5 March 2018

Wednesday we had some good progress with the Sarmiento family. Turns out their day and our day was a little crazy. Our day was not like their day, but it was pretty nice. We planned a trip out to Holland to stop by a not-so-recent convert member who is having some trouble that we've been thinking about. We normally can't do trips that far away, as its 40 miles just to get there but we prayerfully picked out some other people to stop by hoping and praying that those we chose would be home. It turned out to be a really good trip and we saw a bear on the way out. Of the 6 people we stopped by all where home. It was pretty sweet. It wasn't until after the third or fourth person that we were like, "wow, no one ever is home. What's going on?" I know God guides this work. 

Wednesday ended with the Sarmiento family. We walked in and things were a little somber. We were talking at the beginning of our visit and it turned they had spent the night in the hospital. We prayed and talked about that a little more. Turns out their daughter had a really high fever and at some point they found her not breathing and rushed her to the hospital. By morning things were all good but it was definitely a scare. A few weeks back our mission president asked us to be "masters of the questions to the soul section in Preach my Gospel" and that turned out to be inspired. PMG recommends Alma 14 which is okay for some reasons but we used 2 Nephi  2:6-14 and ended with Ether 12:27. Trials make us stronger and are a natural part of life. It makes sense if we understand that this life is a time of preparation and if we want to grow we also need to work at things. Daniel won't pray about the Book of Mormon but the spirit was super strong in that house that night and I'm certain he felt the same. We invited him to search for more answers in the Book of Mormon.  

Friday we met with Cezar. He is a pretty cool guy and we read with him a little and talked about authority and baptism, something that he really is interested in. We used 3 nephi 11 to talk about authority and baptism in the Americas along side Mathew 10 and Christ's ministry. What we discussed and shared with him really resonated with him and he opened up about how he had been praying for direction in his life and has felt pretty strongly the need to be baptized again. He wasn't quite ready for a solid date so we focused more on praying about the Book of Mormon to gain a witness of its truth. It was a pretty good lesson. He seems to be doing decently. 

Saturday was our second trip to Holland. In the morning we had a few appointments here in Grand Rapids and we were going to start our daily studies at 12. At 12:15, we got a call from President Brennan to come to the new senior couple's apartment, which is like 100 feet away to drop off the keys to their apartment. We ran over and meet our new senior couple the Pectols. We showed them around and President brought us all out to lunch. We ate a long lunch with them but that was fine. We helped them unpack and we ran to Holland again. We had a great lesson with this one couple who were taught like two years ago. I don't know what the deal is with chiwawas but I've not had the best luck as of late. During our visit I pet their dog and it nearly ripped my finger off haha. The dog was quickly snatched and thrown into a back room. With the senior couple we'll be able to actually be in Holland way more often. Our Holland trip ended with a sprint to the beach to grab photos of the sun set. 

-eric