Spectacular week here in New City, NY - August 25, 2014

Buenos Dias Familia!


Este semana fue de lo mas bien! Tuvimos 25 lecciones con 13 miembros presentes con investigadores este semana! Tambien hemos conseguido 4 nuevos investigadores!

Thank you so much mom for sending those pictures! The banner is really cool, Tanner! I am excited for you! I am glad Mckay is enjoying Timpanogos. I like you red hair mom, it looks good! I also did not receive the package yet, my companion said it sometimes takes three days to send them here. Should be coming today. Thank you for sending that! Yesterday we had stake conference and the topic was on missionary and temple work! Our stake president spoke as well as a newly called bishop that was converted 5 years ago. It was a great conference. We drove with our amazing 1st councilor of the elder quorum to the conference. They recently moved from New Mexico. Brother Baldwin served a mission in Korea and was a doctor in LA for 10 years but decided to to pursue business with his wife. He has so many Ph.d's and is really humble. They are huge BYU fans which is so cool. We are going to sit down this Wednesday with him and have a plan of attack to find all the inactives in our ward.
This is how our new investigators and investigators are doing:
Freddy: We found Freddy through our investigator Rosa when she invited his kids to sit in and listen to us. We had a great conversation about faith and sit up a next appointment and gave him the BOM and committed him to read the introduction . We met with him the next week and taught about the BOM. To our surprise he read the introduction and said he believes it is true! We explained more about the background of the BOM and had a great lesson on scripture reading. We met with him again that same week and taught the restoration. The spirit was strong and at the end we invited him to be baptized. He said that he was baptized by the Evangelists and told us that all churches are of God. We re explained the apostosy and told him that if he believes the BOM is true then this is the only true church. He then said again that all we need to do is accept Christ in our hearts. We then invited him to read and pray to know if our message is true! He said he will. It was a great lesson!

Eli: Elder Pearson and his last companion have been trying this guy that they contacted on the street for awhile. We went last Saturday and right when we approached his door he drove in from work and said that he had some time to listen to us. We did a how to began teaching and explained more about the BOM. We read alittle of the introduction and committed him to ask God if the BOM and our message is true. There was a strong spirit and we could see his desire to follow God. He said he will do it.
Mario Jr.: We visited him last Friday and taught him the first lesson of the restoration. He had so many great questions about the church and even went on mormon.org to chat with some missionaries but were not available. He then asked his questions to his relative who is actually serving a mission in Colombia via facebook! He said he was going to call us but thought that 8:30 was too late for us. We reassured him that we will try to answer any questions he has at any time. One question he had is if we worshiped Joseph Smith and quickly cleared that up through the restoration lesson. He asked us as well about the Word of Wisdom and we are going to teach him that next week. We committed him to read and pray about the BOM and our message and to attend church. He said he really wants to go and will come this week to church. He has been very prepared for our message by his relatives.

Moises: He is from the DR and is 14 years old. He is mature for his age and has been reading and praying about the BOM. He wants to come to church but his mom will not let him. She like when we teach him but is very Catholic. We had a good lesson about the 10 commandments and committed him to keep reading and praying.

Natalia: she is the one with the coffee problem and we decided to have a lesson about the truthfulness of the BOM and Joseph Smith. We started asking her questions like if she knew the BOM is true? She said she has read it cover to cover and knew that it is true. We then asked if she knew Joseph Smith was a prophet? We then found the problem that she did not know. We then committed her to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and said she would. We them shared to story of King Lamoni's father and how he was willing to give away all his kingdom and sings to know God. We then applied it to her and asked what are you willing to abandon to know God and feel this redeeming joy? She said she did not know and is going to pray about it. We committed her to come to church this Sunday which at first she was hesitant because of all the grandchildren she has to take care of but assured her that there are willing member to help her take care of them when they come to church. Great lesson.

Rosa: We had a great lesson on faith with her and her daughter Helida. It felt more like a conversation and we were all contributing to the lesson. We then switched gears and talked about baptism and taught about why Christ was baptized. We then invited her to be baptized, it got all of sudden quite and said she was not sure and said she will need to think about it and talk with her husband. We invited her to pray about it as well. She did commit to come to church which we are very excited!

We had a great experience last Wednesday where we were walking down a street trying to find people to contact when we saw this African American man with his daughter sitting in front of there house. We said hello and kept walking. A couple seconds later and yells out to us asking if we wanted some water. We accepted and next thing we knew he was asking all kinds of amazing questions about the church. He was very impressed about what we did and was truly touched. He is a guard at the local juvenile center were he sees the worse of young teenagers. He is a very strong Christian and said that he listens to the bible every night on his phone before he goes to bed. My companion felt inspired to show him the Because of Him video on his phone. We watched it and he was really moved by the video. He said that we brought a lot of hope to him for the rising generation and said that if we needed anything to just call him. We got all his contact information and asked him if we could send the sisters that teach in English and said he would love it. It was a great spiritual experience. The sisters met with him on Saturday and was very receptive to the message and committed him to read the BOM. We are excited for him! New city is the city were the chapel is and where the majority of the members live. We live in Nanuet which is right next to New city. It is a very green area. I love you all so very much! Thank you for your continual prayers and love for me! Hope you all have a spectacular week.

By the way, Nanuet is in the Town of Clarkstown Rockland County, New York, located north of Pearl River; south of New City; east of Spring Valley and west of West Nyack. It is 19 miles north of Manhattan, and 2 miles north of the New Jersey border.


Elder Plummer

New Beginnings, new area and new school year for the Plummers - August 19, 2014

Querida Familia,

Tanner, are you excited for you senior year!? I am excited for your job at Subway and I am also excited for Mckay as well for his first year in high school. We had a spectacular week! Yesterday I translated the sacrament meeting which went ok. There were many speakers that would talk fast but I was able to sum up the idea, so it went well. There was one speaker who was using a lot of scientific terms and I did not know how to translate but was able to somewhat keep up. It was a very spiritual meeting. We just had a couple move ins, one of them is a couple, both went to BYU and served full time missions. The wife is from Laos and the husband is from Pakistan and his father was a Muslim. He gave a great talk last week on how he and his mom tried to attend church in Saudi Arabia but the many difficulties they had and also how the church is growing in the country. It was a great story. He was just called as 1st counselor in the elders quorum presidency and we are excited to get him involved in missionary work. We also taught the Spanish doctrine class about charity and also taught Eternal Marriage in Priesthood. I will send some pictures of the apartment next week.
Thank you so much. The GPS works great but I think I am going to return it because it cost $180 and I can get a cheaper one, like at walmart. All we need is just the basic functions. But we will see. We do our laundry in the basement of the apartment complex which is really nice.
These are the following investigators we have been teaching:
Rosa: We taught Rosa last week about repentance with her daughter Heldia who is 9 or 10. We first started off the lesson by having Heldia read the story about when Nephi and his brothers went back to Jerusalem to get the plates from the simplified picture book. After she finished Rosa said that she felt very peaceful while her daughter was reading that. We then started talking about the repentance process and she really received it well and opened up to us on some grudges she has had toward other people and how she wants to forgive them. While we were conversing, a father came in to pick up his kids that Rosa looks after and she invited him to come listen to us and he accepted. His name is Freddie and as we were talking he expressed his faith on how repentance has changed him. We had a good conversation and got his contact information and we are going to set up a time to meet with him. After he left, Rosa said she wanted to go to church and we talked about getting her a ride. We were very excited. It ended up that her boss called her in for work that Sunday but said she will come next Sunday.
Sulma: We did not see her this last week because she had a lot of work, but we tried to call her every other day and said she has been reading and praying. We are excited for her!
Mario and Mario Jr. We also did not see them last week due to his work schedule and we have been trying to set up another appointment with him. We are going to stop by next week and check up on Mario's shoulder as well.
Natalia: She was busy this last week as well, but we have been planning lessons to get her on a baptismal date. She knows that the church is true but has a hard time committing to give up coffee. She has been investigating for six years so we are going to be lovingly bold. :) I am excited
Saturday night the bishop invited us over for dinner. We had a great time and had hamburgers and played some Book of Mormon Jeopardy. It was a very fun and spiritual night with their family. Later that night the sisters received a call from a Haitian member whose mother had just passed away and was really having a hard time. She asked for a priesthood blessing but said that we could come tomorrow because it was almost nine. But we felt prompted to go right away, so we did and when we got there she was just crying and could not find peace. My companion shared how Christ was perfect and knew that everything will work out and when his friend Lazerus died he cried and told her it is ok to cry. We gave her the blessing and after, she said she was more at peace and feels that she will be able to sleep now. It was a great spiritual experience. We felt a great peace after that.
One strategy to contact that I have found very effective is starting with a question. We have had many spiritual street lessons which President Taggart has been pushing on the spiritually connecting. We also have set up appointments with promising potentials this next week as well. We have also been trying former investigators which we have found success. We have two that we are going to see next week and we also got a referral from a former sister who was there cleaning. She said she is open to listen but is very Catholic, but said to come back and teach her sister and maybe her if she has time. 

 I love you Dad, Mom, Tanner and Mckay all so much. Good luck this year at school Tanner and Mckay! I am so excited for you.


Love, Elder Plummer

New Transfer, I am in New York State now- August 11, 2014

Familia!
I am in a new city, in the New York State area! It's called Nanuet in NY. The only area in the mission that is in New York. My new companion is name Elder Pearson from Vernal, Utah. He has only been out for only four months! He is a great Elder and I have been learning a lot this week. My apartment address is 249 N. Middletown Rd. #7A, Nanuet, NY 10954. We cover one of the largest areas in the mission covering almost all of Rockland County. We have a white Toyota Corolla and takes about 10 to 15 minutes to go visit anyone in the area. It is a very spread area with pockets of a metropolis. It is also very green. Our ward is English speaking but one of us translates into Spanish in a micro phone set. I will be translating next Sunday. There are a lot of Haitians, Dominicans and Guatemalans in our area. I will be picking up a little French from our Haitian less actives. We teach 60% of the time in Spanish and the rest will be English. Last Thursday we received a headquarter referral for a man that wanted a blessing before he went in for his surgery the next day. We went over and found out his daughter was baptized in Guatemala and was still there. His wife is also investigating over there as well. His name is Mario and explained how the blessing worked and gave it to him. We gave him the blessing and said he will remember what we said in his blessing. He said that he was interested to learn more about our church another time, but found out his son, Mario Jr. is interested. We came back the next day to meet with the son and see how the surgery went on his father's arm. The surgery went well and we taught them the importance of the Book of Mormon. We also invited him to church that Sunday and he said he wants to go but has work and is afraid to get it off because his boss is Jewish. He said his boss does not look kindly on other religions. We prayed for him that he could get Sunday off. We could not get a hold of him Sunday morning, but we are going to visit him next Friday.
   The next investigators we visited is Sulma from Guatemala. She has been investigating for a couple months and actually my companion told me they have been trying to get a hold of her for the past month. She used to go very regularly to church and found out she has not been going because she feels ashamed and that all the members are perfect and clean. We explained that we all need the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and shared Alma 7:11-12. She did not commit to church but said she will read in the BOM.
Natalia: She is in her early 70s from Guatemala and has investigated the church since 2008 and her only obstacle to getting baptized is coffee. We visited and shared 1 Nephi 3:7 and taught her that there is a way to keep this commandment. We committed her to eat an apple and cold water in substitute for her coffee to have the energy she needs in the morning. She said she will try it and we are going to follow up next Wednesday.
We are currently still finding new investigators. Most of our English lessons are to members or less actives. Last week we did service twice moving marble for a member and her husband. Her husband is Jewish but absolutely loves us. He is an architect and an environmentalist. He is originally from Israel and makes amazing food. They made us breakfast and we had a great time. The Lord has really poured out many miracles upon us. We have a vision transfer to "Leave the area better than we found it". We are going to update the area book every night, have daily contact with investigators and get one baptism. We are excited. I love you dad, mom, Tanner and Mckay. I miss you guys alot!


Love,


Elder Plummer

Nanuet, New York State. It's very green and nice.

My new companion, Elder Pearson from Vernal, Utah.

Saying Good-bye to Plainfield - Dunnellen Area, I am going to miss them...... August 4, 2014

Querida familia,

Well, I know for sure now that I will be transferred. I will know for sure where I will be tomorrow. I am going to miss Plainfield. I have made lifelong friends and will for sure visit. We picked up a new investigator last week named Walter. He was a referral from an investigator we helped move. Walter was studying to become a pastor but his wife left him with two little girls and one of the requirements is you need to be married. So he actually lost his job as well and our branch president brought him and his little girls food from the church warehouse. He is prepared and has many of the truths already.  We are excited for him.
Efrain: He still wants to be baptized but has not come to church for the last two Sundays. We were also bold with him and talked about what will be his next steps to either separate or get married. He said that he does not want to get married, or does he want to separate because of his two children. We committed him to pray about his next step.
Raquel: We taught about why bad things happen to good people and shared Alma 14 about the saints getting burned but received to heaven. She responded well to this scripture and said she will give the Book of Mormon a chance. She seemed more open this time.
Melvin: Did not go to church yesterday because he was playing soccer. That night we taught him about the 10 commandments with an emphasize on keeping the Sabbath day holy. He felt bad for skipping church and still wants to get baptized.
Jose Guaman: We taught him the BOM and said he will read it. He believes that religion is not God and that God and Christ are free. He is a good guy. He has some false ideas but still wants to learn more.
We hit 20 lessons this week which has been our goal for this last transfer. Glad we were able to hit it before I left. We visited many less actives that we taught every single week while I was here. I am going to miss them.  I am so grateful to be a missionary and have felt the Lord's hand in my life. I love you Mom, Dad, Tanner and Mckay.


Elder Plummer

My District

Efrain (Investigator) from the Dominican Republic

Raquel (middle) great investigator and Vilma (member)

La familia Manzano (an amazing recent convert family) - I am going to miss them

Juventino (awesome less active)

Dinner at the Branch President's house

Hernan (returning member) 

Franklin (menos activo)

Melvin, our great investigator

La familia Yaurivilca from Peru