Elder Matthew Bair's Mission Blog: May 2010

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

(05/25/2010)

Well hello everyone. Things here in Yakima are going great. This also might be a normal size e-mail because I remembered to write things down again.

Saturday we painted a house which was part of Mormons Helping Hands and Habitat For Humanity. It was an older lady's home and it was a lot of fun. I thought the most fun part was to watch and listen to the youth. As we were finishing up they just kept saying how good they felt and how they felt accomplished and just felt good. I don't think they realized that they felt good for helping someone, not because they felt accomplished for painting a house. It was cool and fun to watch them as they painted the house.

This Sunday we had five people at church. Leo came with his wife and is doing great. He is going to have his interview tonight, and if everything goes well, he will be baptized on Sunday. It should be awesome. He is a great guy and I feel privileged to teach him. Jorge and Franisica were there again. It was really good to see them and they really seem to enjoy it. It was really funny though because one time I looked over at Fransica and she was doubled over asleep, just like Grandma Bair. So I felt right at home and didn't even think twice about her sleeping. She is an older lady so she is allowed to fall asleep.

Jorge is doing great. On Saturday we went by and we were talking to them and this guy that helps them out with their yard comes by to ask them a question and then asks if he could sit in with us and of course we said yes. So he is listening and starts saying how the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon are false. All we need is the Bible, you don't need anything else. Well before we could say anything, Jorge says, this door is open to anyone that wants to talk about God, but you will never come in here and disrespect another religion. It was awesome.

Gustavo was there as well. He is really hard to teach. He seems to enjoy it. He participates in Gospel Principles in Sunday School, but yet it doesn't seem like he is paying attention when we go by to teach him. It is weird. Tomas was there as well. He is doing great. He is going to be baptized on the 6th of June. So we had a good bunch at church which is always nice.

This past week we had a lot of people come up to us and ask for money from the church. That really puts us in a bind because, we can't do anything even though we want to help. We tell them to call the Branch president but no one ever has. So I don't feel too bad because they have to do their part.

Well that’s about it. My final thought today is there is always another day. Sometimes there are days that are just long, and hard and boring, and you just want to get it over with. But the best thing is you can wake up the next day and it’s like the day before never happened. The Lord is ready to bless us all.

Have a great week

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

(05/19/2010)

Things are going really well here. Both Tomas and Leo are doing great. We had stake conference this week so it was somewhat difficult to get people to church . But conference was really good.

We moved Tomas's date back until the 6th of June because he felt like he needed more time. That is fine. He is a great guy and likes to learn so we will give it to him.

I am really am dumbfounded at what to write. Elder Urbina was sick for most of the weekend with the stomach flu and then yesterday, we had a Spanish zone conference.

I am sorry for the short letter. I hope and pray you are all doing well.

Have a great week

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

(05/11/2010)

So I am just like everyone else who wrote me. I don't really know what to say after talking to you just Sunday. I do have a few observations from Sunday though, that I will go over.

Grace is a busy-body. She is so smart and she is good at telling stories. I don't know if you know but she told me the story of Snow White while you were eating dinner.

Everyone looked really happy. It was good to see everyone so happy. Also everyone pretty much looked the same as I remember them.

Grandpa Milt looked really skinny. I had no idea he was losing weight. He seemed happy and good as well.

Well that’s about all I have. Have a great week. I will talk to you next week.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Big things are happening (05/04/2010)

Things are really REALLY going well here. We now have two people on date for baptism. This first one is Leo. We had him on date for the 16th but we pushed it back for the 30th to give us a little bit more time. We went over on Saturday and his wife, who is a less-active member, was there and was acting very strangely. She kept saying that he is not ready for baptism and he is doing it for the wrong reasons and all of these sorts of things. I said well let’s ask him and so we did and he said I like how the members of the church help one another out and she started yelling, see, he just wants money and all of this stuff and he just thinks they are going to help him financially and all of these things. But we took it along with our branch mission leader who was there that he meant that they helped with spiritual matters. Anyway after a little bit of time she finally came out and said, "I just don't want his life to be as terrible as mine because I know this church is true and I didn't follow the gospel and I am being punished for it and there is no way that I can change and I would just rather him live in ignorance that make this huge decision and not fully understand it and fall away and have a terrible life like mine. Well we promised her that we would not baptize him if we didn't think he was ready and that she needs to think if he is pulling him back or pulling him forward. And that together they can go through the repentance process. It was really good. Then we went by yesterday and it was totally different. She was helpful and teaching him. It was really good. So he will be baptized on the 30th.

The other one on date is Tomas. He will be baptized on the 23rd of May. He is doing really well. He really wants to be baptized and is still telling everyone about the church and how much it will help them. It is awesome. He really understands the bible and he is such a good learner and understands everything we tell him. '

Another kid we are working with is Gustavo. He has come to church for three weeks in a row now. It is hard to teach him because we don't know if he is really interested or he just comes because he lives with a member and they bring him. He seems interested and understands what we teach him. We need to get in and really find out what his interest is. It is hard to teach him because it is always so loud in the house he lives in. They have a couple of little kids that are always making noise, but we can figure it out.

Heraldo is really doing well also. We had lunch with him on Saturday and he asked us where we do baptisms and we told him in a font and asked if we ever do it in a river and I said yeah, but we would have to get permission. That’s where he wants to do it he said so we will see if that gets him over hump. He is really doing well. He finished the Book of Mormon as well so we will see what happens.

That’s about all I have. Although the other day we were in this lesson with the door open and we start hearing this pounding noise and I thought it was some sort of compacter packing the dirt down or something like that then we see this old Cadillac-like looking car, literally bouncing down the street with its hydraulics. It was so funny. I kid you not , the front wheels of the car were getting probably 3 or 4 feet off of the ground. It was so funny. They were just doing laps back and forth down the street.

Oh yeah the weather has been almost cold lately. Yesterday it was in the mid-50's and really windy. It was cold. I can't believe that we are in May. It just doesn't seem real to me.

Well I gotta go. Have a great week