Dear mom,
This week was good; it was full of a few ups and a few downs but overall was miraculous. You’ll have to read the email I sent to dad about the miracles this week. But that’s an awesome story! I love hearing about people’s conversions. It sounds like you had a crazy busy week as well haha. It is true there is something very different about our church, and I think that it is the overall involvement of all the members. It’s something that we live by and not just something we go to on Sundays. And that's how the church of Jesus Christ should be. Everyone should be actively involved with something good that’s going on. Our church truly lives the principle that `if ye lose your life for Christ sake ye shall find it´ and I think that’s what is so interesting to people and the fact that we all look so happy about it all the time haha. Anyway I gotta go. Read dads letter!
Love you guys, stay strong, and keep praying.
Love,
Elder Raleigh
Dear dad
This week was good. We had a miracle happen in the sister’s area which we were able to be involved in a little bit and yesterday we had a miracle in our area, but I’ll start with the sisters...
So the sisters met this woman (about a week and a half ago) who had just lost her mother and was crying so hard she could barely talk but she was really sad because her mom was gonna tell her something but died before she could so they promised her that if she prayed that god would answer her prayer and she would know what it was her mother was gonna tell her. So she prayed and that night she had a dream and her mother told her that she and her sister needed to make up and stop fighting. It’s crazy! Then after that she completely turned her life around. In a week she stopped smoking and drinking! The gospel of Jesus Christ works! She was baptized this past Sunday and now the missionaries are meeting her sister too and she’s starting to turn her life around too. I had the opportunity of helping teach her a few times and her sister too. It really was a miracle! We got to meet with her this past Monday and taught her about eternal families and she and her daughter were both in tears during it, and the spirit was very powerful. It was an amazing experience.
So yesterday was transfers and my companion was gonna get transferred but last week he wrote the president and said he wanted to finish training me. So also yesterday he found out he was actually gonna be a zone leader and it’s something he really wanted to do his whole mission but never had the opportunity yet. So he was feeling kinda bad because he gave up that opportunity, so he had been praying a lot about it I guess, then later that day we went to the house of a man who was a reference. When we got there he said he had been waiting for us for a long time. And he had visited the temple and he felt something. His wife died 6 years ago and he lives with his child now who is 30 and has Down’s syndrome. But we started by teaching him the plan of salvation and he was very interested and the spirit was strong too and we committed him to baptism. He already had a book of Mormon and had been reading it. He seems very excited to learn so much about the truth. We’re going back on Thursday. But after we left the house my companion said he knows now why he needed to stay here in this area. So this past week has been a lot of ups and downs but these past two days were awesome! Its days like that that makes it all worth it to be here.
So we haven’t really cleaned the apt a whole lot I just sweep it and keep clean the sink area and the fridge and where we prepare our food. We get fed a lot every day. When I first got here the hardest part of my day was lunch because they would make me eat sooooo much! But I think my stomach has stretched and I can just eat for days now and I crave rice and beans. I can understand pretty well most everything that people are saying now; I just need to work on my speaking. Overall I’m doing very well. I’m getting used to the culture and the food. I think that American food will probably make me sick when I return.
Anyway I gotta go but a canoe trip would be sweet to do right like on the northern Delaware river. Love you guys and pray for you all the time.
Love,
Elder Raleigh