God is love and This is His Work!! Awesome week with many miracles!!

Enjoying our van ride

Pumping iron on Preparation Day

Hey Dad, Mom, McKay and Tanner!

Man, these 5 years as a bishop have gone by fast. I thank you dad for your great example to us. This last week we saw some incredible miracles. We put Marcos on baptismal date for September 27th. He reads the BOM and he loves it so much. Cool to see the conversion power of the BOM. He works a lot and is taking a rigorous course to become a state inspector which will take 2 weeks, so he will not be able to attend until after. Also, thank you so much for the package mom! I have almost eaten all the bars. I love the jerky!
I have learned investigators have more powerful spiritual experiences when we leave and they read, pray and exercise there faith.
Another miracle happened! There is this 19 year old guy who was praying to know what God wanted him to do. He felt prompted to look up where the closest Mormon church. He and his Mom decided to walk down and check out the chapel. Cool part of this story is they said as they were walking down some one just came up to them and said they were on the right path and to keep going and then he just left! Of the other Elders said it's one of the 3 nephites! Haha, it could be! They got there and one of the members was there and started talking about their experience. Then the other elders happened to pass by and asked if they would like a tour of the chapel. They showed them the whole chapel and when they got to the baptismal font they asked if they could be baptized! The elders then went through the restoration and they liked the message. We found out that they live in our area and he came to church yesterday! He liked it and we have a set appointment with him for next Wednesday. The Lord is so merciful and this just was a testimony builder of the love God really has for us. He really guides this work. His name is Steve and is a cool guy, he loves ping pong and reads the Bible a lot. We are excited.
We have been trying to work with the members more and getting referrals and simply loving and serving them. Elder Sullivan works very well with the members. We make a good team.

We have zone meeting tomorrow and the theme of this month is being converted and then help others to be converted. At mission leader council we had Elder Smith of the Seventy come from DC to train us. He is a prestigious man. He has served as a Senator representing Oregon in the US senate and is the CEO of all public broadcast in the US!
He is such a wise and humble guy and talked about the importance of studying the scriptures and how through the small and simple things great things can come to pass.

He told a touching story about 2 temple square sister missionaries. You will like this story, mom. He told a story of when President Uchtdorf called him telling him they had some problems getting our church recognized in Italy and asked if he could set up an appointment with the Italian Ambassador. He called him and the ambassador set an appointment with the Italian religious department chair. Elder Smith and E. Uchtdorf go over there and they are picked up by the U.S. Embassy since it is a diplomatic visit. They explain their problem being recognized in Italy which impeded the church to build temples and chapels. Elder Uchtdorf talked about how the church has been present in Italy with many members. The religious chair looks at his religious scholar to look for his approval and his knowledge about our church. He then talked about the visit he had when he went to Temple Square and how Impressed he was with 2 Italian sister missionaries and how well mannered and educated they were. He said he had never met such great wonderful young women from his country.

He then turned to the head chair and said," if they can produce young people like that, we ought to help them." He then turned to President Uchtdorf and asked how soon can you build a Temple Square in our country? As Elder Smith and President Uchtdorf finished the meeting they commented, " who ever those sister missionaries were, I wish I could thank them." Elder Smith then said,"it took a US senator to get in the meeting, an apostle to present the dilemma, and 2 sister missionaries to close the case!
Couple years later the Italy Rome temple was announced and as President Monson announced it, Elder Smith looked at President Uchtdorf with tears in his eyes.
We will never know the influence we have on people until the next life.

Anyways Isabel is progressing and is reading. We invited her to baptism because she knows this church is true. She accepted and felt the excitement in changing her life. The next step is getting her to church. We are finding many people that are willing to listen and many that are reading. The Lord has really blessed us and is putting people in our path. I love you all dearly! I love my mission so much! I am learning and seeing things I will never forget. It is the best thing I can be doing.


Love,  Elder Plummer

Still in Union City, NJ and got a new companion, Elder Sullivan from San Diego

My companion is Elder Sullivan in the yellow shirt

Family!
Well, I have a new companion named Elder Sullivan from San Diego, California! He is so funny! He loves surfing and the outdoors. We have hit it off very well. This is his first transfer as a zone leader and is super excited and ready to work. Thanks you mom for the protein bars!
Tuesday and Wednesday was slow. We went to district meeting and got to know the whole zone and distribute the new phones.
Juan is progressing! He is reading the BOM but it has been hard to get a hold of him. Marcos is reading as well and wants to be baptized. He is just piled with a lot of work but we are hoping to see him tonight. We found a former investigator named Normaria who is a mother of a return missionary. Her son Norbert is super cool. He buys food and fun to talk to. The problem is that she does not like to read and has a hard time comprehending. We invited her to read the children's BOM and accepted. We had a good lesson on the simplicity of finding out if the BOM is true. We also found this other Dominican girl named Isabel while trying a potential. She is 17 years old and is very smart for her age. She would explain back to us what we taught her very well. Good spirit while we were there. She is going to teach us how to make the Mongu!
We have been working with less actives as well, such as Geoffrey. He is 18 years old and we are tying to apply the scriptures in his life.
We have been visiting Willie more often and we helped paint his kitchen and he was very appreciative. We are tying to get him reading in the BOM by listening to his phone. We have a good relationship with him. He is awesome.
Well, it is cooling down here, about in the 70s.

I love you all so much! 

Love E. Plummer

I am getting a new companion on Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - Fun playing football with my zone

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Fun preparation day playing football with my zone

How are you all doing? So Elder White is leaving. I will miss him, we had some hard and good times together. He is a great guy. So, I decided to do it day by day summary I hope you like it.

Monday- it was a good P-day. We went into mine and E. Whites old area in West New York to pick up some extra weights that they had. We had a good time with my old companions E. Johnson and E. Berkheimer. We played football with the Newark zone by this beautiful field by the Hudson River with a great view of Manhattan.

We had a good lesson with this Bolivian guy we have been trying to get in contact for awhile name Adalid. He is in his 20s and works a lot. We got to know him and told us he felt that he does not have enough knowledge to study the scriptures. We explained that it is little by little. It was one of the best restoration lessons we did in English and we felt that we connected with him and just felt like we were speaking with a good buddy.

Tuesday: I went to Elder Rajahkumars district meeting. He has a sistrict(or a district of all sisters) and does a very good job motivating them. He writes up the district average numbers for last week (like how many lessons, new investigators etc. ) and they have a council and how they can improve in the areas they struggle in and talk about the problems they may have for example in finding new investigators or contacting. We them role play what we are struggling with or what ever the district leader feels inspired to do and then evaluate. E. Rajahkumar is from Germany and is a very hard worker. He is young in the mission but has learn a lot. We are excited for his future.

That day we found this new investigator by door tracting named Geronimo from the Dominican Republic. He is in his 70s and used to be a catholic missionary in his country. He said that he understands the hardships we go through and has a special place in his heart for missionaries. We really just got to know him and then shared the intro of the BOM. He said he will try Moronis promise.

We then went help Hermano Cesar Torres with his home teaching. He has not been home taught for a couple months. We shared the first presidency message and talked about what stops them from coming to church. They had a list of excuses but when it came right down to it, it was because of lack of interest and culture customs. The Torres family (no relation to Cesar Torres) have had a lot of problems in the past couple months and we promised them if they put God first they will be immensely blessed and that they will be supported in their trials. Their 16 year old niece was present from the DR and was touched by the message. She volunteered to give the closing prayer. We taught her the steps to pray and gave a very heartfelt prayer for her aunt and for us. She is a nonmember and said she would like to serve a mission. This was a great example of the power of home teaching. Because Hermano Cesar Torres chose to call us up and help him in his home teaching this young girl was influenced to serve a mission.

Wednesday: we gave a baptismal interview for the Jersey city elders baptismal candidate. E. White gave it (because I had taught him on exchange) and passed. His name is Greg from the DR but prefers English. He was baptized yesterday.

We then found this new investigator named Juan Carlos. He is about 11 years old and kindly let us in to talk with his aunt and him. We got to know them and found out that they love sports. We shared the Easter video about Christ and said he liked it. He said he would like us to come back. We are doing to take it at a slow pace with him but he is super cool.

We the stopped by Maria's place and also taught her daughter. We found out that Mareni (the daughter) had taken the lessons from the missionaries a couple years ago. She said that she lost contact with her but was always curious to learn more. We refreshed her by teaching the restoration again and the BOM. We felt the spirit testify to each one of us in that room that the BOM is the word of God. She pretty muched invited her self to read the BOM and set a return appointment.

Thursday: we did our weekly planning at the church just to get out of the apartment and played some ping pong with the other elders. We then stopped by This potential we contacted the other day named Marta. She let us in and she asked us if we could teach her son piano. Her son played a lot of piano already and started playing all these Christian hymns. We said we were not very good teachers and we didn't know that much piano. She the started talking about the seventh day Adventist church that she is involved in and all the programs they have for youth. We then talked about mutual and what they do. We the introduced the BOM and tied it in with building our testimonies on Jesus Christ through the BOM. She said will study it but we could tell she was not to excited to try to reAd. We will find out next week.

We then met with Honesimo from the DR. He was the guy that met with elders in his country but lost contact because he moved to New Jersey. He said they got him off coffee and has not drunken it since. We read with him the introduction of the BOM and then testified to us that this book is of God. He said he will not forget the feeling he felt when he was being taught in the DR. And now he said he feels it when we come by. He accepted the baptismal invitation but would not commit to a date. We will see how he does on reading the BOM.

Friday: ok we taught a lot of people so I am going to talk about one lesson that stuck out to me. We went by Jassanya's house and we talked about the importance in faith in Jesus Christ. They are from Ecuador and they told us about their favorite food which is qui. It was a good lesson because the spirit was there. They have interest and felt we connected well with them.

The book of Mormon is the key to conversion and I have a testimony of that. I feel like that is the most important lessons we can teach them through the spirit.

Marcos is still reading the book of Mormon but it's super busy at times. But we have an appointment with him today. Love this work, even though it is hard at times, it is so satisfying and rewarding. Grateful I can represent my savior.

Love you all!



Elder Plummer

Trying to fulfill the ward's needs implementing the 5-5-5 Plan August 10, 2015

Elder White is the other zone leader with me

Buenos Dias papa! 

Me alegro que Titan se bautizó! La reunión de zona fue muy buena. Les enseñamos sobre la importancia de rendir cuanta de nuestra responsabilidad a nuestros líderes. Después les pedimos fijar un plan para dar un resumen frecuentemente a sus líderes de distrito acerca del sus investigadores y área. Estos planes nos ayudarán a ser más responsables por El Progreso de nuestro investigadores. Hemos visto progreso ya! Tenemos animo para ver que va a pasar.

The Ward is doing good. We are trying to implement presidents plan on getting the auxiliary leaders involved in the conversion of the investigators by also following the same accountability principle we trained in zone meeting. The bishopric will be trained on the 5-5-5 plan or the perry plan which helps the wards focus on the needs of the less actives and investigators. So we are excited to get that going.

How are you doing dad? Hope all is going well at work. How is Tanner doing? I don't think I get his mass emails but he writes me personally. There is a sister from this Ward that is actually serving in Ventura California. We actually went to her house after doing service for her and showed us her pictures in Ventura California. Her name is Sister Soriano.

Dad, do you have recommendations on how I can improve my Spanish? I have a study plan which is helping and I try to practice talking. Anyways, I love you and thank you for your love and prayers on my behalf.

Love,

Elder Plummer






Sent from my iPad

Playing tricks on Velarde - August 3, 2016

Buenas tardes!
Como les va con todo? Ojalá hayan tenido un viaje maravilloso! Me hace gozar cuando escuchaba esa historia sobre el amigo de Mark. El es un buen ejemplo de un miembro misionero. Wow, Mckay es 6 pies y un pulgada! Me imagino que va a crecer mas. Me alegro! Ojalá recibieron mis vídeos y que sean buenos.
Tuvimos una semana buena. Encontramos un salvadoreño que se llama Juan. Recién llego acá hace 2 años. El es bien humilde y abierto a aprender más del evangelio. Nos dice que no tiene suficiente sabiduría para escucharnos pero le dijimos que ese mensaje le puede mejorar su calidad de vida y no importa la cantidad de sabiduría que tenga. Le enseñamos la restauración y el espíritu estuvo presente. El entendió bastante pero nos dijo que no lee mucho y cuando lee no entiende mucho. Nos prometio que va tratar. El espíritu nos ayudaba a decir los cosas que necesitabamos. Estuvo buenísimo!

NOW IN ENGLISH - Sorry due to time, I'm going to write in English :) also the protein has been great as well as the bars. Thank you again, mom. Last Friday we had a mission leader council with President and the theme for this month is choice and accountability. He helped see the importance when people report to their leaders, the rate of improvement accelerates. So this month as leaders, we are going to help our zone be accountable for the goals they set and we follow up and motivate frequently. We are excited. Marcos had to work late last week but told us he is still reading and we have set an appointment for today.
Sabrina: she is progressing! She is reading and praying but the question is getting her to go to church. She is super funny and she likes to tease us a lot. She is only 15 years old and understands a lot. Her sister also sat in, her name is Pamela. She told us that she would like to learn more. She is in her late 20s with 2 kids and is very open. They are from the Dominican Republic and are alive with a lot of energy! They are great. Pamela is going to make us some Mongu (a typical dish in the DR) the next time we come!
Domingo has been very busy we called him and told us he will busy for the next couple weeks. So we are going to wait and pray. Also, we are making sure that members have good communication with him.
We visit this hilarious less active named Velarde on a regular basis. When it gets super hot, we drop by quickly to get a drink. He is from Colombia and tries to teach us bad words. We usually go into his tailor shop and while he is not looking, we change his bachata music to Spanish Christian music. He actually has been liking what we put on, haha. He is awesome. He did come the church the first two weeks I was here, but now has stopped. He has time to attend so we are trying to find out why.
Well, I hope you all are enjoying the summer. Please say hello to the Wardens for me.
I love you immensely, family! Miss you all :)

Elder Plumero