Good Morning Family and Friends,
This week was a true 180 degree turn around from last week. That was much needed. This week Elder Dearden and I had the opportunity to lead a great zone conference. President Bunnell talked about faith and the assistants talked about accountability, which were both great lead ins to our presentation. Our presentation was on Gator Hunting. Specifically new investi-GATORS. We lead a pretty hype presentation and challenged the Zone to raise their vision and get 45 new investigators in the next 2.5 weeks. We have 10 companionships and the average per week is usually around 10 gators, so it is a pretty high mark. It has been awesome to see that people are really getting behind it. Most of the zone members now talk about gators or potential gators. In the first half week we've already managed to find us 17 gators as a group! So we are going to continue to search the swamp for more gators this coming week. (Side Note for the Hunter Family: They should be proud of their son he pulled in 6 gators in the first half week. He's a hard worker)
We had a great lesson with Merril, who is a lady from Suriname that we found a few weeks ago. She invited her kids to join in the lesson this week, so we did a special lesson with a game about prayer and the holy ghost. We invited her to come to church this coming week so hopefully that happens. We meet with her on Tuesday so we still have a lesson to re-invite/confirm that she is coming on Sunday.
Gator Miracles:
1. We met this cute young couple that is from Bulgaria. They are in their mid 20s and are expecting their first baby in a few months. We told them that we had a book about Jesus and they wanted it! So yesterday we brought it by and they invited themselves to church this coming Sunday. There is still a language barrier there but we told them that we had pamphlets in Bulgarian for them if they come on Sunday. They are so nice as well. They invited us over to eat in a few weeks. Bulgarians are great, if only they spoke any English or Dutch... haha
2. Miguel: We met this guy a few weeks ago and I honestly didn't think our appointment would go through because we have so many people that "want" to listen to us but aren't there when our appointment comes around. Despite my lack of faith, Miguel was there! He is from Portugal and had an experience of getting a blessing from Mormons when he was 4 and deathly sick. As you expected, he recovered, even when doctors didn't give him a chance, and is here 30 years later as a father of a cute 4 year old. He seems very prepared because he knows lots about the bible, and believes strongly that there is only one true church. He told us several times that he's learned of several churches but he still hasn't found the true church. We are way excited to work with him in the coming weeks. (side note: can you believe that I only have 2 months left? Not much longer!)
We going to make like Steve Irwin and go Crocodile hunting!
Love you guys!
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Elder Talyon Anderson Perry
Belgium/Netherlands Mission