I haven't been very good about keeping up with the blogging. Here is Lonnie's latest email from last Monday. We will hear from him again tomorrow, if all goes correctly and I will start posting them weekly.
He is doing a great job and bringing many souls to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is growing and maturing.
He has been gone on his mission for ten months as of May 2, 2009. His email is ltracy89@myldsmail.net. Send him a quick email, he would really love to hear from you.
I will be posting pictures of a lot of events in our lives. We have been really busy, but my major responsibilities are over for a little while. Laundry, closet cleaning, drawer cleaning, and my favorite thing right now -- walking will be taking the forefront. I have started a weight loss challenge. Lose Ten Pounds in Five Weeks. Tomorrow begins week number two. I have lost 3.5 pounds thus far and I am so going to do this. I keep losing and gaining the same five pounds. If I can lose seven more, my ultimate goal weight will be just ten more pounds away.
I am going to be looking so good . . . finally. Have a great week and enjoy Lonnie's email.
> From:
ltracy89@myldsmail.net> To:
anad1987@msn.com> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:22:15 -0700
>
> Hey everyone. First off, sorry for not writing a letter last week. Anyways, so this week was crazy again. We found 2 more familes, and then from this one kid we found, another one, and then after leaving an appointment we found another kid, a cholito (mexican gangster), who was kind of teasing us, but I went ahead and asked him if he had ever talked to the guys like us before and he was like no, but you know what? You guys must be brave to be out here in the middle of BP in white shirts and ties.. Anyways, we got a return appointment, taught him, 4 kids, and his brother in law, left a nice stack of book of mormons at his house and then came back the next day and guess what? Well, the kids hadn't read, his brother in law was kind of mehhh, but Angel, the little cholito had read the whole front part, introduction, testimony of the 3, and 8 witnesses, all of the testimony of
Joseph Smith, and half of 1st nephi. We went back and did the follow up like normal, so, did you do the homework? Well, no not exactly... (we left him with 3 nephi 11) I got lost in the introduction and all and kind of skipped it. But man, 11 other people actually saw the plates? It has to be true, and man when I was reading I felt so good, I read for like an hour! He didn't end up coming to church, but he's doing really good. We went by 4 times last week and everything we teach he just absorbs it all in and he's so awesome. He's like 19, dropped out of high school, was in jail for a year, he's on probation and wants to change his life, and thinks it could be cool to go on a mission. Well, so we went by another time, yesterday actually and from him, he brought 4 friends over, who listened pretty well, and said they'd do the homework, with Angel, the gang leader kind of like, COME ON GUYS. WHY DON'T YOU JUST UNDERSTAND?! ITS SO EASY. READ --> PRAY --> ANSWER. We met him Tuesday morning, and yesterday, set a baptismal date with him, after he asked us if he could get baptized, for the 17th of the next month. Kinda like the last couple of weeks, I have no idea where we're getting all these people from, but oh well. I guess its better just to not question it. I still feel like we waste a ton of time, but we got another call from the assistants this morning for 3 weeks in a row of highest numbers. 13 at churchs (we were expecting 21...!) 15 baptismal dates, and 25 lessons this week total. I don't know. The numbers don't mean anything, but still. I don't know where its all coming from. I feel frustrated all the time, but somehow everything works out and all of our investigators are solid. Who knows.
>
> I don't remember if I told you guys last week, but we found some kid named Chris who, well actually found us, who's having problems with his brother and family and what not.. Well, we've been going by him the last week and he's pretty crazy. He doesn't believe in christianity for anything. He says he derives his beliefs from the native americans, and doesn't like like organized religion. He grew up catholic.... But so did 99% of all hispanics. Anyways, we've been leaving him 'homework,' chapters in the
Book of Mormon to read and we've been gearing it towards trying to give him something to convert him, like we do with everything. Well he's interested in the BoM but doesn't really know why, and then one day we stopped by, and read Alma 18 with him. I was really nervous to do it when we actually got there but that morning I had a feeling we should do it. So we started reading and its really boring. Its Ammon after he cuts off all those guys arms and is talking to King Lamoni about how he got all this power, and then Ammon goes off on a soapbox. Well, he asks him like do you believe in God? I dont know. Believe in the
Great Spirit (just like chris believes) Yes. And then Ammon goes, that great spirit actually, is God, and God is like this and goes off. Well, We were going like 2 verses each, me then him, then his brother.. etc. Anyways, I planned it out so he would read that part, and when he got to it, he right in mid sentence was like, Do you believe in the Great Spirit, (not even a pause) "I know what you guys are doing" and then read the last like 15 verses super fast. He was like whoa, its over. I had this goofy grin on my face the whole rest of the time it was so funny. Anyways, he's reading the BoM and hopefully, we'll get him. He's gonna take a long time.. And I just got an email from one of you guys.
The First Grade at Harrisonville Elementary puts on a music program called "BUGZ." It is a really cute little musical that has some really cute songs. Different classes are different kinds of bugs. Amy's class were "Fireflies", but she was also chosen to do a solo as a "LADY BUG." I will get the video up later. It is in my other camera.
