Johnstown Week 7

I'm doing well now! Earlier this week, I did get sick... I got some kind of flu virus that's going around. It was no fun especially since it was the last few days with Elder Zaleski and we didn't get to do anything, or with Elder Page (my new companion). Then he got sick after me so we didn't really get out to do much this week which is a shame... It really put a damper on the momentum we had last transfer, but we're back on the rise!

Elder Page is a really cool elder! He's from Provo and he's been out on his mission for almost 22 months so I'm going to be his last companion. The word around here says that I'll be staying in Johnstown for a while... Because I'll stay with Elder Page until he leaves.

So this week was really uneventful. Just getting sick, and trying really hard to find some new people to teach.  Oh, I twisted my ankle too so I have to wear my ankle brace! (ha ha good thing I brought it!) But don't worry I'll be fine! I've gone through worse!

The investigators that we do have they are all doing well!  Alfanzo realized that you didn't have to be perfect to be baptized so he's going to pray to find out when he wants or feels ready to be baptized. Our investigators Jay and Manda are doing alright. We have another investigator, Yadia (pronounced Wi-dee-uh), she's 15 and a friend of one of the member girls in the ward, she's totally solid and has a baptismal date for May 1st! All these people are so solid and are going to baptized, so please pray for them, and for things to go smoothly!


Being out here has strengthened my testimony 10 fold already, I love it! I've found that the scriptures are a true source of happiness and peace in a busy day, and reading them in the morning really sets the day off
right. The Scriptures are true! The Church is true! Thomas S. Monson is God's mouth piece today, truly he is!
Thank you for all the prayers and love you send over this way!

Johnstown Week 6

Happy Easter!! This week was Nice! The weather was totally awesome! But I think it got hot too fast! Riding bikes in the heat isn't so fun.. But that's what we had to do! I got a little tan but it's the "Missionary Collar" tan, which is cool I guess.  This week is transfers week and sadly, Elder Zaleski is getting transferred to somewhere. Elder Zaleski is a rockin missionary and he's taught me so much, but the Lord needs him elsewhere. I'm remaining in Johnstown, and another elder (apparently the elder joining me used to be a zone leader, so this'll be fun :) ) will be joining up with me on Tuesday afternoon.

Wasn't this conference amazing? I thought so! I learned so much from this one, I don't even know where to begin! Being a Missionary, you really learn and get a lot more out of conference than when you're at home hangin' out. I thought that there were a few common themes throughout this whole conference weekend pertaining to talks: Patience through trials; Parents teaching their kids and raising them in righteousness; and remembering Christ and living His gospel. I think that patience was my favorite topic talked about. Especially the one by President Uchtdorf! I think it may have been at the afternoon one, or the priesthood session, but it was incredible! And perfectly applicable to Missionary work. We need to be more patient with people, because, think of how patient our Heavenly Father is to us when we, who know better, make mistakes. And I think patience is really one of those Christlike attributes that is really key for anyone and everyone needs to have.

We had Jay and Manda come and watch conference at the church building, they thought it was so awesome because the session they went to (Saturday afternoon) was really focused on families and raising kids in righteousness. They really enjoyed that, because that's what they want with their family that they want to raise. They're doing great! They're awesome. 

We found a few promising people this week that seem interested in listening and learning more. This one lady, "Cozy", (that's what she told us to call her) is one of them. We talked to her son a couple weeks ago and told him about the restored gospel and said that we could come by and talk to him and his mom. When we arrived at the appointment, his mom let us in and told us that if we could get her son to invite us back and talk about religious stuff, then there had to be something good or divine that influenced him to invite us, because he isn't a very religious person. So that was totally cool! and she seemed to really like and understand well the things that we were teaching her. It's amazing how the Lord works and prepares people and families to receive this wonderful message about the restored gospel, I absolutely love it!  The work is going amazing and I love it! The church is true! I've received an edifying testimony of that as I've been out here seeing all the many churches that are here in Johnstown.  I know this is God's true and living church once again established on the earth through a prophet of God!

Love,
Elder Benjamin Serrano

Johnstown Week 5

Dawn Owens is now officially SISTER Dawn Owens!! The baptism was so amazing!! I was able to play the piano for it, the prelude and the hymns. There were some amazing talks that were given by ward members,

and the baptism was fantastic! Elder Zaleski was the one who got to physically baptize her. Here whole family was there supporting her which was a really big blessing too! Everyone felt the Spirit there! Her boyfriend, Alfanzo, who is also an investigator felt the spirit so strongly that he started to get a little teary-eyed and he asked if that was normal, and we said that of course it was! Dawns knee, though, came out the first time the was baptized and so we had to do it again of course. We had a few problems with the font: it didn't fill up as much as we would have liked, and the water was kind of cold haha... But other than that it went really well! On Sunday Dawn was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! She chose me to be the one who confirmed her! I was a little nervous, because I really didn't know how it was all going to play out, but we went up in front of the whole congregation in sacrament and confirmed her.

It was such a great meeting! It was our Easter program so there were musical numbers and what not. I had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of that program. I, along with the organist played a duet of the

hymn, That Easter Morn. And it turned out wonderfully!  I got to go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, so one of them came here to Johnstown and I was the one that was leading everything and going places and he was following me, it was kind of nerve racking because he is WAY more experienced than me! But it was fun nonetheless because he's just an outstanding missionary, and his name is Benjamin too!! haha!

My companion and I are getting along just great! We've become real good friends and are learning more to teach in unity..He just awesome and a great example to me. We ran out of mileage on our car, so we get to ride bikes everywhere, which is kind of a rough thing because there isn't a flat road in all of Johnstown haha! so it's always going to be uphill where ever we go, except for coming home, then we get to go down hill!  Slowly and cautiously of course :)

We're assigned to one ward. It covers huge ground! It probably takes an hour and a half to drive from top to bottom and 45 min to drive side to side, so it's fairly large.  The members there are so fantastic, and loving, and very generous when it comes to feeding us! Its so delicous all the time!

We're getting a few more investigators, Jay and Manda are coming along. Jay really wants to learn, but Manda is really shy at the moment.  She'll come out of her shell soon though. The members help too in

fellowshipping, so she should be fine. The problem is Jay loves to talk alot so we don't get enough teaching in as we would like to. He's just looking for a good spiritual foundation for his family, which is the gospel.

Johnstown Week 4

The mission field is pretty exciting! Elder Zaleski and I held a
fireside last night for the youth in the church, and we talked about how
they could be missionaries too. The cool thing about it is that we're
promised that the Spirit will be there to speak the words with/for us
when we talk.

And knowing this gospel, and talking to other people about their beliefs
really makes me happy to know what I know. And it's a sad thing when
people don't want to listen because, what we have to say will clear up
confusion, and it really all makes sense!

Dawn is doing great! She's so pumped and ready for her baptism this
Saturday!! And so am I! She's totally ready.

This week we have been out tracting a lot and not finding a whole lot of
success. We have found a few that are willing to listen and say that we
can come back and then never come to the door or are gone, but that's
usually how it goes right? But we are teaching a boy that we found on
the street and wants to learn about Christ. His home life isn't the best
environment, but it's cool to come and teach him about The Restoration.
He's a good kid.

Johnstown Week 3

This week has been a very eventful week! We are still meeting with Dawn and Alfanzo, and guess what?? Dawn is going to be baptized!! :D We were giving her a lesson, and it so happened that I was talking when the Spirit so happened to say to me "It's time. Invite her to baptism." So I then proceeded to say the words I've practiced many many times at the MTC and here in the Mission Field. And lo and behold she said yes! She would love to! We got all excited and happy, we had her go and write down the day on her calendar, oh, it was so amazing! The day she's scheduled to be baptized is March 27th! It was so exciting! My very first baptismal invite was a success! Alfanzo on the other hand still needs some time, but he said he would be baptized as soon as he finds out and feels this is true, which he will. We're also teaching a couple that wants a "fool-proof plan" for a stronger spiritual foundation for their marriage/family AKA the gospel of Jesus Christ! So that's really cool!

I'm loving it out here, I just can't wait for all the trees to turn green, because there are billions of them!

695 Days Left

March 8, 2010
The weather is starting to turn around! The sun is finally shining!! It was out for probably an hour once I got here and then it was cloudy and snowy up until... probably Tuesday or Wednesday so it's nice!

I feel like I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable with teaching! We're teaching this investigator Dawn still, (but we're going to set her with a date this Tuesday evening!!) and she's coming along very nicely! She attended church and said that she had a fantastic experience. The cool thing about that too, is that her boyfriend, Alfanzo, (coolestnameever!) is interested in the church too! He doesn't have a religious background, so we're starting with the very very basics of the gospel with him, he came to church and really enjoyed it, he said that he wants us to teach him more and he wants to continue coming to church. And sadly, the potential investigator Joseph we had to drop because he never answered our calls and was never home... :(

I went on my first companion exchanges on Wednesday! I was paired up with an Elder Ormesher from Idaho. He's an interesting fellow, but really cool and spiritual nonetheless. I was able to go on my first 'splits' too while I was on that exchange. We visited a less active man that never goes to church or accepts rides, but this time he did accept a ride to church which was way awesome! At the apartment I was staying at while on exchanges had so much food! And dried mangos! (that no one was eating so i took the giant bag with me :) delicious!)

Talking to people on the streets is something I'm improving on! it was kinda scary walking up to a stranger and talking to him or her about the gospel, but it's getting less scary and I'm better at it, but I have a lot further to go.

The people over here say a weird word: "Yinz"- it means "y'all" or "you guys". it's pretty funny to hear it said, because they have kind of a half-southern accent, it's great.

Well I think that's all that's been exciting going on! The work is going great! and I love it! :)

Love,
Elder Serrano

First letter from PA

On Monday morning I (along with 4 other elders in my 

district) got up and around 3am so that we could catch

our bus to take us to the airport, it really was 

terrible getting up that early because there's really

not that much recovery time to catch up on that sleep

because busses aren't that comfortable at all!! 

On the bus ride up there we took University pkwy to 

get to the freeway and I passed all the stores and 

restaurants that were on the way there and told my 

companion (Elder Coles) stories about all the different

places. It was kinda funny and was like, okay, I’m 

leaving this life behind and going on and serving the 

Lord. I got to see the church building one last time 

and the general area in which we lived it was cool! 

They (our MTC branch presidency) told us to back off 

on the "gung-ho"-ness of being missionaries at the 

airport, just because, well I think they didn't want us 

embarrassing our selves basically or something like 

that, I dunno. The flight was nice, once the tires 

of the plane left the ground I was out! It was pretty 

crazy how fast I fell asleep but getting up at 3 am 

will do that to you.

When we arrived in PA, the first thing I noticed was, 

there were no mountains!!!! It’s all hills and boring-ness! 

Well for now because all the trees are dead. Pres. 

Summerhays and the Assistants to the presidents 

picked us up and we took all our luggage and loaded 

it into a trailer and piled into the MAV (Mormon 

Assault Vehicle) and they took us to Golden Coral 

to eat dinner then proceeded to take us to the mission 

home where we met with the president(of the mission, 

not the US) and stayed the night.

The next day I met my new companion, Elder Zaleski! 

He is a fantastic missionary and he's teaching me 

a lot! We were assigned to the Johnstown area and 

that's where we serve. Our apartment is pretty nice. 

It's the second to top floor of the 4 story building. 

We went out tracting and it was pretty fun! It 

was snowing and we were talking to people on the 

street and knocking on doors! (oh yeah, it's been 

snowing [well not anymore] for about 3 days now 

with a couple breaks but it's been pretty 

constant) We were trying to get to an investigators 

house and we went down this shortcut road that doesn't 

get plowed, so we were trudging through probably 2 

feet of snow, it was awesome! We were able to 

teach this guy (20-24 y.o.) about the restoration 

and he seemed very interested! His name is Joseph 

just like Joseph Smith, and he had the same 

questions as Joseph S. too!! So we gave him a 

pamphlet and we're going to get back to him! 

This is very hard work, and it seems I usually 

don't get enough sleep at night though I sleep 

the whole night through, it'll take some getting 

used to:)But I love it!

That's all the exciting stuff that's happened so 

far! I’m loving it out here! It's the place I 

need to be!  Oh yeah and there are catholic 

churches around here like there are LDS churches 

in Orem, they're EVERYWHERE!!  

-Love Elder Serrano