I know that my Redeemer lives

I know that my Redeemer lives

Tuesday 4-19-11

Our first appointment, with Alicia, fell through - we've been having a tough time meeting with her and her mom. We turned Patrice over to the English Elders - thought it'd be best. We taught Maria-under-freeway the Plan of Salvation - she said she'd finally come to church next week. We had another great lesson with another Maria - she said she loved talking to us but will never go to church - she even thinks the Book of Mormon is true - she just isn't willing to give up her traditions to change, so I guess that's the end of that. We fished for two hours and found a couple of promising people. We talked with Daryl and Martha - he showed us his new toys - handcuffs. We taught them about prayer and how the need to do it often - their relationship is kind of struggling. I hope they pull through and let the Gospel unite them.

4-20-11

For those of you that don't know, 4:20 or 4/20 is an important time and date in the world of weed smokers - so we saw a lot of that today. We had the opportunity to pray for a handicapped brother of someone who we fished into. That was probably the highlite of my day. We talked to an 85 yr old man that was digging a stump out of his front yard - and he is deaf. He can read lips and speak though - it was amazing. We helped him for a minute and found out the ASL Elders were coming over to help - he is a member. Neat. Leo had a set back when he read about Nephi killing Laban in the B.O.M - he doesn't believe God would command someone to kill someone else. We cleared everything up - we just think he was in a bad mood. We ate with the Ramirez family - they're super cool. We taught the paln of salvation to a less active member and then a less active family. They had a friend over that is fifteen - we taught him the restoration - he committed to be baptized when he finds out it's true.

4-21-11

Today we met with Esther and brought a member from the ward to help out. She was running late but the sister from the ward was able to testify of the truthfulness of the gospel - it went really well - Esther just needs to make the time to come to church. We did weekly planning and then taught Israel the plan of salvation with the teaching aid mom gave me. He understands the plan but just doesn't believe there is only one true church. We're working on him hard - pray the spirit is working harder. We watched Reflections of Christ (the slideshow) with sister Cruz - she loved it. She promised to come to church this sunday - that'll be the first time I ever see her there. We watched that again with the Rubio family - we had dinner with them tonight - they're really funny and really family-oriented.

4-22-11

Trainings today - they went pretty well. Everywhere we went to eat at afterwards was closed because of "Good Friday" - we finally found a pizza place that was more like a bar - it was really awkward with the whole district ha. I went on splits with Elder Mcrae over to Watts. We didn't have a lot of time but we visited some inactive members - one of which had 8 pitbull puppies. She wanted to give me one of them - was even offering to send one to Utah. I'm sure mom would have loved to get that in the mail. "Happy Easter". We watched the slideshow with two other families tonight - people love it and it really invites a strong spirit.

4-23-11

After splits we went to try and see Alicia - she wasn't there. We helped Daryl wash his truck and watched the slideshow with him, martha and martha's mom. Martha's mom Lidia loved the movie - she was crying - she's a strong Catholic. We taught her how to pray and asked her to do it. She kept refusing - finally Elder Watkins prayed. When he was done I went up to her and said in Spanish "are you sure you don't want to pray?" she started to cry again and bowed her head and prayed out loud. It was amazing. She said she wants to meet with us and come to church. Sa-weet deal. We meet with Ivette - we taught her on the porch - she said she will get baptized when she finds out it's true - her story is amazing. She's seen missionaries so many times, but none have ever come back for some reason. I'm pretty excited for her and her potential. We ate with the Flores family and watched the slideshow again. We tried to get Denis to pray - for 2 hours. He is really hard headed. Finally he did. I hope he felt something.

4-24-11

Happy Easter

We had ward conference - it went really well - the stake leaders all spoke and taught the classes. We went to the primary for a little while and helped teach the Ressurrection. We did some fishing after church and ran into a couple of teenagers that had a ton of questions. They were kind of laughing at us at first but then got really interested - we're going back to teach them on Saturday. We talked to Carina - she's been flaky but says she still wants to meet with us. We watched the slideshow with Ricardo - he basically dropped us. Meaning he doesn't really want to meet with us anymore. We gave sister Aguilar a blessing later on - she wasn't feeling well. That is another family that really needs to come back to church. We have a lot of work here in Lynwood and Southgate.

 

Thank you all again for your love support and prayers. Have a good week!

Love, Elder Cottrell