Dear Family and Friends,

Well it sounds like you guys had a fun week. With all of the horseback rides and the birthdays and the Brigham city temple dedication it looked way cool. So first off, happy birthday Tasha and Rylee I hope you guys had fun birthdays and that you ate a lot of cake. Second off the horseback riding was probably really cool up in the mountains with all the leafs changing and everything. And President Packer dedicating the temple would have been way cool to hear. Anyways, this week was an awesome week for me. First off, on Friday we had a conference with 3 zones and President Anderson a seventy and the President of the Caribbean came and talked to us. He explained what are purpose is hear as missionaries, he told us that our purpose is to help people gain faith by teaching and letting the spirit touch their hearts. Every time the spirit touches someones heart their faith grows, we need to help them get to the point that they have enough faith to repent. When they change their old habits and start living the commandments of God then they are ready for baptism, after baptism they receive the Holy Ghost and then they need to endure to the end. So basically all of that starts with us bringing the spirit to the lessons. So then we talked about all the things that we can do to have the spirit with us and to be able to touch their hearts. And one of the most important things is to have a sincere interest for the people and a true love for them. And a desire to help them have the gospel in their lives. Also he talked about how we need to study hard so we can know all of the doctrine and then teach it in a way that permits the Spirit to touch their hearts. So I definitely learned a lot there at the conference and it was an awesome experience. Then yesterday we had a district conference here in Barahona. Basically it is stake conference, but there isnt a stake here, there is a district so its called district conference. And President Dominguez of the area seventy was there and he gave an awesome talk about charity and how we need to have charity and how the members need to support their leaders and work to have a stake here in Barahona. He told everybody if they pray for a patriarch then a stake will come so that got everybody really excited. He told them of all the blessings that will come when they have a stake here in Barahona, so that is what we are working for. Also, we have new investigator that is progressing a lot, he is 30 years old has a nice family and is really well off financially. Yesterday, all of his friends went to the beach and he told them no, that he wasnt going to go because he had a commitment with us. So we got to his house and we sat down and started teaching him the plan of salvation. He had read the pamphlet and had a lot of questions, well it came down to us explaining the atonement. I explained to him that it is like if he has a kid and his kid really wants to buy a bike and the bike costs 500 pesos so he tells his kid, look you need to work and save up and then we can go and buy the bike. So the kid starts working and working for a couple months and he comes to his dad and say dad I have been working all this time and I only have earned 100 pesos. And the dad says well son give me those 100 pesos and because off all that you have done i will pay for the rest of the bike. I explained that is the same as the atonement, that we arent perfect and that we cant make it back into the presence of God without the help of Jesus Christ and the atonement. And the spirit was super strong and it just clicked in his head and he asked us and when can i accept this atonement? what do I need to do? And those are probably the best words that you can hear when you are a missionary and we explained that he needs to start living the commandments of God and get baptized. He told us that he wants to get baptized but that he wants to be sure before he does anything and we talked to him about faith and how his faith will grow as he continues to learn and let the spirit work in him. So the lesson ended up lasting almost 2 hours but it was probably one of the coolest lessons that i have ever had on my mission and he is one of the coolest guys that i have met. So i hope the Spirit will keep working on him and that he will accept the gospel in his life. So all and all life is still going great i am just loving being out here on the mission, it is one of the greatest times that i have had to learn and to help others. I hope i can keep learning more and keep helping others more and more everyday. Anyways family I hope you all are doing good and having fun. I love ya all and hope you have a good week.

Elder Wadman

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it sounds like life is going pretty good for you all back there at home. Mom still is getting all of the vegetables and fruits from the garden, and everyone is back into school, sounds like it was a pretty chill week for you all. Well this week was a good week for us too, don't worry there weren't anymore tear gas bombs this week. Claudia still hasn't moved because another person rented the house that she was going to rent but she found another house and should be getting moved here pretty soon. She is still really strong and is learning a lot and her faith is growing a ton, she will be a strong convert. We also have been finding a lot of new people that have a lot of potential to progress so things are looking up right now. And the branch is doing better too, yesterday we had 60 people in church and we had some really good meetings. Yesterday, me and my comp had the opportunity to teach the primary. The primary is really really irreverent here, and there are a lot of kids that are quite a handful so the branch president threw us in there to control them because they have scared away all of the other teachers. When we are in there they stay a lot more reverent but i took a DVD of the ¨living scriptures¨ the book of Mormon stories in cartoon version and they were all hooked on it. Still though after an hour of being in there i was tired and wanted out, I have a lot more respect for all of the primary teachers the ones that put up with me and the other guys from our ward when we were little, you definitely would learn a lot of patience with that kind of calling. Also, on saturday we had a huge service project with all the people here in Barahona and we went down and cleaned the beaches. All the beaches close to the town here in Barahona have a lot of garbage, so Saturday there was a big service project to clean up the beaches and the majority of the people down cleaning were members of the church so it was fun to be able to help out with all of that. The beaches looked a little bit better when we left but still have a little bit of garbage. Also, on Friday i spent the whole day in the chapel, from 9 in the morning until 1015 at night. Our zone had interviews with president and because it was our chapel and our house was closest to the chapel we were the last ones to recieve our interviews. We even had a big activity at the church that started at 7 and got over at 830 ish, and when it got over we still hadnt got our interviews but then at like 945 we got our interviews and finally went home and slept, so it was a pretty long day. But next friday we are going to have a conference with Elder Anderson of the area presidency so i am pretty excited about that. Anyways things are still just rolling right a long here the work is coming forth and we are doing our best to help these people out here. Well I love you all hope everything is going good back home and that you all have a good week this week.

Elder Wadman

Dear Family and Friends,

 

Well it sounds like you guys had quite a fun week this week. WIth the montgomery family party and with the boating out there at pineview, looks like it all was pretty fun. I am glad to hear that you guys had some really good soup and geeze oh sheeze, the little kids are getting so big from the pictures i saw. I saw gabe out there on the tube and the last thing i knew he was way to small to be out there on the tube and now he is just tubing away! So that kind of surprised me. Anyways this week was really good for us we had a lot of opportunities to serve this week. First one of our investigators lives in a really rough area there are a lot of gangsters more or less that live where she lives. For example, something crazy happened to us this last week. First off, Elder Morgan from Idaho, is back in my district. I lived with him for like 5 months back in Enriquillo and he is one of my best buddies in the mission. But on Wednesday i went on an exchange with him and he came over to my area. We went to my investigators house, the one that lives in the rough area, and we started teaching her. We started talking about tithing when we heard some hit the top of the roof and it was people throwing rocks at the police. Then we heard something else hit the top of the roof and it fell down in front of the house and it was a tear gas bomb and it exploded in front of the house and started shooting out the smoke stuff. So she grabbed her kid and took off running out the door, she went to the right and another one exploded in front of her and then she took of running to the left and a guy pulled up with a motorcycle and picked her up and they took off. So me and Elder Morgan looked at each other and we decided we should probably start running because the smoke stuff stings really bad, so we took off running. And we heard 3 more bombs go off behind us, we were about to take a left at the street and we saw the police with there shotguns and other guns coming our way some we decided to run the other way and we got aways from everything. And now we walk past there the people always those mormons are really fast, i guess we were booking it pretty quick out of there haha but dont worry all is good there. Well that investigator happens to be Claudia and she has been trying to move for a long time. She told us that she wants to move before she gets baptized because she separated with her ex husband and he wants her out of the house. So she wants to have everything resolved before she gets baptized, so i finally just asked her what is keeping her from moving and she told us that she need 3000 pesos to move to the other house like 75 dollars and her ex husband doesnt want to help her. So i told her that i didnt want her in that house anymore so i am going to give her the money she needs to finally get out of her house and out of that neighborhood. So that is what is happening with her and then another one of our investigators houses got pretty messed up during the hurricane so we had the opportunity to help him out too. And we have found another investgator and he uses a wheelchair so on sunday we went and passed by his house early in the morning to go and take him to church he lives like 20 minutes from the church, and he has went the whole way all by himself before and i told him to not go solo and that would pass by and take him to church. So we took him to church and then when we were coming back from church i asked him what he was going to eat for lunch and he told me that he doesnt have any food in his house so we went to our house and gave him a big bag of rice and avocados, and then took him home. So it was a really rewarding week to be able to be in the right spot to help some people out here in Barahona. So, the work is coming a long and Claudia will be getting baptized any saturday now we just need to get her moved first. But other than that everything is still just chugging right a long, we are getting a lot done and i am thankful for this opportunity i have to serve and to learn. Anyways, i hope you guys are all doing good and that you have a good week in this upcoming week. I love you all.

 

Elder Wadman

Dear family and friends,

Wow, well it sounds like it was quite the week for Brady this week. I guess he just wanting to get his bike up in the trailer... cant blame him for that haha Its good that that kid came by and found him and that he has got the cast now and that he his doing good now. It also sounds like you guys have a lot of fruits and vegetables from the harvest this year, its good to hear that she produced this year even with all the heat and no rain. So I am glad to hear that things are going good back home and that you all are enjoying life. Well, this week was a pretty awesome week, we saw a lot of progress in the branch. First off, on Saturday president worked with us the whole day, we used half of the day to visit our investigators and half of the day to visit the less active people in the branch. Well on Sunday it payed off, we had about 60 people there and there was 9 priesthood holders and then after church president had a meeting with 5 other priesthood holders that have been reactivated and now we are going to have activities almost everyday of the week. Which will be really good to keep the members motivated and to invite nonmembers so things should keep getting better and better every week. At least the attitude has changed in the branch and the members have even told us that they can feel the difference, so to be honest with you all i was pretty stoked and really happy yesterday to see the progress. Also, we still have Claudia and she is getting prepared for her baptism the 15th she said that she has quit drinking coffee and she is just really excited to get baptized and tonight we are going to watch together forever with her and teach her about temples and eternal families so we are pretty excited with how much changes she has made in her life and really she is going to be really strong when she gets baptized. Anyways, life is just rolling along here we are having a lot of fun and the time is going by too fast the Lord is working miracles here in Barahona and we are hoping that with his help we can see more miracles happen. Anyways I love you all and I hope you have a good week this week.

Elder Wadman