Our week was amazing! We taught a bunch of lessons this week. They were good quality lessons, and we had some investigators at church yesterday too!
We have 2 investigators on date for July 30th at the moment. Their names are Anthony and Lluvia. They are progressing towards their baptismal date nicely and are amazing kids.
They are both 12 years old and are cousins. This week we are planning on taking the young mens' and young womens Presidents to our lessons so they can start to get more involved with youth activities in the branch. It should be a fantastic week!
We also have a lot more investigators! We are teach the Velasco family, the Iscarra family, and the Barrera family. We also have some other people. Overall, everyone is doing great!
The Velascos and Iscarras live in the same house. They are cousins so that's why they are staying together. It's interesting what happened with them, let me explain. When I got into the area the Velascos were the only ones living at that house. We were teaching them and they were nice and let us into their home, but they were not very receptive. They would argue with what we taught, they would just tell us that they were Catholic and stuff like that. Well, the Iscarra family moved in with the Velascos because they were going through some family issues in California. Once they got here, they were much more receptive to us. As a result, all of them are receptive at the moment.
We are going to teach them tonight and tomorrow morning we are going to watch, "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" at temple square. We strongly believe that after they watch this movie that they will be put on date for July 30th as well. Yesterday we were fasting for all of the people that we are teaching. That they might recognize answers to their prayers and be blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear. I remember when I was younger that I used to despise fasting. I always thought it was so annoying to miss meals because I love food! I'm a hungry Hank (that's a shoutout to you Grandpa Strate). But I have changed and I now enjoy my opportunities to fast. I find that I am more humble and receptive to the spirit when I am fasting and that blessing alone has been sufficient for me. We are going to try our best to bring as many souls back to church or into the church this week! The branch seems to be getting a little bigger every week. Yesterday we had a good number of investigators, less actives, and recent converts attend church. We hope that our efforts will continue to bring souls to Christ.
Read Alma 32!! It's such a good chapter. I read that chapter this morning and I love what Alma says in verse 6, "And now when Alma heard this, he turned him about, his face immediately towards him, and he beheld with great joy; for he beheld that their afflictions had truly humbled them, and that they were in a preparation to hear the word."
Alma recognized that the people were ready to hear the word of God because they had been humbled by their circumstances. After he recognized this, he taught them a powerful lesson in faith and how we can grow our faith like a seed. It's so powerful, please read it with a humble heart and an open mind and ask yourself, "What can I do to increase my faith?" I promise you that the Lord will reveal something that you can do to increase your faith. Once He does, i invite you to change and try to become better at whatever the specific thing the He tells you.
I went for lunch on Thursday with the Linfords. Their son is serving in Magrath as a missionary right now and spends time with my family. We ate at a place called Cafe Trio, it was pretty good! It was like an Italian cuisine, it was delicious.
They are really good people. They live in Kaysville which is the north side of our mission. I know which area they live in, I've never served there before but I know where it is. They live in the smallest geographical stake in the world. The Kaysville Haight Creek Stake is tiny!! The missionaries up there that cover it and the Kaysville South Stake because they are both small in terms of land area.
Today for p-day we set up a thing with a student at the University of Utah. He is going to provide us with those big inflatable balls that you can go inside of and run into each other with. I will send pictures of that later today! It's going to be so cool!
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Strate
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