3/4/13

Dearest Family,

 

There were so many e-mails from each of you! It just sealed the deal from coming back from a great week, esspecially a great weekend. Chloe is a little grown up! My goodness! She has a full head of hair! Where did that come from? My favorite video of her is when she got the new kitchen and her mouth just opens super wide. I showed Elder Garner that and he and I just laughed. My favorite video of Olivia is when she is so worn out she is just lying on the ground, falling asleep while eating! Oh it was so cute! It was great to see the pictures of EVERYONE! I love you all so much! I loved the letters and e-mails you all sent and Im going to try to reply to all of them after I share what seems to be, by all of you, some much anticipated miracles.

 

First let me tell you about Tiara. She is from Samoa, and is a member. The family she lives with in the United States however, are not members. She left her immediate family to come her for school and independancy. I met her in the bishop's office one day while my companion and I were speaking with Bishop Dickson about some upcoming events. She knocked on the door and explained that she had just moved into the ward, has a less active brother, a nonmember sister-in-law, and was fearful of becomming inactive. Bishop said "We can help you with that." I met her sister-in-law, who nearly got baptized but got cold feet at the end because she didnt want to give up all her vices. Anywho, that all happened last year. Let me tell you what happened with Tiara last weekend. Tiara, was walking out of church yesterday about 12:00 PM and I asked her.

 

"Did you go to church in the other ward today?" She replied she did, but was a little hesitant. She then explained that she went only to sunday school. I asked her as many questions as I could without sounding like I was interrogatiing her. She finally said

 

"I want to go back home. I don't feel like I have a family here. It just isn't fun going to church."

 

"Tiara," I said, with a smile, "we just aren't going to let this happen. Will you come to Sacrament with us?"

 

I promptly took her up to one of our more outgoing recent converts, Kymberli, and said "Tiara, Kymberli here, needs to be baby sat. She tends to get too roudy during church and I don't want her to interrupt sacrament meeting. If I hear so much as one peep, I will  be back over here and you dont want to see that."

 

They both laughed, and Kymberli looked at Tiara with a suspicious gaze and said, "Oh boy, I would love to see you try to keep me quiet, yes please, sit next to me!"

 

Tiara got up during the testimony meeting and said

 

"I have been making more and more excuses on why I dont need to come to chuch and I have been going inactive. The main excuse I would make is that I just don't have my family here with me. Well with those excuses running through my mind I was leaving church really depressed today and was praying to God saying 'If I really need to be here today, please help me stay.' and then Lovell over there pulls up in his car and gets out and starts playing 21 questions with me! Goodness I felt like an interrogation was happening! Then he just started introducing me to a bunch of random people and I am so glad I stayed!"

 

It was awesome! We were an answer to a prayer!

 

Last night we were in a lesson with one of our investigators, Kayona. We have been so worried about her. She didn't really know if she wanted to get baptized "mormon." But yesterday in her lesson she said "Are you two going to be here this whole month?" and we replied yes. And Elder Garner rebounded with an inspired question.

 

"Why do you ask?" he said,

 

"Because I want... to... be baptized. And I want to do it before you guys get transfered."

 

She was praying the other day and her answer came out of the blue, literally, while she was cooking. It was so cool! She is great! Elder Garner will baptize her on March 30th!

 

Today, however became even better! Kandice, a former investigator who was kind of loosing touch with us and didn't really want to be baptized when we taught her, called us this morning and said that she had a dream that an elder from the ward baptized her and that she wants to be back on date and taking the lessons again and she knows she has a lot to overcome before she can get baptized! We will probably teach her today!

 

Family! I love you so much! Sorry I didnt have any time to respond to you all! But I hope those miracles brighten your day! They sure did mine! I have to go!

 

P.S. can someone get Benji Nelson's home address? He got my e-mail address and has been writing me weekly and I haven't responded so I probably need to write him.

 

Love,

 

--

Elder William Lloyd Lovell
Washington, Seattle Mission
10675 NE 20th Street
Bellevue, Washington 98004