Happy Thanksgiving!!

I didn't even realize that this week was going to be thanksgiving! How crazy. My mind at times still thinks I am back in October and then I realize we are almost hitting December  How crazy! Congratulations to Mitch on his mission call that is so great and i am sure he is so excited! He will have to look out for elder Cameron Deere who is also over there in that mission. Wow how fast the weeks go by I don't even to how to describe how fast the mission is. I am almost hitting 6 months. Does it not go fast for you guys up there? I feel like the world is moving so fast! Ha-ha anyway it was a great week this week and I will try to cover everything that happened. 

So remember how in my letter last week we went looking for a hermano in the ward and the Lord guided us to contact like 3 or 4 important people? So one of them was a 19 year old girl named Jaritza and she was super nice and said we could pass by over to the families house anytime. So we were leaving an apartment the other day and then I told my comp that I felt like we needed to go over to that house. So we touch that house and then we find the mom and dad are there alone. But they let us in and were super nice and then we started to talk to them about the gospel. We come to find out that the Dad is a inactive and has been inactive for 11 years. The whole family used to go to church together when the two kids were really young but then they saw some problems with members in the church and then decided to leave. The dads whole family is super strong in the church, his sister served missions brother bishop. But his wife was never baptized. We taught them the restoration and he began to remember more about everything that he had forgotten about. I have come to find how interesting it is about how less actives forget everything about the church. There have been people who have been to the temple and things and they become inactive and just forget everything! It really is crazy when someone loses the spirit they really lose themselves in this pathway to God. But back to this family we were teaching them and they began to talk about how they have had an empty feeling for a while and when they went to church it was the happiest time of their lives. This family still lives the principles of the gospel but they are worried for their kids who are now 18 and 19 and getting ready to leave the house. The mom had talked about how the things that week had been improving and the moment before we arrived she started to feel a little bit of peace and she said while we were there she felt so good. I know Heavenly Father was preparing this family to be found by us. But the bad part is when we went back the other day apparently the mom and dad had a fight and the dad went up to work in the mines a day early to aviod problems. Satan tries to attack as soon as we begin to make a little bit of progress. 

Our baptismal fechas are doing well. We have a baptism this Saturday of a daughter of a less active that we reactivated. Also we changed Grahams baptism to the 30th of November  He works in the mines 7 por 7 which means he is up there for 7 days and here 7 days. And we didn't want him to feel rushed and we prayed and decided to wait till the 30th. 

We also found another great family who needs the Lord desperately. They are at the point of separation and divorce but just as we arrived the Lord guided us to talk to the daughter one night on the street. The best part is that the ward has started a marriage class recently and the whole family came to church yesterday. We are going to continue to work with them everyday to try and help them change their path. They have a daughter who is 16 her name is Kimberly and two sons. Every single day we try to have contact with these people so they can grow and improve. Because Satan will enter and speak to their minds if we are not careful and giving constant preparation and work like captain Moroni in Alma 50. 

We had a Zone Conference on Friday and it was awesome! The day before our ZLs told us that we needed to prepare a 2 minute talk about asking inspired questions and that missionaries would be selected to give their talks. That morning before we left I told my comp that I had a feeling that we were going to be called to give our talks. Sure enough the first to give the talks were Elder Newman and Elder Tymczyszyn. I talked about Ammon and King Lamoni. How when we ask questions and then with the help of the spirit we can find peoples iceburgs or problems that they need help with. At zone conference we talked about many things but one of the greatest parts was practicing teaching at the end. President Bruce told us that right now we have around 160 or so missionaries and we are going to receive up to 220. It is very necessary because there is so much work in our sector we run like crazy dogs all day long and we just cannot cover everything that needs to be done. Sunday we had 6 investigators in church with 15 less actives. Our attendance is increasing in the ward and we are trying to keep up with our real growth. 

This morning as a zone we went to the beach and played soccer. It was really fun! I hope that you are all doing so well and are doing everything possible to serve the Lord and to prepare his kingdom for his coming. Something cool that president Bruce said was that the church is coming out of the darkness. It is so true. He said that at conference this last session there was over 4000 newspapers and news stuff and then the last conferences there was like 600. The church is growing and every day more I realize how we need to be completely dedicated to the Lord. I love you all so much! Have a wonderful thanksgiving! I am so grateful for a family who supports me in everything that i do! I am grateful to be apart of the building of the Lords kingdom! Have a great week!

Elder Newman