3/18/13

HEY Family and Friends!

Heres the thing. Texas is so hot! and its only March and it is already
78 + degrees outside! i cannot imagine it being 30 + degrees outside
in the summer. Its bad, i always feel so nasty walking around with
this humidity its rough but 21 more months of it :)

It was a great week and here is the story why.

The first week that i got here we met a family, the stewart family.
Rose and RL and their four kids Arianna 17, Davian 15, Destiny 13 and
Seth 4. ( Yes they are African American )
Anyways we said hello to them and that we wanted to stop by and talk
to them. They said to come back on a day that they werent busy. That
was in Jan. So we stopped by almost every other day without fail to
teach them and they always said to come at another time, the mom was
in the bath, dad was at work, cooking dinner every kind of excuse that
someone could give they would give us. It came to a point where i
thought that we needed to stop visiting them, and that they were not
ready for the gospel. But we just kept trying. Finally Tuesday of last
week, we called Rose and she said that we could stop by tuesday at 12
the kids will be home and we can have a bible study! ( i love the
poeple here in texas they call what we do bible study haha ) Anyways
so we finally got in the house and formally met the kids and their
mother, the dad RL was not home. She told us that she NEVER lets
anyone into their home and she finally decided to let us in because
she knew we were not gonna stop till she did haha.
After we got to know their family we taught them the restoration. The
spirit was there and they were all listening even the youngest who is
4. We gave all the kids a book of mormon and asked them to read and
pray about it. They said they would and then we asked them to be
baptized and they said yes to march 30th!!
Rose wanted us to come back everyday to have a bible study with them
and thats what we did! Tuesday through Friday we met with them and
taught them the gospel. They loved it so much! and we asked Rose on
friday if she prayed and read, she said yes and that a feeling of
peace came to here and told her this book was true. I just about cried
when she said that, and she told us she was looking forward to her
baptism with her kids. And her kids are so nice and polite and they
read and talk to us about what they had learned! Saturday we invited
them to a church tour, so they could know what to expect on sunday
when they come to church. When we walked into the chapel and sat down
and talked about the sacrament, the spirit was there, you could feel
it and Rose said she felt it. After we walked around we went to the
primary room and Rose and the kids sat down we asked how they felt,
everyone said good and Rose looked at us and said that she felt like
she was " home " I died when she said that i got so happy knowing that
they know this is true and that they could have this peace with them
all the time. The only person missing from this happiness was RL, the
father. He is always busy working so he has not had the change to
come.
Rose and the kids came to church on sunday and LOVED it and said she
was going to come back next week with her FIANCE!
When she said that my heart dropped! I guess Rose and RL are not married?
And that Rose has three kids from another marriage and one with RL.
Elder Wilson and i was shocked! we thought that they were a family all
this time! haha
So we are meeting with her tomorrow and going to discuss this more
intently and see whats going on and if we can fix this so she can get
baptized haha.

Nonetheless i am so grateful for Heavenly Father softening their
hearts, and finding us a family. We have prayed to bring a family the
gospel every night this month and we finally found one, with a little
bump in the road. I think we can get through this! Sorry if the story
is kind of jumpy.

So thats been the most exciting thing about this week, other than that
everything is going well, drinking more water then i ever have but
thats about it!
Oh and we met this 15 year old girl walking around, she looked much
older for her age and we thought we would give her a card. And she
freaked out because she thought i looked just like jacob black and she
asked if she could have a hug! She followed us around for awhile after
i said no but then she would not let go of my hand when i shook it to
say good bye. Crazy kids!

Love and miss you all!!!

Love
Elder Boettcher

P.S. The Stewart family calls me Jacob because for the life of them
they cannot pernounce Boettcher. HAHAHA