April 25, 2011

Dear Family:

Hey everyone!!!! How’s it going? How is everyone doing? What’s new? Sounds like everything is going great back home!

That’s great about Hunter’s farewell! I was thinking about it all day! I was thinking about who would be there and all the good old times!

So happy late Easter to everyone! Yesterday we only had two adults and two children come to church, and they all came late, in the Sunday school hour! I blessed the sacrament and gave a talk on the Atonement, what occurred and why it was important. But for sacrament it was just us so yeah J Christmas and Easter are the two days that everyone goes to there church no matter what! So this past weekend was a little harder to teach and contact because you had Good Friday, and then church on Saturday and Sunday so it was a little tricky!

Elder Speechly and I have also really been thinking and talking about the investigators we currently have, and have decided that this week we would be dropping lots of them. We are keeping about 7 who are truly progressing and have a great prospect of getting baptized, but the rest we are dropping. We are working in a part of Fiapre called Berlin Top, but we are thinking that we are going to try a new area and just go to Berlin Top every other day to teach those people. We really need to be lead to the people who are going to progress and we still need to find a family for the goal. I am all done with the goal, and Elder Speechly could be if the family he taught in his old are goes to the temple, but their temple date is very close to the day the goal is to be completed so we are searching for a family just in case… But we really need to find those people who are going to be the foundation of the church here in Fiapre! I continue to put my trust in God and know that He will provide the way for us!

Kenneth, our investigator, in his 20’s and is a semi-pro futboler, continues to be a really solid guy. He even came and played futbol with us for our P-day activity! I believe that he will be baptized some time in the near future! He loves the things we teach, is incredibly humble, and would be a great future leader.

We also received a referral from one of our investigators this past week , and it has turned out to be a great one. Her name is Lorene; she is young 19, and is learning with her older sister. They are Baptist and as we have been learning she has seen the similarities from her church to ours. Even when we first taught her and her sister they had a stack of hymn books from their church. We started to look through them and found that they have a lot of the same hymns (how firm a foundation, come though fount, sunshine in the soul, count your blessings) it was so cool so we sang songs and had a great lesson. We have taught them through the BOM so we shall see if they continue to progress.

We also have been teaching one of our investigators who we have had since we first came. She is in her early 30’s. She is a pretty hard core Methodist, but we have seen that she is beginning to believe our church more and more. We taught her the importance of baptism and by the correct authority. She told us about how she had already been baptized, but we encouraged her to pray. It was a very powerful lesson! We had planned to meet with again on Friday, and she called us Friday morning and said she was going to prepare fufu for the lesson. We thought this was a good sign. We went to the lesson and ate delicious fufu, I love fufu by the way!, and then we asked her how her prayer had went. She said she believes the things we have taught her. But she still believes that her pastor has the priesthood and that she was baptized by the correct power. We taught about the priesthood again and helped her to see that only our church has that power. IT was again a powerful lesson and it seemed like the message was beginning to set in, but we told her to pray so tomorrow we shall see…

I am continuing to read the Bible and am in 2 kings and am reading Jesus the Christ and am in chapter 20. I just finished reading about the various parables and what they represent. I especially loved the two about the man who finds the kingdom of god in the field, and the one about the kingdom of god is like the pearl. That is how we must be. We must be ready to sacrifice anything and everything for the Lord and the Church. For me, I am giving these two years of my life to the Lord, but not just these two years, my whole life. Everything I do is for Him! He gave me this chance to come to earth, gave me a body, gave me a wonderful family, gave me everything, this is all He asks in return.

Well I had better go! Know that I love you all so much and am grateful for the love and support! These two years are not just for the Lord, but for you as well! Pray for me this week as we are searching for new investigators! Thanks!

Love your Son and Brother

Elder Ryan S. Alba