Beunos dias familia and amigos! This was a pretty good
week. I will try to explain everything that happened.
This week was majorly offsetted by Elder Reichner losing his
tablet. We were driving back from a Zone activity and I suspect that he
put it on top of the car. If that was the case then it surely met a
grisly demise on the side of the highway, being slain by a eighteen wheel
semi. My tablet has survived so we are still organized.
The main portion of the week involved us walking
around because we were not wanting to bike. We were walking around a
street one day and saw a dead possum already decomposing. It was
naturally an interesting sight.
This week we saw some good things happen with our
investigators. We met with Ron and helped him understand the ten
commandments. He came to church for the fourth time in a row and loved it
immensely. He seems really motivated to be baptized on February
3rd. The two Rodriguez kids are moving towards baptism as well.
They should be baptized at the end of February.
We went up to Tampa for a thing called specialized
training. We went around and talked to a lot of people in downtown Tampa
and helped the new missionaries learn a lot. There was a person walking
around in 1700's style clothing who talked to some missionaries about
sandwiches. There is a thing called Gasparilla that is happening that
involves a "drunken brawl". It started in 1904 and is the Gasparilla Pirate Festival. The parade is the 3rd largest in the United States. Gasparilla is basically a Floridian version of Mardi Gras.
Church was a great experience. We were able to talk to
the members a lot and should be able to do some great things this week.
We met with our Young Men's President and his two children Sunday night.
It was an interesting dinner with casserole tater tots.
That is about all for this week. Not much else happened. I shall close out with a spiritual thought from President Hinckley:
"Many
of you think you are failures. You feel you cannot do well, that with all of
your effort it is not sufficient.
We all worry about our performance. We all wish we could do better. But unfortunately we do not realize, we do not often see the results that come of what we do.
I remember going to a stake conference in the East many years ago. On the plane coming home, I felt that I had been a total failure. I felt I had not touched anyone for good. I was miserable with a sense of inadequacy.
Then, some years later, I was at another conference in California. At the conclusion of the meeting a man came up to me and said, “You were at a conference a few years ago in such-and-such a place.”
“Yes,” I said, “I was there, and I remember the occasion.”
The man said: “You touched my heart. I came to that meeting out of curiosity. I really had no interest. I was on the verge of leaving the Church. But when it was announced that one of the Twelve Apostles would be there, I decided to go.
You said something that started me to think. It touched me and stayed with me and stirred me. I decided to alter my course. I turned my life around. I am now living here in California. I have a good job, for which I am grateful. I hope I am a good husband and father. And I am now serving as a counselor in the bishopric of my ward. I am happier than I have ever been at any time in my life.”
I thanked him, and when I left him I said to myself, shaking my head: “You never know. You never know whether you do any good. You never know how much good you do."
President Hinckley, to the women of the church, October 2003
We all worry about our performance. We all wish we could do better. But unfortunately we do not realize, we do not often see the results that come of what we do.
I remember going to a stake conference in the East many years ago. On the plane coming home, I felt that I had been a total failure. I felt I had not touched anyone for good. I was miserable with a sense of inadequacy.
Then, some years later, I was at another conference in California. At the conclusion of the meeting a man came up to me and said, “You were at a conference a few years ago in such-and-such a place.”
“Yes,” I said, “I was there, and I remember the occasion.”
The man said: “You touched my heart. I came to that meeting out of curiosity. I really had no interest. I was on the verge of leaving the Church. But when it was announced that one of the Twelve Apostles would be there, I decided to go.
You said something that started me to think. It touched me and stayed with me and stirred me. I decided to alter my course. I turned my life around. I am now living here in California. I have a good job, for which I am grateful. I hope I am a good husband and father. And I am now serving as a counselor in the bishopric of my ward. I am happier than I have ever been at any time in my life.”
I thanked him, and when I left him I said to myself, shaking my head: “You never know. You never know whether you do any good. You never know how much good you do."
President Hinckley, to the women of the church, October 2003
We never know the good that we do. A cool story I
heard involves two missionaries giving a lady a Book of Mormon but she did not
read it for years. She was baptized and many people joined the church as
well. I know that while we may never see the immediate results now,
someday we will.
Picture one - dead snake we saw (please do not freak out, it
was dead as can be)
Picture two - us after specialized training (Elder Parks from Smithfield is to my right)
