This week has been pretty good! We had some great lessons that we've taught and a couple new investigators!! Hooray! One of our new ones, her name is Paris, she is probably in her early 20's and was really searching for
the right church to join, and she feels that we were an answer to her prayers! A lot of the investigators and people we find to teach have the same story as Joseph Smith, it's amazing! Anyway, she we knocked on her
door and she invited us in right away after we introduced ourselves. We sat down and taught her about the Restoration of the Gospel and she loved it and invited us back! We've taught her a couple times now and
look forward to tomorrow when we get to teach her again in the morning. She's really awesome!
Another new investigator that we have, her name is Jennifer. We had a really good lesson with her! We invited Dawn to come along with us to teach her because we thought that they would get along just great, and it turns out they did! She's really awesome and wants to turn her life around, all she needs to do is come to church.
Serving a mission is awesome, there are so many crazy things that we go through (Like tracting in the pouring rain, and fighting off drunks) that really help strengthen testimonies and help us to realize why we do what we do. This week has been great!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Johnstown Week 12
We still in a mad finding stage, our teaching pool has pretty much depleted and we are searching for some new investigators. We did find this cool old guy that is in a motor scooter wheelchair, his legs don't work. Anyway, we are helping him restore this really old house he bought for $200 and in turn we are going to teach him too! So hopefully one day we can baptize him! But that's about it in us finding people to teach.
Oh! here's a funny story that happened to me yesterday: When we were out knocking on doors, it was my turn to take the lead on the particular door. When the lady answered the door she asked who we were, we told her
that we were missionaries that relayed a "message about the Gospel of Jesus Christ... that brings families closer together." Then I saw her daughter that had long curly black hair looking through the window right next to the door smiling and laughing, then the lady smiled at her daughter. So I commented and said "It looks like you already have a great relationship with your daughter." then she said, "oh, I don't have to worry about that, because 'she' is a boy." ........Oh noooooo!! No coming back from that one!! So we bid each other a good day and left. Once we left the porch my companion and I started laughing! Elder Page thought he was a she too! Any way, that was exciting and fun.
I'm having a great time, it's experiences like those that make the mission just a great experience.
Oh! here's a funny story that happened to me yesterday: When we were out knocking on doors, it was my turn to take the lead on the particular door. When the lady answered the door she asked who we were, we told her
that we were missionaries that relayed a "message about the Gospel of Jesus Christ... that brings families closer together." Then I saw her daughter that had long curly black hair looking through the window right next to the door smiling and laughing, then the lady smiled at her daughter. So I commented and said "It looks like you already have a great relationship with your daughter." then she said, "oh, I don't have to worry about that, because 'she' is a boy." ........Oh noooooo!! No coming back from that one!! So we bid each other a good day and left. Once we left the porch my companion and I started laughing! Elder Page thought he was a she too! Any way, that was exciting and fun.
I'm having a great time, it's experiences like those that make the mission just a great experience.
Johnstown Week 11 continued
We did get a short e-mail from our Elder along with some pics.
Okay well here are some pictures, since I really don't have anything to talk about since we talked all yesterday. OH! at the dinner appointment I went to, the Malones were feeding us, there was this little boy in the family who was sick that day and he ate a little bit at the table then got up and was sitting down on the floor next to the table, then he gets up and says, "Mommy, I feel like I have to throw up." The next moment, he turns and throws up all over the carpet!! Ha! It was so funny! I felt bad for the little boy, and for laughing... because the other 2 kids started freaking out and then their baby girl went up and put her hand in the mess! It was Hilarious!! I probabaly shouldn't have laughed, but, that's just who I am. "Happy Mothers day!" is what I said to Sis. Malone, she laughed too and said, "Yeah, seriously, I know." They are such a great family, Bro. Malone is the pres of the Elders Quorum and really helps us out a lot when it comes to having him sit in on lessons with us, or making sure we have dinner or something. Anyway, I think that's pretty much it pertaining to new and exciting things that happened this week. I don't think there's anything new...
Elder Serrano With Elder Page
Elders Serrano and Page with the newly baptized Yadia
Monday, May 10, 2010
Johnstown Week 11
Well...no e-mail from Elder Serrano this week because yesterday was....the MOTHER'S DAY CALL!!!!! Do you think we were just a little excited. He called around 1pm. It was great to hear his voice and be able to ask him questions and get immediate answers.
Some of the highlights from the call are: They had a baptism yesterday. Yadiah was baptized by Elder Serrano on Saturday, then confirmed in Church on Sunday. He's doing great! Loving it there. Working hard! Taking time on "P" days to play the piano a little. He's gone up a belt notch! The ward members are feeding them well. Plus I bet they don't know where the vegetable section of the grocery store is (JK) :)
Well, that's all for now. Only 7 months until the next call (Christmas) and then we'll be only a few weeks away from the one year mark. A mom's gotta have something to look forward to. :)
Some of the highlights from the call are: They had a baptism yesterday. Yadiah was baptized by Elder Serrano on Saturday, then confirmed in Church on Sunday. He's doing great! Loving it there. Working hard! Taking time on "P" days to play the piano a little. He's gone up a belt notch! The ward members are feeding them well. Plus I bet they don't know where the vegetable section of the grocery store is (JK) :)
Well, that's all for now. Only 7 months until the next call (Christmas) and then we'll be only a few weeks away from the one year mark. A mom's gotta have something to look forward to. :)
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Johnstown Week 10
It's been raining like crazy out here! Which ends up making it super humid!! Oh my goodness! All my clothes basically stick to me because it's so humid, I basically don't have to drink any water because just breathing will suffice. No joke. It's crazy how that works.
So Yadiah is going to be baptized this coming Saturday, May 8th!!! She's totally ready and prepared! And guess who she asked to baptize her?? Me! Wow, what an honor! This will be my first baptismal ordinace I perform where I'm doing the baptizing for a living person for herself! (make sense?) Hopefully all that practice at the Temple will pay off ;) I'm so excited! We're getting everything ready for her and I think that everything should go smoothly, we're seeing her a couple more times this week to make sure she's doing alright! It's going to be great! Keep praying for her!
Our other investigator Alphonso is doing good, we're still working with him, and making sure he's doing this for himself and not for Dawn so hopefully things will go well there!!
So a cool thing that happened to me this week! We got a letter in the mail saying that a Zane ---- wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon, so when we went to give it to him he wasn't home so we decided to tract the
street, and this really old couple let us in to talk to them for a second and we saw this little kid standing outside their house waiting. We thought he was waiting for us to be done talking to them so that he could talk to the old people about cutting their grass and what not. So when we walked outside, the kid called out, Elders! and we were like, what?? haha It turns out this 14 y.o. was Zane ----!! And he started asking us about the church and how he was looking for truth and the first word that popped into his head was the word "Mormon" so he
researched about the Book of Mormon and knew a lot about the church!! IT was so cool to find a boy the same age as Joseph Smith who was looking for truth just like him! Incredible!! Hopefully we'll be able to teach him some more, because that one time we met we didn't have enough time because we had an appointment to get to, but it was so cool!
So Yadiah is going to be baptized this coming Saturday, May 8th!!! She's totally ready and prepared! And guess who she asked to baptize her?? Me! Wow, what an honor! This will be my first baptismal ordinace I perform where I'm doing the baptizing for a living person for herself! (make sense?) Hopefully all that practice at the Temple will pay off ;) I'm so excited! We're getting everything ready for her and I think that everything should go smoothly, we're seeing her a couple more times this week to make sure she's doing alright! It's going to be great! Keep praying for her!
Our other investigator Alphonso is doing good, we're still working with him, and making sure he's doing this for himself and not for Dawn so hopefully things will go well there!!
So a cool thing that happened to me this week! We got a letter in the mail saying that a Zane ---- wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon, so when we went to give it to him he wasn't home so we decided to tract the
street, and this really old couple let us in to talk to them for a second and we saw this little kid standing outside their house waiting. We thought he was waiting for us to be done talking to them so that he could talk to the old people about cutting their grass and what not. So when we walked outside, the kid called out, Elders! and we were like, what?? haha It turns out this 14 y.o. was Zane ----!! And he started asking us about the church and how he was looking for truth and the first word that popped into his head was the word "Mormon" so he
researched about the Book of Mormon and knew a lot about the church!! IT was so cool to find a boy the same age as Joseph Smith who was looking for truth just like him! Incredible!! Hopefully we'll be able to teach him some more, because that one time we met we didn't have enough time because we had an appointment to get to, but it was so cool!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Johnstown Week 9
This week was pretty good! The weather was absolutely crazy and has been for a couple weeks now! Last Friday, there was a microburst here! The wind and the rain were so crazy!! There were winds in Johnstown that got up to 80mph!! That wind blew over so many trees and knocked down so many power lines! There were trees that were 3+ feet in diameter that were blown over! Dumpsters were being tossed around like paper! The rain was epically intese too! We weren't in Johnstown at the time of the immaculate winds but where we were at, it took 3 seconds for us too look like we had just jumped in to a swimming pool, I kid you not, the rain was that intense! I loved it!! haha the rain was so much fun, weird I know, but I was laughing and smiling the whole time! And just yesterday we got a ton of rain and marble sized hail! That was fun too! but the down part to all of this was it really put a damper on the work and the plans we had to walk around and find people on the street because everyone ran for cover.
We were able to get in contact with a media referral (where someone calls SLC and asks them for something, i.e. a Book of Mormon, a Bible, a particular DVD, or a missionary visit) and she's really cool, she wants to find truth and find more happiness!! We have a return visit on Tuesday, her name is Jennifer. She's a really nice lady!
Our investigator Yadiah has a baptismal date set for May 8th!!! She's really progressing in learning and wanting to learn more about the Gospel. We talked to her parents and they said that as long as she knows
what she's doing, they are alright with it! so that's moving along nicely! Alphonso(correct spelling) said that he wants to be baptized within a few weeks or so, but we still have a few complications that arose that we have to work out with him, so keep praying for them and that things will work out! They're such good people and they deserve this truth! Other than that we're still looking and searching for those that are doing the same.
The other night Elder Page and I were tracting along this street and we happened to stumble upon these apartment complexes that we had no clue existed!! So we looked at them and chose a row of apartments that we would try, and as we were walking along we looked at this door and it happened to have that famous LDS picture of Christ on it! So were HAD to knock on it! When this short lady answered the door, she exclaimed, OH! Elders! My goodness, how you know I live here? Come in Come in! We soon found out that she was a less-active Philippino lady!! She let us right in and showed us the pictures of all the elders that she had known that were living in Johnstown throughout the years. Her name is Sis.Foster. She's so awesome and is probably going to feed us this Thursday! It's so great how we were led to this wonderful lady and were
able to get back into contact with her, and hopefully get her a ride so she can come to church!
Well that's pretty much it and all that's happened within this week. Missionary work is the best, and continue to look for opportunities to share the gospel!!
Love,
Elder Benjamin Serrano
We were able to get in contact with a media referral (where someone calls SLC and asks them for something, i.e. a Book of Mormon, a Bible, a particular DVD, or a missionary visit) and she's really cool, she wants to find truth and find more happiness!! We have a return visit on Tuesday, her name is Jennifer. She's a really nice lady!
Our investigator Yadiah has a baptismal date set for May 8th!!! She's really progressing in learning and wanting to learn more about the Gospel. We talked to her parents and they said that as long as she knows
what she's doing, they are alright with it! so that's moving along nicely! Alphonso(correct spelling) said that he wants to be baptized within a few weeks or so, but we still have a few complications that arose that we have to work out with him, so keep praying for them and that things will work out! They're such good people and they deserve this truth! Other than that we're still looking and searching for those that are doing the same.
The other night Elder Page and I were tracting along this street and we happened to stumble upon these apartment complexes that we had no clue existed!! So we looked at them and chose a row of apartments that we would try, and as we were walking along we looked at this door and it happened to have that famous LDS picture of Christ on it! So were HAD to knock on it! When this short lady answered the door, she exclaimed, OH! Elders! My goodness, how you know I live here? Come in Come in! We soon found out that she was a less-active Philippino lady!! She let us right in and showed us the pictures of all the elders that she had known that were living in Johnstown throughout the years. Her name is Sis.Foster. She's so awesome and is probably going to feed us this Thursday! It's so great how we were led to this wonderful lady and were
able to get back into contact with her, and hopefully get her a ride so she can come to church!
Well that's pretty much it and all that's happened within this week. Missionary work is the best, and continue to look for opportunities to share the gospel!!
Love,
Elder Benjamin Serrano
Friday, April 23, 2010
Johnstown Week 8
The weather out here is beginning to look up! It wasn't this past weekend because it SnoweD!!! Weird... but the trees are FINALLY starting to turn green, and it looks so amazing! I can't wait for them to finally get all green and pretty around here. That's when people are out on the streets and we can talk to them easier.
My new companion, Elder Page, is great! He's a fantastic missionary! He's so good at teaching, it's unreal. I hope that I'll be as good and as natural of a teacher as he is one of these days. I love serving with him, it's a lot of fun!
We got a whole new district basically! Everyone in the different areas in the district got a new companion so there are 3 new elders to the district, and they all are fun great guys. One Elder, Elder Poston is a major music man!! More so than me! He is an organist and is very good at it, and is fantastic at arranging stuff on the organ and piano. His goal is to be the conductor of MOTAB one of these days. And believe me he could do it! He's awesome, the new district is awesome!
Our investigators are coming along nicely. Our investigator Yadiah is totally solid!! She's learning and learning and learning! and she understands and wants to live the commandments!! She basically already has throughout her life and has been encouraging others to do so also! Such as living the Word of Wisdom, she was telling her friends to not smoke or drink or anything of the such before we even taught her about the Word of Wisdom. She's going to baptized on May 1st or May 8th, either one, depending on if she's stuck in Delaware this weekend. But she's going to be baptized for sure!!
I cannot believe that Steve (Boles) is coming home ALREADY!! That's so insane that it's already been two years since he's been gone! Now he's back! Wow, it's incredible!
Other than what's been said I can't think of any other stuffs that been happening on the exciting end of things, but the work is going good and I am truly having a fantastic time out here spreading the gospel to those who are searching for true and everlasting happiness! To be that bringer of said message is an honor.
Love,
Elder Benjamin Serrano
My new companion, Elder Page, is great! He's a fantastic missionary! He's so good at teaching, it's unreal. I hope that I'll be as good and as natural of a teacher as he is one of these days. I love serving with him, it's a lot of fun!
We got a whole new district basically! Everyone in the different areas in the district got a new companion so there are 3 new elders to the district, and they all are fun great guys. One Elder, Elder Poston is a major music man!! More so than me! He is an organist and is very good at it, and is fantastic at arranging stuff on the organ and piano. His goal is to be the conductor of MOTAB one of these days. And believe me he could do it! He's awesome, the new district is awesome!
Our investigators are coming along nicely. Our investigator Yadiah is totally solid!! She's learning and learning and learning! and she understands and wants to live the commandments!! She basically already has throughout her life and has been encouraging others to do so also! Such as living the Word of Wisdom, she was telling her friends to not smoke or drink or anything of the such before we even taught her about the Word of Wisdom. She's going to baptized on May 1st or May 8th, either one, depending on if she's stuck in Delaware this weekend. But she's going to be baptized for sure!!
I cannot believe that Steve (Boles) is coming home ALREADY!! That's so insane that it's already been two years since he's been gone! Now he's back! Wow, it's incredible!
Other than what's been said I can't think of any other stuffs that been happening on the exciting end of things, but the work is going good and I am truly having a fantastic time out here spreading the gospel to those who are searching for true and everlasting happiness! To be that bringer of said message is an honor.
Love,
Elder Benjamin Serrano
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