Mining Pits in Hazleton

Hola,


Sounds like a pretty fun week. We had a really good week too and got a lot accomplished. Today is a great day though, its the warmest day since I got here. But this past week we were able to work a lot with our investigators and find new Dominicans that will progress. We have a lot to do though with all the less actives and our investigators. The less actives need leaders in the Branch that speak spanish. There are only four people here in this area that are members and speak spanish, two of them are Elder Larson and I. But we've been visiting all these spanish speaking less actives and getting them pumped up to go to church and then they say they will and never show up. This is the story of every missionary's life but we really need these less actives to attend church. We had an investigator come yesterday and he doesnt speak any english so I translated the whole fast and testimony meeting for him. He was shocked though to see that he and one other member were the only hispanics there. We are working with the leaders to try and have a spanish sacrament meeting after all the meetings are over. But they want these investigators to come to all three hours of the meetings and suffer when they have some translater in their ear and dont really know anyone. We have to start out small and then grow from there.

But things are really good and we are teaching a lot. I think we average a little over thirty lessons here in the area and about half are member involved somehow. But we had a sweet Saturday that started off with a member couple coming out teaching with us in the morning and we taught a mexican investigator with them (they didnt understand much) and then visited some less actives with whom we had appointments. When they were driving us back home though, they stopped by this mining pit and took us over to take some pictures of these huge cranes and pits. It was pretty cool and we brought back some coal as souvenirs. But then in the afternoon we went out teaching with this less active/active Dominican guy and had a sweet lesson with this Dominican family we're teaching. My companion struggles with spanish sometimes and as we were teaching he would get a little frustrated because he couldnt say what he wanted. But he kept with it and as he descibed the First Vision to these people, the Spirit filled the room and was powerful. These men where whiping their eyes as we sat there in silence after Joseph's account of the vision. It was another brick on my testimony wall and also helped me to see the importance of praying for your companion as you teach.

Things are going really good though and we are enjoying the short sleeve shirts and sweating for once. I hope you guys have a good one y nos vemos. El amor de fily

norman