Called to serve the FLORIDA ORLANDO MISSION: Week #25

Good morning everyone!

This past six weeks I have learned a lot. I have been able to come even closer to my savior and my Heavenly Father. I have been able to recognize the prompting of the spirit more which I have been striving to do every day. I'm sad to say that I am leaving New Smyrna Beach. I'm going to miss this ward and the area and being with Elder Richards. He's just amazing. He has helped me a lot with not getting down on myself, which is hard not to do when you aren't seeing success. He's helped me to talk more to people. One thing that helped me is that we made a bet to see who would start the most conversations. So what we did is that anyone that walked past us or around us we would say hi to them or ask them how there day is going and we would see who would be the first one to say hi. It got pretty intense. However, my new area is......Apopka!! Which is in the Lessburg stake. So I'm heading sorta close to where my first area was. The cool thing about it is that my new companion is a Spanish Elder. So I probably will have the opportunity to do some Spanish work. This was the first area that my MTC companion, Elder Hales, came too. So super cool.

So my week was amazing. I think it was our best week. So staring off the week on Monday we got a call from a member saying that there is a less active member that they want us to meet. He is the sweetest, kindest, politest man you could ever meet. So we ended our p-day early so we could go meet him. The spirit was super strong when we meet with him. He's been a member for a long time and he said he doesn't want to feel empty anymore. There were a couple concerns he had but there not a problem. Tuesday we got to do some service for a member, Brother Jenkins, which was awesome. After that we got to see a handful of people. We finally got to see a less active member that we have been trying to see but every time we go by he's not home. Backstory to this is that we got a text from the bishop telling us that we should go see him that afternoon. It was awesome cause we got to meet him and he was wondering what happened to us cause we haven't been by. So cool to see that he wants us to come over. We then got to meet a media referral that we got that day. This guy is a super nice guy and he's been meeting with the missionaries for a long time while he was living in New Hampshire. He's been busy taking care of his mother which has some health problems so he needs a couple week before we could start coming over.

Wednesday we got to meet an investigator again. It seems like the times we meet with him just get better and better. When we meet with him this time we wanted to center our focus of Jesus Christ. We showed him the hallelujah video and asked him what his thoughts and feelings were. He then shared his thoughts and feeling about organized religion and he said he told us this that past couple times we have been there but I don't remember him telling us that. At that I point I knew that we weren't listening to him and following the spirit. By the end of the lesson I could feel the spirit and could see a difference in how he felt as well. On Thursday we got to meet with another investigator and her family. We got to meet with them when we first got her but haven't been able to meet with them since. They came to church a lot and were very active but then just stopped coming. So don't really know why but we showed the hallelujah video and talked about the Jesus Christ. We asked them this question; If you could describe Jesus Christ in one word what would it be. As we were talking about this immediately the spirit came in and I could feel it. It was awesome. Friday had weekly planing and then Saturday wasn't too great. There wasn't a lot of people that we could see. Then Sunday was awesome. We got to meet a wonderful lady. The members that called us to meet with another investigator called us again to meet her and her family. We got to eat dinner with them and talked about a lot of things. One of the family members brought out a guitar and Elder Richards started playing and we all started singing. It was awesome. Before we left she wanted us to share our testimonies with them. It was awesome. Then this morning we got a text from the members that brought us over there thanking us cause they were very worried about bring us over cause past
missionaries have been to pushy. That is exactly was Elder Richards and I wanted to accomplish in this area. The trust of members. That is the most important thing cause if the members don't trust you and they won't send you to there friends or family.

I want you all to know that I know that Jesus Christ lives. He suffer for us cause he loves us and he wanted us to be able to return to him and our Heavenly Father. He walked a very long a lonely path so that we wouldn't walk it alone. He is always by our side wither we know it or not. Ready to catch us when we fall and wants to pick us up. I'm so grateful to be here in Florida to share this wonderful, simple, and profound gospel of Jesus Christ. I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week!!

Elder Pearson
Florida Orlando Mission
10502 Satellite Blvd.
Orlando, FL 32837