Im In love With The Gospel! Baptisms! We Got Baptisms!

Hello!! 

Wow!! The last email i sent was on Wednesday but it feels like it was 2 weeks ago! 

Soooo much great stuff is happening Here!

Saturday we had a blizzard and it snowed A LOT!! Then Sunday morning it rained! So we thought for sure the stake would cancel church! But we held church! And Miraculously Most of the Branch came! We were so happy because after the block we had a baptism!!! You havent herd of them because they were mostly the other east orange elders investigators but we taught and interacted with them a lot! Such an amazing family!  

Family of 3!! (from right to left) Sister Marilyn and her 2 Boys William and James. Funniest kids ever and they really love us! My companion Baptized James and Elder Ragma Baptized William.

The Spirit was so strong and they were so happy to be baptized as a family! Marilyn is an amazing woman! Single mother Going in and out of being out and of a job to being homeless and having to take care of her two sons! 

I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Its amazing how strong the spirit can be especially when you are just talking about it! These two Boys are going to grow up to be Amazing missionaries!

So happy for them! 

Sadrac came to church and to the baptism as well! He said he got cold feet last week because his family and friends pressuring him a lot to not get baptized. After he saw the baptism and felt how strong the spirit can be. He was set! After the baptism i had the zone leaders hurry and Interview him for his baptism while we had him there! President Caycho, President Taggart's (our mission Pres.) Councilor came to the baptism and had a meeting with us and did some training's with him to strengthen our branch! Such a great suday!!

This morning we had breakfast with Sadrac and he told us that he said to his own Mother! (to whom he is very close with) " Im going to do me because Salvation is personal". I was like wow!?! You said that to your mom!? So he just keeps getting more and more excited!! Hes an amazing man!

Well thats about it for as much as i can put for this week! Transfers are coming up next week, im super nervous! So along with praying for Sadrac you need to pray for me to stay in East Orange!! hahah no but really doe.. 

Love you all!! Have a Blessed week!!

-Elder Fotu  

Winter Is Here!!

Soooo its cold... thats all im gonna say about the weather lately.. smh

Anyways! Yet another Baptism has slipped through our hands this past week.. Sadrac got super busy and had a bunch of family stuff this past week and was not Baptized. But will be soon!

Our branch is super Excited about the growth that is going on here! Its amazing what the Lord has blessed us with here! We met with one of our recently re-activated Members and said they want to prepare to go too the temple and be sealed!! So we are pumped because we get to go with them!! We still need to set a date but it will be soon! 

This week flew by though!! We are coming to the close of the transfer! We had interviews with president and he told me that he wants to keep me in East Orange for even longer!! Im so exited because i want to continue to to see the growth thats here! But we will see what the Lord wants. 

Something really cool that happened though... Don't know if you'll remember but we had an investigator named Ronald awhile back and kinda lost contact with him... he called us on monday and told us he was in the hospital and wanted us to come see him! So we ran to the hospital in Newark! Talked with him, hes really sick so pray for him and we are going to check up on him today. It was great to get back in contact with him. While we were there the guy that was cleaning his room herd that we were talking about Jesus Christ and started Quoting scriptures to us and said he really wanted to meet up with us, so we got his info and met with him the next day. His name is Rrajon and is one of the coolest/funniest dudes i've ever met! Really in tune with what we had to say and is really interested. Told us that he knew he was cleaning that Hospital room when we were in there, for a reason.

I have a testimony that Everything happens for a reason. Even sometimes bad things. I got kinda discouraged when Sadrac didn't get baptized. There are somethings i need to change but im Prepared to do better this week! One thing I love most about the mission is that we have a new week after a bad one to do better! 

Sorry kinda short but dont have much time! Will probably be more easy to email when we get ipads next transfer ;) 

I hope and pray everyone has a GREAT week!! Thank you SO MUCH for your prayers!! 

Love You All!! Talk to ya Next week!! 

-Elder Fotu

Pics:

Elder Laceste and I freezing our buns off!!

Ate some Philipino Food!! Its called Balot, Its a half developed duck egg!! Yummy:)

HEYY!!

Sooo this week went by fast but was kinda slow...

Some how we were still able to pull of 20 lessons though! 

Like they say days turn into weeks and weeks turn into days on

a mission! I cant believe ive already been out 5 months!! Its cray cray!!

Haha yet im still in the same area! Ha but if i could i would stay here in East Orange

 another 6 months! I love it Herr In Da Hood! 

Anyways... We are still meeting with Sadrac and

 getting ready for his Baptism Next Sunday!!

We're so flippin excited for him and to make it

 better he is even more excited than us! 

He is burning  through the Book of Mormon, and is super into the

 Gospel Library app he is getting way ahead of what we are teaching

him! He said he reads in the Gospel Library more than he reads his 

business books! He came to me on sunday and showed 

me that he found all of our teaching pamphlets on

the app and says: "See I Dont Need You Fotu!" 

Haha at first he was kinda thinking that he wouldn't be ready

for next week but now he's getting to confident and soon im 

gonna have to knock him out! hahah jk but we are meeting 

with him on wednesday and he's always wanting to meet at 

Restaurants so he can buy us food! so not really helping with 

my belt problem! hahah but last time we 

met with him he said "Guys before we start i want to ask 

Elder Ragma something (we teach him together with the other

 East Orange Elders)." he asked "did you have a girlfriend back home?" 

Elder Ragma said "yes" and he goes "so you just left her?" hahah we

 all laughed and Elder Ragma said "yep!". He then said " I dont know 

if i could do that man! Thats Cruel!" hahaha He always tells us he has a 

lot of respect for us as missionaries because we leave everything for 

the Lords Work. He compared us to other religions and he said that what he likes

most about our church is that we are so dedicated to service all over the world! 

I am beyond Happy for this man and cant wait for him to receive so many blessings 

from entering into the Kingdom of God on the earth today!! 

Ha ill end on a funny story that i forgot to tell last week! So Elder Allred the Nub that Elder Regma is training Was backing out of our Branch mission leaders drivway on like his first day in the mission and in front of the car was a fence and behind the fence our branch mission leader Bro. Martinez was standing there waving to us and Elder Allred thought he had the car in reverse but it was in dreive and he smashed the fence and It scared the heck out of Bro MArtinez and he had to jump out of the way! hahaha 

-Elder Fotu   

     

 

Do You Wanna Build A Snow Maaaannn!?

WHATT UUUPP HOMIES!!! Well to start off its been snowing non-stop this week! So its super cold! But one of the good things about it is that there a lot of old people on our street that need help shoveling snow so it gives us plenty of service opportunities! 

Anyways this week was good and bad... David was not Baptized... I dont really wanna go into it because ill just get more mad/sad about it but his friends and family from the pentecostal church that he grew up in are really trying to pull him the other way. He doesn't really know when or if he wants to get baptized anymore... But we will continue to teach and Love him! He's so prepared but he just doesn't know it yet... Keep him in your prayers! 

The Lord Blesses us but i guess its not always the way we want Him to.

Im not going to go into much detail but We have another Baptism coming up!! His name is Sadrac, he's Haitian and is Amazing! Haha I know im kinda just letting you know out of nowhere but he kinda of just come out of nowhere and now is getting prepared to be baptized! Haha when he first came to church he just soaked all of the information up and this last sunday he showed me that he had downloaded the gospel library app and is just reading so much! He said "This thing is amazing ,it has everything on it!!". Ill tell you more about his story and how he found the church next week. But we are Flippin Pumped! Pray for him!

   

This is the Crew! Elder Ragma (far left) is from the Philippines and he is Training Elder Allred (middle left) hes from Syracuse UT and they are the other East Orange Elders so we are always with them! Then theres My Companion Elder Laceste also from the Philippines. The  Philipinoes made us some chicken and rice for lunch the other day, they call it Adobo... Its really good though! 

Elder Laceste is good at Chess (like all Philipinoes) and always wants me to play him but im horrible at chess so we just play checkers hahah. But we were playing the other night before we went to bed and ive gotten pretty good at it but ive realized that the key to the game is knowing what your going to do 2 or three steps ahead. Its a really simple game but it made me think about how in the mission and in life we should always have a plan! If we play just taking random moves were going to lose. But the great thing about the game is that if we mess up and lose we can always play another game and have a fresh new start to learn from our mistakes and do better in the next game.

I hope that we can all plan ahead to make the best of our time and Decisions in Life and missions! 

Sorry if this letter is a little crazy and random but know that I Love and miss you all! until next week! 

-Elder Fotu        

Another week of Blessings!!

Hello Everyone!! Sorry for not being able to email last week due to MLK and Transfers.

Well to start out i got a new Companion!! His name is Elder Laceste! Hes from the Philippines and Is the funniest little guy ever! hahaha Super hard working though! He is my 3rd companion in this area! I been here in East Orange and Newark for a while now... Probably my last transfer here.

So  these past 2 weeks have been Spiritually SUPER high! 2 Sundays ago we got hit with an ice storm so church was cancelled, along with David's Baptism! So we had to wait until yesterday to Baptize him... Saturday night David called us and told us he had some questions about what we believed and that he wanted to postpone the baptism...I was so sad/mad!

We have been working so hard on him and he was progressing so good and overcome so many things! I told him to at least come to sacrament meeting yesterday. I prayed all night for him and Decided to fast for him. Yesterday morning he called us and started asking us more questions. I told him that the only one he should be asking these questions is God and i challenged him to pray right after he hung up the phone. He showed up to sacrament late but i was so happy he made it! He said he was going to leave after the meeting. When sacrament was over he said "Well i guess i can stay for gospel principals class.." hahah we teach the gospel principals for second hour! And the lesson just so happened to be about Adam and Eve which he had had questions about!!! In the class we had 3 investigators and a Brother who was previously a bishop, Sister Vause our senior missionary and another member to help out with the lesson. After Sunday school sister Vause  asked the other elders and I if we could give one of the Other elders in our branches Investigators a blessing. She was having some pain in her back. We asked her who she wanted to give her the blessing and she pointed to me. As we were about to give the blessing David saw us from the hall and walked into the room and sat down. I gave the Blessing and the sister stood up and said "I already feel better!" David joined us for elders Quorum. The Lesson was on Prayer. There was so much said in that lesson that brought the spirit into the room. After church we met with David and answered more of his Questions and found out that one of his friends told him that he should not get baptized and showed him where he could find some anti-Mormon literature on the Internet. We told him that he can listen to what his friend and other people say, but the the only one he should trust is God, and that he needs to pray. last night we were eating dinner at one of our members homes and David called. He said that he is for sure getting Baptized this next Sunday!!

Tears filled my eyes last night as i thanked Heavenly Father for answering my prayers. He provided us with so much to help David. But the Most important thing He gave us was the Spirit. I know that he is the true converter, that no one can know that the things that we teach are true without the spirit. I know that Through Fasting and Prayer we can receive Blessings, answers and Help from our Heavenly Father. I cant Express to you in words how Grateful I am Right now!

PLEASE Pray for David! I know for a fact that Satan will send him more distractions between now and his Baptism.

I Love you All!! I Hope and pray for your safety.

Until Next Week!

-Elder Fotu