Hey Family!
It sounds like you all had a lovely week full of a lot of chaos and excitement. Seeing the ocean sounds amazing right now. The only running water I get to see is the canal that I cross every so often here in Phoenix. It is full of lovely contaminents and diseases. Believe it or not, people do fish in it. It is all karp. Pretty nasty if you ask me. But, I am happy that you all got to enjoy yourselves to some extent while in your special week for three of you four! Maddy got her license, dad went over the hill, and Will is 11 years old! I think you all had a great week! I love you and prayed for you all, and aunt Mel.
This week was just what our area needed. We found 8 great new investigators and some investigators are finally getting the attention that we need. Elder Howard and I are working really hard and I am more tired than I have every been before in my life, but it is a good and happy tired. I know the Spirit has touched some people in very powerful ways and there is a lot of progress going on.
Ivan Martinez is the son of Alejandra Martinez, a mormon.org referral we recieved about 2 months ago. Even when his mom is busy, he still loves to meet with us and he is reading the book of mormon daily and praying a ton. This last week we were able to get some fellowship going with Ivan and a young man in our branch, Nefi. They get along perfectly and have many of the same thoughts and interests in life. Nefi is our branch missionary and loves coming out with us. His weakness is he feels like church is too early. However, that is changing. By taking him out with us so much his mom has really started warming up to us as missionaries. She has signed up to feed us a ton and she talks to us a bunch at church. Ivan wants to meet with us pretty often and always keeps his commitments. He would have come to church, but family was in town from Mexico for the long weekend. He says he feels like God wants him to read the Book of Mormon more before he gets an answer. He told us he reads 10 minutes every night and prays before and after. For a 17 year old, Ivan is amazing. He accepted a soft baptismal committment, but he wants his whole family to do this. We have an appointment set for the whole family to be there this Friday evening. The family is super nice and they always invite us in. They will progress together. I really see that. We always pray for them.
The Carmona family is also progressing. We finally got to teach them the rest of the Restoration and they understood so well and the spirit in that lesson was so strong. The father, Victor, prayed and it was such an honest and heartfelt prayer. We gave him and his wife a spanish book of mormon. We gave their daughters english books of mormon. They started reading before we had even left. I am developing a great love for this family. Last night we stopped by and taught Hno. Carmona and his daughter a real short lesson on family prayer. To end, his 9 year old daugher prayed and it was so sweet. He said he had never heard his children pray. It felt really great to be able to experience that. We have another visit with them on thursday and we have a member family lined up to come. I am so excited for them.
We have a really complicated situation with Karina and frankie Perez, less actives in our branch. We visit them more frequently now and sunday evening we stopped by and taught them on the atonement. That is what Frankie needs right now. I bore testimony and shared personal experience on the power of the atonement. The Spirit was very strong and for the first time in a long time, Frankie prayed. As I was writing this moment, we recieved a text from Karina and she said there is an emergency involving frankie. We will keep you up to date on them. They need a lot of prayers. We will just follow the Spirit on this one. The Spirit is key.
We had a sweet experience this week with a less active family, the Jimenez. We followed preach my gospel's advice and taught them the Restoration. It was great and I think they realized that their testimonies needed some strengthening. Sunday, they came to Church! They were so happy and they were finally able to renew their covenants by taking the sacrament. They said they will do all they can to be able to keep coming.
Maria Rubio did get baptized! She was so prepared and it was such a sweet service. A lot of members of the branch came and she was baptized by a great fellowshipper, our former branch president, President Jimenez. She was confirmed on sunday and the branch president has a calling he wants to call her to. She has met her home teachers and all appears to be well with her!
This week has already been great and I am sure that more miracles are on their way. We will continue finding new people to teach and we will try more and more to involve our members in the teaching. Great things are happening in the Catalina Branch. We just need to get people to come to Church! We are teaching families. That is such a blessing. The progress so much more rapidly and the Spirit is so great in a loving home. I love teaching the Restored Gospel to families.
Well, I had best be going now! I love you all and I will indeed remember aunt mel in my prayers. Maddy, drive safe. Dad, work hard. Mom, BE HAPPY! and Will, be an example to those around you. The blessings are being seen here. I am just as well sure that they are being seen there in Oregon!
I love you all!
Elder Jonathan Pearson
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