We went teaching with the elders three times this week to see Andjua ( 16) and Tedeca (14). Their mother doesn’t want them to be baptized. The girls have been attending church fairly regularly for over a month. They both attended a few times before they started receiving the lessons because we are trying to find potential priesthood holders, not just teenage girls. They started attending seminary this week from 4:30 to 5:30 pm, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They plan to attend seminary at 9:00-9:45 am on Sunday as well. They have difficulty understanding what they read. Andjua said she didn’t understand the reading assignment given by the missionaries. The girls all stayed after seminary while we read 1 Nephi 4 to find out what happened to Laban. She was so proud of herself when she gave the right answer Thursday evening when we went teaching with the elders. She was even able to describe the sword.
As mentioned, I teach seminary 3 afternoons. I have Janelle and Adelline who are enrolled and Tedeca and Andjua, who will soon be enrolled and Natalie, Adelline’s 13 yr old sister, and Antonia, Janelle’s 13 yr old sister. The girls are all friends and attend the same school near Roxborough at least 45 minutes away. Four of them can walk to the church but Tedeca and Andjua have to get transport. They live up the hill from us.
The Sunday seminary class is to accommodate Linda, who lives in Roxbough and can’t make the afternoon classes. Theresa and Stefan haven’t been attending either session. Theresa does do some homework, which counts as attendance.
We have been teaching Brenda once or twice a week for the past 3 weeks. She is an active 7th Day Adventist. Each time we think she isn’t interested, she surprises us. We are scheduled to visit her again on Wednesday. We plan to take Bertram, a 60 year old convert, with us. She gave us the OK.
She is also single and I think, never been married. Lesa described him to her and she smiled.
During Brenda’s second lesson, a friend Sharon dropped by in the middle of the lesson and just stayed while we finished. Elder Ross invited her to church Sunday and gave her one of our business cards. The elders had met her a few days before and she wasn’t interested. The next day she agreed to a lesson and she then showed them our card and told them about our lesson. At Brenda’s 3rd lesson, she dropped in for the beginning and then left to go to work 10 minutes before we finished. We have been to her home twice this week with the elders. The lessons haven’t been great because of the environment (noise, people coming and going). We met in a house with about 4 families with a common living room and kitchen the first time and on the steps outside the 2nd time. Sharon is also 7th Day and has recently lost her significant other who was shot while visiting in Trinidad. She is extremely quiet and hard to read. The other man who lives in the house and receiving the lessons with her says he will be at church on Sunday.
We met Brenda because Lesa and Curvis live with her as she is Curvis’s aunt. Curvis is inactive and not living the word of wisdom at the moment. Lesa has been coming for 3 weeks now and is on fire. She quit her job so she could attend church. She will teach Primary for the first time this week. We have been by her house 3-4 times this week to help with her Primary lesson, to take her stuff, etc. The elders dropped by and helped Curvis start framing a small shop where Lesa will sell the clothes she crochets and sews.
Elder Ross gave a few blessing in the past couple of weeks. Two people requested blessing of comfort and a couple were blessings for healing. One of the blessings for comfort was for a less active member we have been visiting since we arrived. She has a testimony, but is living with someone and she doesn’t feel good about attending church. She left her scriptures in Trinidad when she moved here a couple of years ago so we gave her a new Book of Mormon. We are hoping she will show up at church one of these days soon. She usually works on Sunday.
We try to visit as many of the branch members as we can during the week. We visited Lynda and she requested a lesson on tithing. We were so excited because she hasn’t been attending regularly at all since her baptism in January. We have taken our laptop and shared some conference talks with Bertram. He has no friends since he joined the church as all of his old friends drink. It has been hard for him to come up with things to do during the day besides his gardening.
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