The Power of Prayer

Hey Family!

Thank you for your prayers. I knew before I saw any emails that you have been praying for us to find investigators because we found them. I am so grateful for the power of prayer and for the opportunity to unite our faith through prayer.

The first picture shows our apartment after we spent five or six hours cleaning. We got bed bugs. The whole mission has been getting them. So we spent all day Monday and Tuesday cleaning and vacuuming every surface in our apartment. They are gone now though and life goes on. The rainbow was just the other day. It has been raining a lot, which cools things off, so we love it!

We have been blessed by your prayers. We have three new investigators that I think will all progress to baptism within the next month or two. I will share two experiences with you. The first happened when trying to contact a referral. Elder Barajas saw someone that he knew and asked if he had time to teach him right then. He said yes so we did. That was Thursday. He then came to the Elders Quorum BBQ Saturday night, after which we gave him a church tour. The Spirit was very powerful as we sat in the chapel and bore testimony of baptism and the Sacrament. He couldn't come to church because of work, but he is awesome. Please pray for him. His name is Junius. He needs prayers right now as we help him overcome an addiction.

The other story was last night. There was another referral that we were contacting. It was from Salt Lake. They text us referrals all the time and we have to contact them and report on it. We had already stopped by Gerald's house four or five times and he was never home. He works from the morning till 9 or 10 at night. He would never answer his phone either. It was about 8:30 and raining last night, we were a few minutes away from his house and didn't know what to do since everything else had fallen through. I pulled out my planner and was flipping through it and saw his name. We decided that we would stop by but that if he wasn't there we were giving up and reporting that he wasn't possible to contact. We knocked on the door and his son answered. We asked if Gerald was home. He came to the door, saw that we were wet and it was raining, and invited us in.

We talked to him a little bit and got to know him. Elder Barajas offered a very powerful prayer and then I began talking. I was about to the start the Restoration which starts with "God is our loving Heavenly Father" and then goes to "the Gospel blesses families". But instead I found myself talking about prayer. I had no idea what I was saying, but I bore testimony of prayer and then asked what prayer meant to him. He then explained that he had attended a church once that prayed like us. He said it was in Mexico (the same place that Elder Barajas' parents are from) and said the name was Latter-day Saints. He asked if we had heard of it. We explained again who we were. He then told us that when he attended our church, he felt overwhelming peace and happiness (we explained the Holy Ghost and the fruits of the Spirit as found in 1 Corinthians). He told us that he was about to get baptized but then he moved to the United States. Talk about a prepared investigator. It was a wonderful lesson that was guided by the Spirit. Thank you for your prayers. I know that without them we would not have found Gerald. Please pray for him to. We explained the Book of Mormon and he asked for a reading assignment. He promised to come to church next week and asked if we could teach him again.

I know that this is the work of the Lord. I have born my testimony hundreds of times about Joseph Smith. I know better than every that he is a prophet of God and that he was called by God to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth once again.

I love you all. Thank you for your prayers. I pray for you often.

Love,

Elder Case