the people. Now that Elder H is gone and that I'm training I am more prepared than I thought I was! I hope you all have a great week and get to feeling better! I love you all!
love,
Elder Steed
Transfer meeting, saying goodbye to Elder H. I also met Sister Cardona-Paul right after taking this.
Me, Elder Bergman, and Elder Su'a. Elder Su'a and I are training Elder Bergman.
What 7 months in Texas does to you :(
My new companion. I want to go home.
(He's kidding of course!!)
Email received December 30, 2013
Dear family,
We had a pretty good week. You're never going to believe this. I'm still in shock. We had an investigator come to church. It was weird. We didn't know what to do or how to act. hahah! Well to start off, it was great to be able to skype you all. I definitely enjoyed it. It kind of makes the next few days interesting though. You can see it in all the missionaries after they had skyped. You could literally see everyone's "trunkiness". If you don't know what that means, ask a returned missionary. Well I goofed and I left my camera at the apartment so I don't have any pictures to send this week. I also left my old planner (today is start of new transfer) at the apartment so I'll have to try to remember everything that happened this week off the top of my head.
Well Tuesday was Christmas Eve, and we were invited to the Rosas home to be at their Christmas Eve party. (same family that let us skype at their place). It was a lot of fun. A lot of members of the ward were invited as well. It was a great time. They forced Elder Hillebrant and I to sing christmas hymns haha that was interesting. Christmas morning we opened our gifts. The Book of Mormon was the coolest gift ever. Thanks to all those who wrote in it. Sure miss you all. Then we had a zone breakfast. We ate breakfast as a zone and played basketball and volleyball and such. It was a lot of fun. Then we skyped! that was awesome and a lot of fun. For the rest of Christmas we went over to a family in the ward, the Major's home. They fed us dinner and we sang Christmas hymns. It was pretty fun.
So I can't remember what day it was, but we went over to a referrals house and taught him the first lesson. He had a girl there as well, I'm assuming it's his girlfriend, and it went well. I think they understood the concept of the first lesson and we committed them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. They said that they would. We also set up a return appointment for tomorrow. Hopefully that doesn't fall through, and hopefully it goes well :)
On Thursday we decided to go visit Laura. She didn't come to church that past Sunday so we didn't have a planned lesson with her. We showed up and talked to her for awhile. We talked about missions like the whole time. We told her about what we do and how all of it is set up and such. She thought it was very interesting and she liked it. We set up a lesson with her for Saturday. On Saturday we planned to teach her the last 2 parts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. We ended up talking a lot about The Book of Mormon. She said that she feels that she has to read the Bible so that she can understand all the references that The Book of Mormon makes to the Bible. A thought that I had was that the Bible is important, and that we should read it. I have been reading it and I have learned a lot, but if we read the Bible and know that it's true, do we come to a knowledge of the "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" that the Bible teaches about in Ephesians 4:5? It's not possible, considering the 700+ Christian religions that read from the Bible. If we read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if its true and receive an answer that it is, then we come to a knowledge of that one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Then, after we receive that witness, we can be able to read the Bible and understand the correct interpretations and meanings of it. The Book of Mormon has increased my testimony of the Bible, and I am grateful that God allowed for the Book of Mormon to come forth so that we can know the true interpretations and true doctrines of Christ's gospel. Anyway, she gave us a pretty promising indication that she would be coming to church on Sunday.
Well Sunday came, we thought for sure Laura was coming. She didn't. We were bummed. When sacrament was over and the usher opened the door, Laura walked in. We were so shocked. It was funny. Long story short, she loved it. The talks were good, gospel principles was great, it was all about baptism, so it fit perfectly. One really great thing about Laura is she said she doesn't feel she has fully repented. She says she needs to before she gets baptized. She is awesome and she just gets it. She loved church and the ward did a great job of welcoming her. We are really excited for what lies ahead.
Well there is a lot more that happened this week but I can't remember it all off the top of my head :( Hope everyone has a great week and I'll update you all on my new companion next week! I love you all. Keep being amazing :)
[Elder Steed]
We had a pretty good week. You're never going to believe this. I'm still in shock. We had an investigator come to church. It was weird. We didn't know what to do or how to act. hahah! Well to start off, it was great to be able to skype you all. I definitely enjoyed it. It kind of makes the next few days interesting though. You can see it in all the missionaries after they had skyped. You could literally see everyone's "trunkiness". If you don't know what that means, ask a returned missionary. Well I goofed and I left my camera at the apartment so I don't have any pictures to send this week. I also left my old planner (today is start of new transfer) at the apartment so I'll have to try to remember everything that happened this week off the top of my head.
Well Tuesday was Christmas Eve, and we were invited to the Rosas home to be at their Christmas Eve party. (same family that let us skype at their place). It was a lot of fun. A lot of members of the ward were invited as well. It was a great time. They forced Elder Hillebrant and I to sing christmas hymns haha that was interesting. Christmas morning we opened our gifts. The Book of Mormon was the coolest gift ever. Thanks to all those who wrote in it. Sure miss you all. Then we had a zone breakfast. We ate breakfast as a zone and played basketball and volleyball and such. It was a lot of fun. Then we skyped! that was awesome and a lot of fun. For the rest of Christmas we went over to a family in the ward, the Major's home. They fed us dinner and we sang Christmas hymns. It was pretty fun.
So I can't remember what day it was, but we went over to a referrals house and taught him the first lesson. He had a girl there as well, I'm assuming it's his girlfriend, and it went well. I think they understood the concept of the first lesson and we committed them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. They said that they would. We also set up a return appointment for tomorrow. Hopefully that doesn't fall through, and hopefully it goes well :)
On Thursday we decided to go visit Laura. She didn't come to church that past Sunday so we didn't have a planned lesson with her. We showed up and talked to her for awhile. We talked about missions like the whole time. We told her about what we do and how all of it is set up and such. She thought it was very interesting and she liked it. We set up a lesson with her for Saturday. On Saturday we planned to teach her the last 2 parts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. We ended up talking a lot about The Book of Mormon. She said that she feels that she has to read the Bible so that she can understand all the references that The Book of Mormon makes to the Bible. A thought that I had was that the Bible is important, and that we should read it. I have been reading it and I have learned a lot, but if we read the Bible and know that it's true, do we come to a knowledge of the "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" that the Bible teaches about in Ephesians 4:5? It's not possible, considering the 700+ Christian religions that read from the Bible. If we read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if its true and receive an answer that it is, then we come to a knowledge of that one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Then, after we receive that witness, we can be able to read the Bible and understand the correct interpretations and meanings of it. The Book of Mormon has increased my testimony of the Bible, and I am grateful that God allowed for the Book of Mormon to come forth so that we can know the true interpretations and true doctrines of Christ's gospel. Anyway, she gave us a pretty promising indication that she would be coming to church on Sunday.
Well Sunday came, we thought for sure Laura was coming. She didn't. We were bummed. When sacrament was over and the usher opened the door, Laura walked in. We were so shocked. It was funny. Long story short, she loved it. The talks were good, gospel principles was great, it was all about baptism, so it fit perfectly. One really great thing about Laura is she said she doesn't feel she has fully repented. She says she needs to before she gets baptized. She is awesome and she just gets it. She loved church and the ward did a great job of welcoming her. We are really excited for what lies ahead.
Well there is a lot more that happened this week but I can't remember it all off the top of my head :( Hope everyone has a great week and I'll update you all on my new companion next week! I love you all. Keep being amazing :)
[Elder Steed]
Christmas aftermath.
Our awesome zone.
Elder Valdez (right) is the best.
Our new WML, Brother Parker.
Email received December 23, 2013
Hello! First of all, Merry Christmas to you all! I hope that it will be a
great day! We definitely had a better week this week. WE HAD 3 MEMBER
PRESENT LESSONS THIS WEEK. That's a lot, considering I had only had 4 to
this point on my mission. Member present lessons are the best. Last Monday
we had dinner at the new Ward Mission Leader's home. We talked about
what the ward needs. He is awesome. He's young, single, an attorney, and
he's on fire. We are very excited.
On Tuesday we had another lesson with Laura, our top investigator. We had a member there named Lauren. She is the sister-in-law of a sister in our ward. She was only in town for a few days but is planning on going on a mission so she came with us. We talked a little bit about the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. Laura said that she knows that she committed to be baptized last time we met, but that now she isn't ready. I testified that the reason she said yes before was because the she felt the Spirit so strongly testifying to her that the things we teach her are true and that it's the right thing to do. The Spirit is always so strong in our lessons with her.
On Wednesday we had a lesson with John again. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were really bold with him about how the people who baptized him before didn't hold proper authority. He wasn't offended and appreciated our honesty. He said that he has some reading and praying to do. He also asked us some questions about the Fall and the fruit. He said that he hasn't talked to a minister yet who could explain it. So we are excited to have the Plan of Salvation lesson with him this Tuesday. If he doesn't cancel, seeing as it's Christmas Eve. haha. We also had another member present on Wednesday. It was at the Smith's home. It was with a lady named Tina. She is pretty cool but our lessons are always on negative stuff she's heard about the church and stuff she's heard from her pastor. Her husband does not like us at all. She texted us saying that we are trying to brainwash her by having her come to the home of a black lds couple. It was pretty ridiculous. The reason we had the lesson at their home was because we accidentally scheduled a lesson with her at the same time the Smith's signed up to have us over for dinner. So we decided to do both at the same time :)
Thursday we had another lesson with Laura with a member present. It had to basically end before it started because some guys game to work on her floor and it was too loud to have a lesson. But thankfully the two of them were able to talk and become friends. So that's good. We also had a correlation meeting with our new WML. We have developed a little ward mission plan and are testing the waters on it now!
On Friday we had Christmas conference. There are now 280 missionaries in the Houston mission so the Christmas conference has 2 sessions instead of one. Anyway President talked about the Atonement. It was so great. He went from the Pre-mortal Christ all the way through now. He talked a lot about the Fall. The doctrine of the Fall is amazing. It's so great to be able to understand it and how it fits into the Plan and the Atonement. I'm grateful that we have The Book of Mormon and revelation through modern prophets to be able to understand it and how it fits into God's Plan and the Atonement. We also met with Laura Friday night. We randomly stopped by and just talked about the church. We talked a lot about faith and how essential it is to finding out truth.
Well that's most of what happened this week. I hope that everyone has a great Christmas. And I'll talk to some of you on Wednesday! Woooo!
Love,
Elder Steed
On Tuesday we had another lesson with Laura, our top investigator. We had a member there named Lauren. She is the sister-in-law of a sister in our ward. She was only in town for a few days but is planning on going on a mission so she came with us. We talked a little bit about the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. Laura said that she knows that she committed to be baptized last time we met, but that now she isn't ready. I testified that the reason she said yes before was because the she felt the Spirit so strongly testifying to her that the things we teach her are true and that it's the right thing to do. The Spirit is always so strong in our lessons with her.
On Wednesday we had a lesson with John again. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were really bold with him about how the people who baptized him before didn't hold proper authority. He wasn't offended and appreciated our honesty. He said that he has some reading and praying to do. He also asked us some questions about the Fall and the fruit. He said that he hasn't talked to a minister yet who could explain it. So we are excited to have the Plan of Salvation lesson with him this Tuesday. If he doesn't cancel, seeing as it's Christmas Eve. haha. We also had another member present on Wednesday. It was at the Smith's home. It was with a lady named Tina. She is pretty cool but our lessons are always on negative stuff she's heard about the church and stuff she's heard from her pastor. Her husband does not like us at all. She texted us saying that we are trying to brainwash her by having her come to the home of a black lds couple. It was pretty ridiculous. The reason we had the lesson at their home was because we accidentally scheduled a lesson with her at the same time the Smith's signed up to have us over for dinner. So we decided to do both at the same time :)
Thursday we had another lesson with Laura with a member present. It had to basically end before it started because some guys game to work on her floor and it was too loud to have a lesson. But thankfully the two of them were able to talk and become friends. So that's good. We also had a correlation meeting with our new WML. We have developed a little ward mission plan and are testing the waters on it now!
On Friday we had Christmas conference. There are now 280 missionaries in the Houston mission so the Christmas conference has 2 sessions instead of one. Anyway President talked about the Atonement. It was so great. He went from the Pre-mortal Christ all the way through now. He talked a lot about the Fall. The doctrine of the Fall is amazing. It's so great to be able to understand it and how it fits into the Plan and the Atonement. I'm grateful that we have The Book of Mormon and revelation through modern prophets to be able to understand it and how it fits into God's Plan and the Atonement. We also met with Laura Friday night. We randomly stopped by and just talked about the church. We talked a lot about faith and how essential it is to finding out truth.
Well that's most of what happened this week. I hope that everyone has a great Christmas. And I'll talk to some of you on Wednesday! Woooo!
Love,
Elder Steed
My desk!
I couldn't get a no blurry one, but this is downton from Moody Park.
hmmm. awkward.
Our Christmas set up!
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