Thursday, February 10, 2011

Feb 2nd- Chicago Blizzard

I just want everyone to know that life as a missionary is hard work that is truly a life changing experience. Like me update you all on Vivian & her husband William, we meet her on that Tuesday and two days later she set up her date to be baptize on Feb. 26th (it's crazy right), she said that she is ready. 

In the past like 12 days we've had 13 new Investigators of the church that's more than 1 a day. The Lord has really been blessing us. Elder Senator and I meet the gentlemen while tracking in a neighborhood that later we found out it is illegal to do so there. Well while there we meet a gentlemen that who stated that he was at his lowest point in his life as we were talking he felted the spirit so strongly that he started to cry, hugging us and sobbing. As we were about to he stated that he would be anxiously awaiting a call from us to check on him. When we call him 2 days later all of the good feelings that he had felt was gone due to the fact that after we left he did some research online on our Church and went think he found some anti-Mormon messages. This phone conversation was heartbreaking he yelled loudly to us to "Never Call him again" he did this like 5 times at my companion. We were a little discourage after this conversation my companion a lot more than me but as we pulled together and focused on the Lord's work he blessed us w/ 4 new investigators all from knocking doors that day and we had many gospel conversation with people. 

Yesterday and Today are crazy days because of there being a blizzard here. We are supposed to get up to 24" of snow with 50 miles per hour winds. Our Mission President told everyone to stay inside from 4 pm til 4 pm the next day. So I'm using this as a time to write some letters and do other things. So last night we looked out the window and saw this guy, who was stuck in the snow.  So we went outside and helped him to move his car by pushing it. This was just the beginning of a long night of trying to help stranded people. We got back to the apartment around 10ish pm and a few minutes later and as we saw another guy stuck in the snow. So we went back into the blizzard, but this guy car was stuck worst than the first guy. So we got some shovels and started to dig around his car. When he finally got his car free some kind of way my companion Elder Senator saw another car stuck down the road. Its was very cold but the wind was the worse and it almost blew me over several times. You couldn't see because of the 50 mph winds blowing snow sideways and the ice smacking you in the face. So we finally got to this guy who was in a van and we finally shovel him out. Afterwards we saw two more cars stuck down the road. So we went and
 tried to helped them by shoveling around their cars but these cars were stuck worse than the other 3 cars that we had dug out earlier. We pushed and pushed and pushed ( You guess that it was a lot of pushing) and finally got them free. After all of this hard work it would have been easy to just go back to the room and get warm, but as we look down the street we saw another that was stuck worse than all the other cars.. The blizzard was getting worst and the snow plow hadn't made it to our street yet. so we decided to help them also but there was no way we could shovel him out and push the car to the parking lot. The snow was getting deeper and deeper so the guy asked us to help shovel his car out and pushed it in reverse to make it back to the main highway. Well we tried this for a while but it didn't work. Then finally the snow plow came and shoveled a path to the apartment, but we still had to shovel the snow out the way and push it to the plowed area. By the time we finished it was thirty minutes past midnight. Now people cars are buried in the snow and they are trying to get them out. We we arrive back at the apartment my hat was frozen and my pants. That was a night that I will never forget!!!!


January 24, 2011 -Comments from DJ

I wanted to share a particular event that testify to power of faith and prayers. Elder Senator and I as always prayed for Heavenly Father to guide us to one of his children that was ready to hear his message. Well, as we were out contacting (knocking on doors). We came to this house that was divided into four different apartment units. So we just randomly chose a bell at the door and rang it. 
The bell we rang was to William, who lived on the top floor, we explained to him why were there and he let us come up. To make a long story short William and his wife Vivian had just moved into the apartment. They began to tell us that they had just arrived home 5 min before we got there.  They were in a good mood after just having a good discussion about god. They further elaborated that they are the only family now living in the apartment building and it is unusual for them to come down the steps when someone rings the bell to answer it.  They usually look out the window to see if they know the person, If not they just ignore them. 

After further discussion we found out that someone had told Vivian about the church before and she had a copy of the Restoration DVD. After teaching them the 1st Discussion they looked forward to meeting us again and are ready to receive their on copy of the Book of Mormon. I know for a surety that the Holy Spirit lead us to this apartment building and to this family, who was been prepared by the Lord to receive his message.