December 13, 2010

Here is Elder Madsen’s message for this week. In his e-mail to Jackson, he said it had gotten down to 20º below zero! We aren’t mentioning how warm it is here (80º today!) after reading this e-mail we are glad that we sent Filipino goodies to share in his Christmas Package!

Hey everyone!

All right, hold on to your seat for this e-mail. Starting on Monday night, Elder Mercado and I were finally able to meet with Chris and we taught the first lesson and extended the firm for January 8. He accepted! His main concern was that his fiancee wants to marry him in the Catholic church in December 2012. We encouraged him to continue to prepare for the 8th. His other concern is that he works on Sunday and isn't able to switch shifts. That's a real downer. We met with him Tuesday and watched the Restoration DVD. He said he had a good feeling in his heart as he watched it. We also read 3 Nephi 11 together and he said it was very clear and made sense to him. The Spirit was so strong that night that we told him these feelings could also be felt by his fiancee. He said he would talk to her about the church. He's so humble and very shy but prepared. He has a Filipno member friend and he talked to him about the church. He told us that Chris is very excited to be baptized! He just needs to find a way to be able to go to church.

Wednesday night, we met with a family whose dad we met on the street. They asked us a lot of questions about our church and about missionaries. They said they wanted to meet "friends from our church". So we told them about sacrament meeting but unfortunately they work on Sundays as well (very common for the Filipino culture in Banff to have to work on Sundays in the hotels and restaurants). They said that next week they would like to hear a message about our church!

Thursday night (careful, there's 2 miracles on this evening) we had dinner with the relief society president and her friend, who is a former investigator and her son, Thomas. Sister Ganter-Pomares told us that Thomas is the key in terms of both of their conversion because the mom, Kat really relies on Thomas for a lot of things. We bonded very well with Thomas and invited both of them to church this Sunday. Kat really wants to go but Thomas wasn't sure. Sister Ganter-Pomares talked him into it and they both accepted. We then met with Florentino and his family on Thursday night. We asked if we could have a lesson but Florentino wanted his wife to be there as well before we taught so that the whole family could be there. So it turned out to be a good meet and greet session but we will be teaching him and his family this week as well. He and his wife also work on Sundays which is also unfortunate.

So all in all, we have about 13 people that we're really focusing on. I absolutely love the Filipino people. Not only do I have an awesome Filipino companion, but the families we are meeting are wonderful and have such an awesome spirit to them.

I'm so grateful for the success we're seeing and the miracles that are happening. This week is going to be so busy for us!!! We're so excited. I've had good nights of sleep unless I worry too much about our investigators, then it's not so good.

Well, I love each of you. Christmas is only 12 days away. I have something to send to you guys but I don't know if it will be there in time. You'll like it too. It's a Candianized Madsen style Christmas package so I hope you enjoy it.

Love,

Elder Madsen