Dear Family,
Time passes much too fast. I honestly feel like I email y'all every day. Thanks for all the emails this week and the pictures and your prayers. I am grateful for your love and support. I forgot to mention the other week that every time I do a baptismal interview, I show the investigator a picture of the family. They all love it and it helps them to understand who I am a little better.
Well, our new companion is Elder Woolstenhulme. He is from Driggs, Idaho. He is a really good missionary. He was in the Marines before his mission and will return afterwards. He is great fun to have and brings a powerful testimony and Spirit with him. In fact, in his second lesson, he extended a baptismal date to one of our investigators named Tomas for March 30, and Tomas accepted! Tomas is pretty fun to work with. He really wants to feel the Holy Ghost and thus has desires to be baptized and read in the Book of Mormon. Please pray for him.
Another thing that is fun is that Elder Woolstenhulme knows some Portugese from the MTC and so we are talking all the time and comparing the languages. During language study we practice teaching in our own languages out of Preach My Gospel.
Transfer Meeting was crazy. There were 34 new missionaries in the mission and President Ashton created 17 three-some companionships. There is one elder that is training two new missionaries, opening an area, on a bike, and a Zone Leader. That sounds like fun to me! We found out during Transfer Meeting that we were losing the car and the Clear Lake 2nd Ward to a trio of sisters. They also kicked us out of our apartment temporarily. So we came home from the meeting moved all our stuff to the Spanish elders that live in our complex and cleaned and then moved the sisters in. We will move back this Friday when the Sister's apartment is ready but until then we are enjoying the sleep over of 5 missionaries in one tiny apartment.
So once again I come back to the Sacrament. I was having a really hard time this week with all the changes and trying to figure out how to work in a threesome and so on. I was fasting to know the Lord's will. I just wanted to know what He wanted me to do so I can become who He wants me to be. After the Sacrament, the first two testimonies were from returned missionaries who spoke of mission experiences when they felt lonely and discouraged and then sharing how the Lord manifested His love for them. As I listened the Spirit enveloped me and I once again understood the term "being encircled about eternally in the arms of His love". I cannot fully express the comfort that joy and peace I then felt but I am grateful to know that I have a Heavenly Father who is aware of me and who will always come to the rescue of those who are down-trodden.
Yesterday we were about to leave church and President Reeves (our stake president) asked if we could accompany him and his son to some of their home teaching appointments. We did so happily and our first visit was to Sister Naranz. She used to be very active and her husband was the superstar of the spanish members in this area back in the day. He died of cancer in the mid 90's and she hasn't gone back to church since because it reminds her too much of him. We spoke with her of the blessings of the Gospel and the temple and then she asked me to give her a blessing. That was powerful. As God spoke through me and expressed His love for one of His special daughters, I again felt the same sweet Spirit of earlier that day.
I am so grateful for this work. Each and every experience is a joy. I love you all and pray for you often.
Love,
Elder Case
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