Too Much Is happening right now. I can't believe Aimee is leaving next week!
I'm super excited for her!
Yesterday we had a cool Experience. We baptized Ian Keppers. He is a little boy we have been teaching. He is 9 and a half and his family is pretty inactive. Well, we have been working with the family and have been trying to get them back involved with the church.
Yesterday was neat because we saw a little of the fruit of that. The father bore his testimony at church, the Older son received the Priesthood and a little after, Ian was baptized, by his own father. It's been sweet to be a part of this.
So recently a member of the 70 Elder Zwick came to our mission. He threw in a few new guidelines here and there and one of them included this. He said if we do not have investigators with us at church then we should not be going to church. That is the 2 hours after the sacrament meeting. We have been trying to reach that goal but man, it is tough in Louisiana. On Sunday during the 3rd hour, we were not being used by the branch and so we decided to go and try what Elder Zwick was talking about. We went outside and started tracting. We went from door to door inviting people to the 'Local Mormon Baptism' as we said. Everyone was pumped. We would get responses such as "Wow, that'd be interesting. I've never seen how Mormons do it." We then used that to start sharing a message with them. It was pretty cool.
The only difficulty we have here in Louisiana is that people say one thing and then are too lazy to actually follow through with it.
We arrived back at the church for the baptism and out of the 80 doors or so that we knocked, nobody showed. I guess It was a big test to see what we'd do haha! It was a neat experience, though.
While Out on the street I came across 2 people sitting on their porch. They were speaking in Spanish and I could clearly hear that. Well, I decided to try something to see how interested they were. I started just speaking in English to see if they knew English. They started pulling the "no English no English we no speak English" I then changed to Spanish and their eyes opened super wide like WHATTTTTT? White boy speaking Spanish... I kept talking and they were silent for a second and then replied. They told us that they had been around missionaries for years. They are from the Dominican Republic and have been living here for like 27 years. I talked to them about the transition here and I told them that I was Australian and I moved here too. They got pumped. These two people are some of the nicest people I have met! I know something good will have with them one day. I kept talking to them in Spanish and then I asked how their English was because my companion was way lost. They said "Oh its good"
We then switched to English and yep, they were just trying to trick me in the beginning and pretend they didn't know Spanish. Well after a while the man decided to switch back to Spanish.. He said something that pumped me up so much and just made me want to go knock down every door in Morgan City haha... He just said something like this
"It makes me extremely proud to see a white Australian male having mastered the Spanish language as well as you have in these past 16 months. You are going places son. You're bright. I can see the light coming from you. Too many people in this world don't care about anything in life as much as you care about what you're doing right now. Your parents should be proud. They aren't wasting their money on you. You future is unimaginable. So bright. Keep on doing what you're doing"
I don't know... I guess sometimes you doubt yourself so much, but that made my attitude change completely that moment. Prayers definitely are answered!
It was a sick experience!
The baptism was an hour later after that, So it was just an awesome day! I was so pumped and uplifted!
The work in Morgan City is going great! I'm pumped to be here and I love the members here. The Senior Couple here is my favorite and man there are just some great, fun people here!
Love y'all and hope you have a great week! :)
Con Amor,
YA Boiii
Elder Whitmarsh
Below is a picture of Little Ian's Baptism