March 25, 2015

Hello my family!

Sorry this is a little later than normal! We have had a busy day!
We got to go to a ward picnic today for Memorial Day, which was really
fun, one of the members of the high council came up and role played
with us as if he was an investigator, I already new he was a member
but we went with the flow! Then we came to the church and we played
volleyball with all the elders, it was a ton of fun, and now I have
some time to sit and right all of y'all!

We have had a busy week where we really have seen miracles happen.

Most of our week has been a mix of walking around trying to talk to
people, and also working with the members. So we have just been really
busy.

My craziest day where we saw a lot of miracles was on Saturday. We
went on exchanges with the AP's and of course, I got to stay in the
area, and of course our day was completely open.  We set our plans
to go contacting on the canal near our apartment. And we also wanted to drop by and
visit some investigators that we haven't been able to meet with since
I have been here.

We began by walking across the bridge to go  to the canal.  We looked over and we saw hundreds of people walking around over there, apparently there was a huge  regatta that was going on!  It is one of those boat races where they have like 4, 6, or 8
people rowing their boats.  Apparently it's pretty big over here! We
went and talked to as many people as we could and it was just crazy!
That day we gave out three Book of Mormons!  We gave out like 60 pageant
cards! It was just crazy! We also went and talked to a lady named Holly
who had investigated the church awhile ago and just for some reason missionaries
just couldn't get in contact. As we walked up to her house she
pulled into the drive way, and so she was home! She was super nice and
told us that she really has been searching for an answer and mentioned
that she is thinking about baptism, she is just waiting for an answer.
So we will work to try to make that happen.
Also on the way to her house, we just decided to park a couple blocks
away and walk, by so doing, we met a young man named Miles working on
his car.  We started talking to him, and we basically started teaching
the restoration to him, it was such a cool experience because I could
just feel the spirit touch his heart, Elder Cashmore asked if he had
any questions that he wanted answers to, and Miles said, “where did I
come from? and Why am I Here?” It seemed really cliché but it wasn't!!
This young man really wanted to know these answers, and we were happy
to testify that we do have the answers! We plan to visit with him not
this week but the next. I am so pumped!

Then that night we had about an hour and half left of daylight so we
went back to the Canal. There we had an interesting conversation with
some Born Again Christians. They stopped us and asked if we believed
in Jesus Christ and that he died for our sins, which we said we did!
(Which I think surprised them) then they wanted to know why our church
was different. So we explained, let's just say it wasn't a Bible bash
it was more of an opening up the scriptures to them, and never rose to
contention it was just a religious discussion, although at one point
one of the gentleman said that we were basically damned when it came to
seeing God at the judgment seat. But anyways we explained several
points to them and I was so grateful for elder Cashmore and the
Spirit!  They were not able to confound us. We told them the
need for the Book of Mormon and if they wanted to know if it was true
they would have to read it and Ask God to know if it is true, and then
we simply bore our testimonies to them, and it was remarkable to see
the Spirit touch their hearts, and they didn't know what to say
against that! And the best part is they committed to read the Book of
Mormon! It was crazy! But it was a great experience to see the power
that the Spirit can have on us!

Then Sunday came around, I woke up to elder Garland throwing up. Poor
guy he sounded awful, and felt terrible and so sadly we weren't able
to go to church, it was like the weirdest feeling. But there wasn't
much I could do about that. But luckily he got feeling better today
which was a tender mercy, because I cannot handle being in the
apartment for more than one day! I think I would have gone crazy!

I am so grateful that the lord is watching over us. He is the Besst!
Love you tons
Hurrah of Israel
Elder Houghton

Where Brigham Young was baptized