September 30, 2013

Dear Mom and Dad,

          I do have some good news! I'm not being transferred this time around. And also my companion was made district leader. They are dividing the current district almost in half. Right now the district is Albemaral, Kannapolis, and Concord. After the 1st our district will be just Kannapolis and Concord.

I do apologize that I have not been able to send a letter back home. I have been pretty busy and by the time the day is over I am pretty tired. There where a few interesting things that happened last week that I was not able to recap like I wanted to. One of those things I actually is, I got cursed at! It was not as bad as I thought it would be. The guy I could tell was trying to be nice, but he was not doing a very good job. We were seeing less-actives, and we stopped by his house. He had a garage where he builds racing chassis, he also had some nice cars out on his lawn. I was hoping to talk to him about it but that idea quickly went out the window when he said he wanted nothing more to do with the church and told us to get out of his garage.

The next guy we saw was just a weird situation. We met a member, that had no idea that he was a member! He was very nice and said he would be open to hearing the discussions. We are in the process of finding out how his name is on the ward directory, because as far as he know's, he was never baptized. He did say that his mother is a member, so we are talking to the ward clerk about that. 

We have one really good investigator now. He has been to church twice and last night he came over for dinner at the Mitchel's with us. He did have some word of wisdom issues, but he is doing very well with all of it. After the first time we taught him he said he took all his alcohol and dumped it down the drain and this was before we asked him to. Then we challenged him to give up coffee and tea. We went over 2 days later and the thing of coffee he had was gone. We are now on the stop smoking program, which is said to get people to stop smoking, in a week. So far it has been at least 2 days. We will check back in today and hopefully it will be 3, but I'm sure it will be. 

One last thing, ya'll remember the story I told you in my last email. Before we left the Mitchel we got down in prayer and asked Heavenly Father what our work was for that night. The first family we saw, the one that I recounted in the last email, was one name that came up. The second family we saw was another name that was given to us by the spirit of God. We went over there and did not give them a lesson but just sang them We Thank the God for a Prophet and then we left. Yesterday at church the father of that family came up to brother Mitchel and asked him why we came over that night. He told him how we had prayed asking what our work was for the night. The father started to cry and said that, that was exactly what they needed at the time and that, that was an answer to his prayers. 

Anyways, I cant wait to see some of the pictures from the race, and I want to know how you are automating the master caster. Also, I do not recall you thinking of any kind of target system before I left so I am very curious on  what that is all about. Also I have found a scripture that has helped me answer a few questions I have had. It can be found in D and C 130 if ya'll want to read it. There was also a good ensign article I read that you might like. It is in the 1980 September issue called Gospel and Science or something like that. I believe it was the last article in that issue. I love ya'll and cant wait to hear from you.

Love,

       Elder Matthew Pena