Weekly Email

Once again it's time for another weekly email.

We experienced a miracle in our zone this past week. One of the companionships serving here found 6 new investigators and set 6 new baptismal dates! 5 of those people are a part of the same family. We got a phone call a couple of nights ago from Elder Heath. He said that he'd just had one of the best experiences of his mission. Apparently, he and his companion had met a man on the street and spoke with him for about 45 minutes. This man told them that recently he and his wife had come to the conclusion that they had a hole in their lives (sound familiar my fellow PMG study-ers?) and that it was because they weren't attending a church. The missionaries were able to set a return appointment to meet with the whole family. They taught them about the Book of Mormon and invited Kelly Roberts, the father in the family, to offer a kneeling prayer at the end of the lesson to ask if it was true. Elder Heath said that during the prayer, Kelly told Heavenly Father that he felt "that the Mormon religion is the way to go." The Spirit was there and everyone felt it. Elder Heath said it was very powerful. Following the prayer, the missionaries committed the family members to be baptized on December 11th and each one of them said yes! This all took place in the first teaching appointment. How awesome is that?! I admit, I'm a little jealous of the missionaries being able to have such a sweet experience, but in a good way. I'm thrilled that this has happened right in our own zone. The family made it to church yesterday and things are going well!

We had a miracle in our ward as well. For the past couple of months we have been planning a finding activity that would involve the entire ward. Until just now, this has been a never-ending source of headaches and stress as we've tried to push and pull our ward members to step up and do something beneficial. We presented the idea of having a sort of cultural night to our Ward Mission Leader back in August or September. He basically laughed at us and told us it would never work in our ward. (Great support, huh?) To make a long story short, the person who took our idea and made it happen was the Bishop's wife. She loved it, and if it wasn't for her, there would have been no way this would have ever taken place. So, on Saturday night we had what we called the Pacific Rim Festival. Our ward has a good representation from island countries and Asian countries, so that was our theme. We had all kinds of different foods and Polynesian, Hmong, and Japanese entertainment. Our bishop even did a karate presentation and broke a bunch of boards. It was SWEET! Bishop is a stud. Following the food and entertainment we had a chapel tour. Each of the leaders in the ward shared briefly about their organization and how it helps us come closer to Christ. We ended the chapel tour in the chapel where you could really feel the Spirit. Out of the 300+ people who came for the food and entertainment only about 60 of them stayed for the chapel tour. I wasn't happy with our members for ditching out on us. Thankfully though there were a few who have a better sense of what is right and wrong and decided to stay. We also had a decent number of non-members and less-actives who came to the event and stayed for the tour. The miracle is that it actually happened and that the ward leaders worked together to make it happen. Even if we had no non-members show up, the fact that there was teamwork involved and that it took place is a miracle in this ward. If my ward can do something like this, any ward can. We have had great feedback on the activity and I really feel that it boosted morale amongst the members. For those that invited their friends and were able to do some missionary work, they are being blessed tremendously. We just might begin teaching some of those friends here shortly as well. We shall see.

I think that is it for this week. We are going to have Thanksgiving with some recent converts in our ward this week. It should be a party. Hope everybody has a good week! Be mighty!

Love you!
Elder J. Hammer