March 31st

Family,

Thanks for your letters. .....

As far as anything new that happened since the last time I wrote you guys, not much has been going on. The weather is still awful, in fact it even snowed a little bit earlier today. I just can't wait for the warm weather to come. 

Elder Johnston and I are doing well and working hard. We ended up going to that Catholic mass yesterday like we promised our less active friend. In fact, it wasn't even Catholic mass, it ended up being some kind of group that didn't believe in organized religion. All they believe was that all you needed to do was read the Bible and believe in Jesus Christ and you were saved. It was very weird nonetheless. And our less active friend never even came to our sacrament meeting after he got done with his "church," so it really wasn't worth going to I guess. Other than that, nothing too much has happened this week. Our investigators are slowly progressing. The only thing holding these people back, both our less actives and investigators, is their commitment or desire to attend church. This has been one of the biggest struggles with a lot of the Hispanic people, that at least I've dealt with on the mission. They promise you they'll go and then they either end up having to work or they make up an excuse to not go. It's kind of frustrating, but it is what it is.    

I just want to bear my testimony on General Conference and the importance of this time of the year to hear the words of our Prophet, President Monson, and his counselors. I am so blessed to be able to receive further instruction and guidance on what I need to do, not only for me as a missionary, but as a person in general. I know that our Prophet receives direct revelation from the Lord. He addresses concerns and needs of what we need to do as members of the church to strengthen our testimonies, which will bless our lives so that we may be able to overall become better and happier. I've never in my life been more excited to watch General Conference. This is something that's more of a need rather than a want at this point in my life.

 

 

I also received your packages in the mail this week. Thank you guys so much!! 

......

Can't believe I'm saying it too, but Lets go Wisconsin!!  Keep working hard guys. Love ya all.       

   

Elder BerthelsonBostonStrong

March 26th

Family,

I absolutely hate cold weather, it's only 20 degrees right now... and its almost April. I hope it's nice and hot where back in Phoenix. Other than the cruddy weather and the chance of snow for today I'm doing pretty good. One of the blessings of serving state-side is that I get up-to-date scores on the tourney, which also meant finding out what happened to Duke... What did happen to Duke?! Jabari Parker should've just decided to serve a full time mission... Oh well, picking Duke a few years ago was definitely worth it! Maybe next year haha.

This week was good as far as the work is concerned. Not too much happened with our progressing investigators Oscar and Blanca this week, but we did have success with one of our other investigators, J___ M____. He is an 11 year old kid whose mom is a less active. We even have a baptismal date set for him for the 27th of April! One of the biggest problems of why his mom is less active is that J___'s brother, E___, has an extremely severe case of Autism. (The picture is of me cutting E___'s hair, he can't sit still so his mom had to basically hold him down in a chair the entire time- she was very grateful for us doing that service for her boys because they aren't able to go to a barbershop since his autism is so severe). Only J____ was able to come to church this week, although he didn't understand anything that was said in Spanish, I think he still enjoyed it. 

 

This past Sunday as well, I also had the opportunity to give a talk  in our sacrament meeting. I spoke on how we can strengthen one other as family members. It was pretty cool since this was pretty much my first time on the mission giving a talk in an organized sacrament meeting all in Spanish.

Some other interesting things that happened just yesterday was that we were able to meet with one of our less actives, Hermano C_____, from Ecuador. He has been less active for about 5 years now and has been attending the Catholic church. (He actually came back to church 2 weeks ago for the first time since, but doesn't want to go back). .......But we promised him that he would be welcomed back into the church, and by that, will not feel embarrassed whatsoever. He promised he would attend if we went to a session of his Catholic mass before our church will start this Sunday. So this Sunday, we're planning to take up that challenge. It should be pretty interesting, I've never attended a Catholic mass before lol.

 

One last thing that happened yesterday was that Elder Johnston and I were able to drop by one of our other investigators, M____, and the only thing we had planned was to see how she was doing and to get to know her a little bit more. But when we arrived, we found out that her whole family as at her house all at the same time. So we decided to watch the restoration video and bear testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith to everyone that was at the house.  There was a total of 11 people at the house. That was the most I've been able to teach at once, it was pretty cool to share my testimony to all those people all at one time. That also could possibly mean a good amount of those people in that family might one day become actual investigators in the future, we'll have to see though.

Not too much has been happening besides that, Elder Johnston and I have been working hard and doing our best. I'm blessed to know everyone is doing well back home. I know that our families can be strengthened in so many ways through serving one another.

I love you guys so much! You are in my prayers.  

Elder Johnston and the Hermanas)

            

Elder BerthelsonBostonStrong