Pittsburgh Week 12

P-day Pumpkin Carving

"Yinz"

Elder Serrano and Elder Hurly's Jack-o-lanterns

Hey hey! This week was alright...... Not too much has gone on really...so there's not much new to say or talk about. So this morning as we were leaving the apartment to get on the bus that takes us to the library, right as I walked out the door, I slipped and fell down the stairs leading up to our front porch!! /(Steve's letter indicated the steps were frosty). /It was pretty funny looking I would imagine! I'm perfectly fine no worries I just ended up sitting on a stair a few down. It was a great way to start off a p-day :) Yes I am doing great, and I am staying positive! At least I sure am trying to. I love serving a mission.

Steve tells me that you all for halloween were boring!!! I am so disappointed... :'( ----- Crying face. I even carved a pumpkin! It is so cool! I attached a couple of pictures on to this e-mail so that you can see it. I am very proud of it! We also set a bowl of candy out for the kids to take a one and that would be it, but we came back out to check on it an hour later and someone took the whole bowl!! And it was a big bowl too!.... we totally got robbed. It bothers me how dishonest people are out in the world nowadays, it's really too bad, but hey, thank goodness for the gospel!

I'm not moving!!! And neither is Elder Hurley!!! So we'll both be staying in South side until mid December. But hey the exciting new news is we'll be having another missionary joining us here in the south side so it'll be a tri-panionship, or a three-some. So when we go tracting we'll have 3 missionaries standing at the door as opposed to just the regular 2. So that'll be fun to have a party of three! So that's exciting! 

Sadly we didn't get any investigators at church therefore we have no progressing/with a date investigators. We did however pick up a couple new investigators that are very promising and they are really cool and very interested in the gospel. One lady's name is Nancy -- and she really wants to learn. She's had a rough life and is just starting to come out of a hard stage. I think we caught her just in time! Baily is still doing great, we have an appointment with her this coming Thursday. She wasn't able to make it to church because there was a death in her family and she was spending time with them this weekend, and so we'll have to push her baptismal date back, but she still is loving the gospel!

I think that's pretty much it for this week, like I said it wasn't very exciting. Picture explanation: one is of my pumpkin and Elder Hurley's all lit up. Mine has the Pittsburgher saying yinz! and Elder Hurleys is the pacman one. and the other is a picture of all the pupmkins carved, that participated. We were at the church when we carved them it was us, the sisters, and a couple members. the zone leaders were there too but they didn't buy a pumpkin. lame-o's! :)

Love,
Elder Benjamin Serrano

(The following is a letter written for our Ward Newsletter. It was great so I thought you might like it as well. -SS)

Hello Park 7th Ward!!
This is Elder Serrano here writing to you from Pennsylvania! I'm actually serving in the heart of the big steel city of Pittsburgh! It's pretty cool because the ward I'm in right now is called the Pittsburgh "7th" ward, so I still get a taste of the home town out here.

Pennsylvania is so beautiful and the people out here are really friendly and nice! There are so many trees out here it's unbelievable! I know they call Pleasant Grove the "city of trees", but those are saplings compared to the immense density of the foliage out here. It's so beautiful, God is love.

One thing about here, though, is there are so many different churches. I can see why Joseph Smith would be confused when it came to him deciding which church was "right". It turns out none of them at the time were,
thus leading to the Restoration of the Gospel, of which I am so thankful for.

While I've been out serving a mission, I have been immersed in the scriptures more than I have ever before experienced, and I have come to know with a surety that the Book of Mormon is true. Like Jeffery R. Holland said it in the October 2009 General Conference, "No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so."

I absolutely love serving a mission here in Pittsburgh, and I thank you, Park 7th Ward, for your amazing influence and example you had on me as I was coming up. To the youth in the ward, if you're thinking about going on a mission, hear me when I say, do it! It is the most rewarding experience ever! I can tell you that and I've only been out 9 months. It is amazing! I love you all, and I bear you my testimony that I know now, with all my heart, that the Church is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that Jesus is the Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the life.