February 13, 2017

Hello from the Downtown Indianapolis Library! Right now I'm drinking Quinoa JUICE and Flax seed juice, I didn't even know that was a thing until I went to the Saraga International Market today :) This week was full of eating Saltines (food poisoning) and meetings. We got a little bit of finding/tracting in and realized that what I thought were fireworks outside at 9 o clock at night are actually gun shots haha. We went and helped out at the Bishop's Storehouse on Tuesday morning, we're going to make that a regular thing because we live a mile away from it. We also played basketball with the young men.

We've been visiting less active members and helping them come back to church. Sheila is still doing well, she is still working on giving up smoking. She gave up Dr. Pepper! She knows for sure that the Church is absolutely true but she can't be baptized until she has quit for at least a week. It was frustrating, yesterday in Ward Council they were questioning us and they thought we committed her to give up Dr. Pepper before smoking, and we never even told her she needed to give up Dr. Pepper, she felt like she was addicted and thought it up on her own, and we told the Ward council that and they said "Well why was the commitment extended?" and we just thought to ourselves "We didn't extend any commitment about that" I just kind of sat back and laughed while everyone discussed it. But Sheila has us over for dinner a lot, and we visit her a lot :)

We had a Zone Conference on Thursday, from 10-4 and after me and Elder Heimuli went and visited Brother Tupuola! They drive a pretty sweet truck :) (Elder Heimuli and the Assistant to the President) The Zone Conference focused on "Teaching Repentance" to help people realize the change of their ways to align with Heavenly Father's will and we are trying to make sure that when we baptize people we are "baptizing converts" and to make sure they stay active and come to church every week and continually change and repent. President Carlson also emphasized "This is the Savior's message, not ours. And we need to make sure people know that" I love President Carlson he is such a good guy. We went to 2 baptisms on Saturday, both hispanic people the Spanish Elders baptized, 1 was 11, the other was 9. We did a baptismal interview this week for 1 of them, so we got to meet her a couple days before she was baptized :) We drove to the East Side of Indianapolis to their house.

The "Why I Believe" Fireside was a huge success! (Trevor) 1 of the converts that bore his testimony, was scrolling through TV and he saw the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, he loves music and he watched them sing, he wondered why no one applauded at the end of the song, and then Elder Holland got up and gave the talk "Safety for the Soul". Trevor had no idea what the Book of Mormon was, but when he heard that talk he knew it was true. That was in 2009 and Trevor wasn't baptized for 7 years until just recently. Missionaries worked and worked with him, he joked and said that when he got baptized he would hear a sigh from the Salt Lake City Valley from all the missionaries that worked with him. Trevor then sang "I'll go where you want me to go". Another lady bore her conversion story, she was not a member, but her 3 sons were, 1 of her sons just got back from his mission in Honduras and he baptized her a few weeks ago. There is opposition, but with opposition comes great things :) I love you guys and I'm ready for another week and I will report back on what happened :)