2012 Sept. 17 No Baptism after all

False alarm A. isn't getting baptized this week.

2012 Sept 12 1st Baptism date!

Dear everybody, 

  Just a quick note. A. has a baptism date. :) Hurray. She is so awesome. She choose the 22nd of Sept. It might need to be moved to a bit later, she is at the end of her probation, but she is definitely there! She decided that she needed to do what she wanted to do. We are so happy for her! She decided to have my companion Elder Durrat, baptize her. She also asked me to confirm her the following Sunday. Its a thrillin' experience. It will be awesome. Now on to continuing in missionary
work.

Address might change. The branch/stake boundaries are changing, no more Oak Grove branch. 6 wards are moving to 4 wards. I don't know if I'll be staying here or going where Pres. Perry (The Lord) wants me to go, I'll update you on that as soon as possible. Zone meeting is on Thursday so I might know then, or I might know Sunday at special stake conference. I know as much as you do. Member involvement ain't that great here...but we'll be  dissolved into a ward soon, but I might be gone. Investigators are doing fine, just waiting on living situations and other things to get baptized.

    Thanks for the prayers, they have helped everyone out here. It means alot. 

Elder Meyerink

2012 Sept Armed Robbery of family we were teaching

2012 Sept 2 Massive storm from Hurricane

  Thanks for the prayers everyone.

       All goes semi-well here. Investigators are pretty awesome. The biggest problem in the Ghetto is the law of chastity, either not married yet, or taking in someone who has nowhere else to live. This is true in 5/6 of our investigators. But they are ready other than that. One of them, D. is waiting for a marriage date. He is on lesson two: Plan of Salvation. He has a fiancé named A. who has been talking to the missionaries for a few months now and is taking the lessons again with him. They have a little six-month old named A.. He is so much fun. They are a family that loves and wants to be a family for a very long time.

  Membership fellowship is the biggest problem here though. We have one of the biggest teaching pools in the mission, but our less-active list is three times the size of the avg. congregation. Don't get me wrong, the members are awesome, but they need to work with us just a bit harder to keep new members. But, just like water on a ducks back, we find other people to teach and pray that they will be good members with a willing heart to serve.

  Finding is a little hard. Everyone, EVERYONE, loves Jesus. Doesn't mean they will keep appointments or commitments, they just let us in to talk about Jesus. Its hard to find the right ones, but we can do it.

  In other news, the accent goes well, ya'll better be scared when I get back " with da accent of da ghetto skreets,(Yes, they say skreet instead of street)."
     Elder Durrant and I caught a frog last night, named it Hopper, put it in the crock-pot with some water and let it swim around. We let it go, just wanted to play with it for a while, it was cool.
    We got caught it a MASSIVE rain/lighting/thunder storm from the fall-out of the hurricane. We were biking, it started to drizzle, the pour, then down pour, then well, monsoon rain. Not to mention flashes of giga-watts of electricity about half a block down with the instantaneous CRACK! of the thunder, scared us literally to death. Pulled over, said a prayer, which I couldn't hear half of do to lightning, and got home safely.

  Got to go, talk to ya'll later

  Elder Meyerink

 He added in his cassette recording sent home to us that the lightening and thunder sounds both were at the same time and that they could see them striking in their block.  So grateful for blessings of prayer and protection for our missionaries!! Note fro a friend who lives on the east coast is that the rain from these storms is WARM... not cold like here in the west.