March 16, 2015 - Building relationships of trust

Querida familia!

How are you doing? We do have a different schedule with a trainee. We have an extra hour of comp study where we go through the First 12 weeks Program. It is such an amazing program where it goes very in depth in scriptures and doctrine. I am learning a lot as well. We try to do our language study together and it has been helping his Spanish. He is improving well. Thank you for the packet! I am excited to get it. Also give President Shaw my best and thank him for all he has done.
Elder Johnson has a great attitude about missionary work. He is excited and is a hard worker. We have been visiting many former investigators.

Hernando: We contacted him about three weeks ago and when we did, he said he has taken the missionary lessons before. We got down his information and we called him a week later to set up an appointment with him. We found out in the beginning of the lesson that he was baptized 15 years ago in Union City. He says he is still in communication with the missionary that baptized him. We invited him back to church and went over the restoration with him again. He remembered some parts but we needed to review some parts. He said that he is going to come back to church when he gets all his family from Mexico. We are going to try to keep constant communication with him. It was a great lesson.
Mirna: She is from Puerto Rico and she has been investigating for a couple months. She has a hard time keeping commitments especially reading the BOM. But we showed her the Mormon Channel and also the scriptures online. She loved the music that the Mormon Channel played. She has a good spirit about her, we are going to help her see the importance of church this next week
David: He was on date for baptism but did not pass the interview with the zone leader. The zone leaders feel he needs to have a stronger testimony. So, we have been helping him realize that he must read, study and pray to know if the BOM is true. Before he said that he believes the BOM and also believes that all church lead to God. David was not very happy with the baptismal interview and does not want to comply on what we are asking him. We may discontinue teaching him depending on our next lesson we have with him. Please pray for him.
Luis: We read with him 2 Nephi 31 about the doctrine of Christ. The spirit was very strong and invited him at the end of the lesson to pray about the BOM. He did so and we all felt a good spirit. He also has a hard time keeping commitments but said he will finish 2 nephi 31.
Chavez Family (LA): Sister Chavez is going through a very ugly divorce. We visited her Saturday night and finally said she needs to talk with the bishop tomorrow. She asked if we could walk over to the church with her and her six kids all under the age of 13. It was quite an experience as we walked over and making sure the kids did not run into the street. This was her first time attending church in the last 4 or 5 months and the members received back very warmly.
Basketball: One activity we started last transfer was Wednesday afternoon basketball time. It has gotten very big with about 25 to 30 people showing up. We share a scripture in the beginning and we get to know the people that come and hopefully get their contact information. It is so fun and we have many guys that are amazing and we also have some street ballers as well, that have crazy ball handling skills. It is pretty fun to watch.
This week we are going to work on gaining the members trust and finding less actives. So we can get some referrals.
Anyways, Tanner how is your mission prep going? Hope all is well. I love you Dad, Mom, Tanner and Mckay so very much. Hope you have a great week!
Love Elder Plumer