dang gina! my cousin brock is so such a stinkin stud! i love that guy...i hope he gets married to the most beautiful awsomest lady there is...that speaks spanish too! in fact if he has problems i know a bunch of puerto rician ladys! haha
welll guys juan carlos and estela got back together and are doing hecka good, there relationship[ is soo strong now and estela is supporting insted of tearing down and assuming. juan pedro is going to be getting baptized...we just have to figure out the day.
and douglas, he is a baller! i dont think i have meet many ppl who are cooler than he is, he is such a good man and so very very focused and is reading tons and tons in the book of mormon. its so incredable. and as for life arround here...well its at an end.
tomarrow are transfers and iam leaving, iam going to the farthest east our mission goes and iam going to be opening an area with a stud of a missionary elder santos. it sucks rocks that i have to go right when i feel like i got a huge grip on this area...everything has done well and is doing well and will be doing awsome and now i have to go...one of the members actually got mad at me cus iam leaving and told me to go and tell the mission president that he cant do that...i told him its god doing it so he can go have a talk with him if he wants...haha. jose got mad too and told me he is probally going to move now...i doubt it...but that guy is such a stud,please keep him in your prayers. and the chilano family ...dang iam going to miss them, and hna. embodi's cookin...there so awsome. my new area is called burgess falls and santos and i will be the first spansih missionarys in this area ever! iam hecka nervous,iam defintly going to work my pants off, president wants a branch in 3 months...pleas pray! haha
elder santos is from barcelona spain and is a stud...we have been tellin everyone that we were going to serve together forever now and now its finally happening! were pretty stoked but we have a bunch of work to do...
also its final elder spencer is going to be training...the mans super stoked about it, nervous, but i told him hell be fine...he is such a stud!
anyways i love you all tons...iam super super super stoked to hear about jordan! that man is in ever one of my prayers...and you can tell him that yo falo poco portugues y no estoy brincando. haha
i just kinda wanted to send this to you beacuse it is a very powerful letter that our president wrote and it explaines a bit of what were doing here in the mission(or did in the mo of march)
Elders and Sisters,
I felt impressed to write to each of you and give you an update on where we are as a mission on the March Madness Missionary Miracle Month. We had a conference call tonight with the zone leaders and they reported a total of 52 individuals that have been baptized with 44 future dates for the rest of the month. That equals 96 if all goes well. You and I both know that some will fall off at the end of the week, so we really need to set 10 to 15 more for the rest of the month. Tonight we received 9 new future dates with 5 of them being for this month. That was way exciting and many miracles accompanied those new dates. We also have 32 future dates so far going into April.
Here are some highlights so far. If everything goes through the Franklin and Spanish zones will exceed their goals. The Hopkinsville, Nashville and Paducah zones are within 3 of their goals. That is so exciting. Also, if everything goes the Spanish and the McMinnville zones will have 24 baptized each. The Spanish zone has 18 as of tonight and the McMinnville zone has 11 baptized.
Listed below are some districts where each companionship either has baptized or has a future date for March:
· Paris district (Elder Mayes, Hine, Beech and Comstock) will have 8 when all goes through.
· Franklin Spanish district (Sisters Sulz, Ethington, Elders Richardson, Spencer) will have 5 when all goes through.
· Stones River district (Sisters Zeller, Sprinkle and Elders Beck, Garrison) will have 2 when all goes through.
· Fairview district (Elders Calkins, Nelson, Horner, Orr) will have 7 when all goes through.
· Columbia district (Elders Boswell, Lawrence, Massey, Stacey) will have 3 when all goes through.
Congrats to each of these districts where everyone in the district baptized this month.
6 of the 7 zone leaders companionship will baptize this month. Thank you zone leaders for your example and hard work.
Listed below are some of the companionships who have or have solid dates for baptisms in March:
Tanner-Allen = 3, Pearson-Kim = 7, Richardson-Spencer = 4, Geohagan-Tupou = 4, Sisters Smith-Cordon = 3, Santos-Haire = 4, Sisters Munoz-Gasca = 6, Beech-Comstock = 4, Yadernuk-Rasmussen = 3, Wagstaff-Bousfield = 3, Measom-Alvarez = 3, Treu-Reeder = 7, Calkins-Nelsen = 6, Mayes-Hine = 4, Campbell-Hanson 3. Congrats to each of these companionship.
My sincere thanks to each of you for your great work and dedication to the Lord. You have done well.
Can you see what is happening? There is a new spark in missionary work in this mission. I give you the credit and thanks. You are wonderful and a joy to be with as we are engaged in the work of the Lord.
Reminder to pray at 12 noon today(Thursday) as this is the time the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve pray in the temple. We need to join with them in asking God for miracles, the mission to reach its goal of 100, retain the dates we have set, and set 10 to 15 new dates for this month.
I would also ask that each of us begin a fast after dinner on Thursday and end it on Friday at dinner time. The purpose of the fast is to do the following:
· Fast for the mission goal of 100
· Fast for those who have set dates to be baptized that all will go through
· Fast for miracles that have and are taking place. We need to ask God specifically for more miracles as we are obedient to His rules and work.
· Fast specifically for those in your districts and zones by NAME (either progressing investigators, investigators or those with a date)
I must confess that I haven’t seen as much opposition or things put before us that gets us distracted in the work as I have in the past 30 days. We need to keep praying for strength. Remember that God’s work won’t get frustrated. We don’t want Satan to win any battles so let’s be on our “A” game. Stay focused and remember that when difficulties come – blessings are right behind them.
Obedience is the key to our success. If you were to talk to many missionaries, you would hear of their testimonies that when you are obedient – God will bless you quickly. We need to have a quest – a yearning for being obedient. This is important and will be the cause of our missing the goal of 100. Pray with everything you have. Talk to our loving Heavenly Father. What He wants from us is our heart. With that, anything can happen.
In the first part of April, I am going to send a letter to President Monson where I will tell him that the great Tennessee Nashville Mission baptized 100 individuals and brought them to Christ. I will further explain that we did this for 2 reasons. One is to help these individuals qualify for salvation and the other is as a testimony to President Monson that we sustain him as a prophet of God. That our works told of our inner desires.
I am also going to write to Elder Ballard and invite him to tour our mission. It will be an added boost if I can tell him that we just baptized 100 and this mission is on fire.
For the past three days, I have had the privilege of interviewing ½ of the mission. There is a greater faith present in our interviews. By the power of the spirit I have discerned the blessings of God have been extended to more of you in the past month. Some I have perceived a blessing that has been bestowed upon you in that God will sustain you in your work. A few of you He has instructed me to teach of this level of what I call spiritual maturity. For those whom God instructed me to teach, we shed a few tears together as I taught them of this great blessing. God in his kindness allowed those individuals to be told by me of their service and that it has pleased God and He will sustain them in their work. Why God instructed me to teach only a few and not all those who have reached this level, I don’t know. I can only testify that the spirit instructed me with a handful to teach of this level, but others he held my tongue and I was not permitted to inform them. More of you are reaching this level and God in his kindness is granting unto you the righteous desires of your heart. Thank you one and all.
I wish I had the ability to give each of you a “Title of Liberty” that we could hold, display and discuss that would adequately portray our feelings as we go into this last week of our March Madness Missionary Miracle Month. Some of the statements I would write on the “Title of Liberty” would be the following:
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we believe in God the Eternal Father.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we believe in Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord and His Atonement, which is available to all.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we believe in the Holy Ghost. We recognize Him, and we follow those impressions that He gives us.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we believe the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet of God who was the instrument God used in restoring the church today.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we believe in the restoration of the gospel. That the priesthood has been restored and President Monson is a living prophet today.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we know the sealing powers have been restored and those blessings are available to all who come unto Christ.
· Let it be said of us that our testimonies stand against the fiery darts of the adversary. And that by our faith and works do the powers of God prevail over this enemy.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that we not only represent our God, but our families, friends, home wards and stakes, and our inner most desire to serve God with our heart, might, mind and strength.
· Let it be said of us, that our testimonies will stand as a witness for or against this people.
· Let it be said of us, that we contributed in a mighty way in more fully establishing the Church in this part of the Lord’s vineyard.
· Let it be said of us, by our works that peace, joy and happiness can all be contained through living the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that this “Title of Liberty” would be displayed in each of our apartments and discussed every morning before we go out and work. That together we unit in this great cause. In part, I see us doing that. I thank you and encourage you to keep working hard. Hold fast to the iron rod. It does lead to the tree of live and it is delicious to the taste. Trust me, I know.
I express my sincere love and respect for who you are and what you are doing. This is the greatest work there is. We are witnessing history. We are a part of something that words cannot describe. We are about our Father’s business. Please, join with me as we consecrate all our time and effort in this last week to reaching our goal and showing the eastern United States missions that we can and we did break the 4 minute mile with convert baptisms. Pray, hard work, obedience, pure love of God and mankind and the key ingredients to this success. I express my love to each of you. Come, partake of this experience and witness first hand of His outstretched arms towards you. The end is in sight. The victory is ours. Endure to the end and watch the blessings flow.
President Hutchings
