Gordon's Missionary Blog: Letter and Pictures

Hey Family!

The weeks keep on rolling by! Well I hit my 1 year and 1 month mark today. This past month flew by like crazy fast. It's because I'm loving it all so much.

Monday we had a couple great lessons where the spirit was really strong. With Carleen she has been having a hard time. She is struggling finding work and she does not having a home while she has a young child to put in school. She is staying at this lady's apartment with her and she isn't very nice at all and there isn't really good communication. So on Sunday when we went by she was emotional and not happy so Monday we went by to visit her. We decided to bake some cookies for her and come to bring peace to her life by singing some hymns. It worked wonderfully. She was very grateful and really felt the spirit and the peace and comfort it brought. It made us all ( The Mills who are the Senior couple came with us) very happy for that experience. We then went and taught Shirlan the strong Less Active Member. We had a good lesson and taught about enduring to the end with faith and hope that we can be with our families forever as we come unto Christ. Tuesday we went around saying goodbye to everyone. Elder Kasteler had been here a long time. Around 9 months. It was hard to say goodbye. We spent some time with Brother James Charles and his sons, Joseph and Michael. We have been teaching them the commandments and helping them to live them all. Unfortunately they weren't able to make it to church but we had a lesson with them after church and taught the importance of coming each week and the wonderful blessings of doing so. Wednesday we dropped off all the missionaries and then picked up the new ones. They came in early afternoon and we got our money for the transfer and then did some shopping and Elder Dixon got settled in real quick and then we went to work. We had a great first day. We taught Andrea who is Kiesha's sister with both her and Kiesha's kids and had a great first lesson. Their kids are awesome and very smart. As we were talking about baptism (which Andrea accepted Oct 1 as her date one time without hesitation) the boy said that you need to repent before you are baptized and some other great and true things. I was impressed. All the kids were happy and participating. After the kids gave us a little note for us that was really nice. Kiesha has been busy but we are still planning on teaching both together as she is still interested in us coming and teaching her. We also say JJ and he accepted to be baptized. He is a funny guy but as we talk about these important things he is serious and he has a real desire. He has good help and support from the Maturines. Thursday we had a brief first lesson with Alex-Ann who is the mother of that family we found in the new area. It was great. She is prepared I think. She had begun reading from the book of Mormon. She accepted to read and pray. We also saw Kelly-Ann and Wendy. They are mother and daughter and Kelly-Ann is the 21 year old daughter. Wow they are prepared. They both accepted baptism and are super excited about it. Kelly-Ann especially. She came to church and is always talking about her baptism. She had been taught before and was close to baptism about two years ago but something happened but now is ready. She already has a testimony and remembered everything about the restoration as we taught it to her. She is great and she has great fellowship from the Smiths and from Nia. Nia had her one year mark of baptism so we made her a cake and brought it to her. She was happy. The cake was good. We had a great lesson with Debbie this week. She has been struggling with depression so we found a Mormon Message called Like a Broken Vessel by Elder Holland which I would invite all of you to watch because it speaks so much of the hope and healing of the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. It's a new one and it's powerful. So we watched that with her and read a scripture on the Atonement from the book of Mormon and she was paying attention so much and was really grateful that we showed that to her. I loved it. The spirit was there. We also saw Elizabeth this week and we talked about the Plan of Salvation and the need to be baptized and we talked more about that with her. It was good to be able to actually sit down with her and have a lesson. For a little bit of this week Elder Dixon was feeling super sick and so we had to stay in for the morning and early afternoon on Saturday. I studied and made calls to every person we have contacted or are teaching and it turned out to be really successful as many answered and we were able to set some appointments. It's sometimes hard to get ahold of people. Church was great and Kelly-Ann really loved it. She even participated and made comments. Wendy couldn't come though because of money. She said she would come next week. We had a ZL and DL training this week and it was great. We have MLC in Barbados with one of the seventy coming next week on Monday and Tuesday. I'm super excited for this great experience. I'love going to MLC. It's been a great week! I love you all and I hope you all have a great week! The church is true!

Love,
Elder King