Year 2 - Letter 37 - Baton Rouge, LA

D&C 33:8-9 

8 Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even as Nephi of old, who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness.

 9 Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you.

Hey Everyone!

This week was probably one of the most memorable on my mission!  We had an awesome week! 

First off on Tuesday we had a day that was kind of like hit and miss.  We didn't find anyone home, and we mad a door contact that didn't really seem like it went anywhere.  A girl in her 20's answered and kind of gave us a lukewarm response.  She didn't really commit to anything, and just told us we couldn't come in because her brother in law and sister weren't home.  So we went home just kind of feeling down.  The next day we went out and the girl was walking outside our apartment!  She was like, when are you going to come back?  We scheduled an appointment for Saturday.  Her name is Nadia, and her brother in law is Mateo.  They ended up being really cool! We had an awesome Restoration lesson with them.  The spirit was super strong, and I know that I was guided to say certain things that I normally wouldn't have.  I was sharing about how the gospel blesses families, and I testified about the plan of salvation.  That really caught Mateo's attention.  After the lesson we asked if they had questions.  Mateo asked to know more about what happens after death, because we had touched on it a bit.  We invited him to read Alma 40 and that we would have a lesson all about that when we will go back to visit again.  When we left, we asked them if there was anything we could do to help them.  They said no, and I asked if they had any trash we could take out or dishes that we could wash.  Nadia jokingly said there were some dishes.  We were able then to do some dishes for them, which they were kind of surprised we actually did.

For most of the week we were with Elder Provost, who goes home in two weeks.  He is a one of a kind Elder.  He takes talking to everyone to the extreme!  I learned a lot from him.  We talked to about 97 percent of everyone we saw.  It was amazing!  We saw so many miracles from it.  He really helped Elder Glauser and I to see how natural missionary work can be.  When we saw Hispanics, he would say Hermano, yo se que el Libro de Mormon es verdadero.  That was pretty much the extent of his Spanish, so we kind of had to step in.  I learned a lot from his example.  I have never taken talk to everyone so literally.  The more we talk to others about the gospel, the more natural it becomes.   Practice makes perfect.  The gospel has to become a part of our vocabulary. 

A few cool contacting situations:

• We knocked a door and a nice lady named Priscilla answered.  We shared what church we were from and asked if she had beliefs in Christ.  She said that she did and that Christ had really helped her a lot in her life.  She also shared that she had just moved in and told us that she was looking for a place to go to church.  She asked us when and where our church services were.  We told her where church was on Bluebonnett and Highland.  She said she was thinking about a church that was on Highland and Bluebonnett.  As you can see above in a street view, there really aren't other churches anywhere around.  So she said she would come.
• Nadia, whom I have already talked about.
• Salvador.  He is from Mexico, and currently lives in Alabama but is working here in Baton Rouge.  He said that he was looking for a church and had seen us around, but never had talked to us.  He said he felt like he needed to talk to us.  He was a little buzzed, but we shall see what happens.
• Chito.  He is from Manila.  It was cool.  I told him that you served there dad.  That was cool that I was able to relate to him a little bit.  He had talked with missionaries about two years before.  He said that his life had been a lot of up and downs, but Christ had helped him a lot.  He also said he had a copy of the Book of Mormon.   Elder Provost then did something I have never ever seen.  He pulled out John 3:5 and testified that baptism was the way to come unto Christ.  He asked if Baptism was something Chito would like to do.  He said it was.  Super cool.  

I learned so much from the last week.  It has seriously changed my mission and my life.  

We had a sweet lesson with David about reading the scriptures.  It was awesome!  It wasn't what we had planned to share, but the spirit was there, and I know it was what he needed to hear.  We now that we should read, and do a lot of other things, but a lot of the time, we don't know the why.  If we can help people understand the why, they will want to do the how.

Well, life is great!  Thanks for everything!  I love you all!  Take care and keep on keepin on!

Love,

Elder Scott Turner Andrews