I Will Go and Do : Week 54: Lame Bull?

Hey everyone! This week I had my first "last" as I had my last 4th of July in the mission field. With that in mind, I have had a great desire to keep learning and growing as much as I can while I am on my mission. We were able to pick up some fun new investigators this week and we are really seeing some great progress in those that we are working with. Amherst is a great area and I'm excited to be here.

Some big news from Warwick: Lydia, the last investigator we were able to pick up while I was there is going to be baptized this upcoming Saturday (July 15th)! I was able to teach her two times. She has been progressing so well and so quickly and I was very excited to here about her baptism.

Here in Amherst, we have some great and exciting things coming up as well. Our investigator, Amanda, came to church for the second time this week and she is looking on track for her baptismal date of July 22nd. It has been so great to teach her because she has had a ton of trials and is now beginning to understand the reasons for them (which is no small task for anyone). This week we were also able to set a baptismal date with our new investigator, Shyam. He is such a great kid and I love teaching him. He is pretty busy so it's hard to meet with him, but hopefully all will continue to go well.

One of the great stories we have this week came from some media referrals we received. A media referral is when somebody orders a Bible or Book of Mormon and we are notified to deliver it to them. On Thursday, we received two media referrals, one for a man named Lame Bull and another for a woman named Rising Moon. At first Elder Little and I thought that somebody was playing a prank on us. But sure enough when we pulled up to the home of the address we received, there was a woman in the driveway all decked out in Native American clothing. We started talking to her and she said that some sister missionaries spoke to her and her husband in a Dunkin Donuts in New Hampshire. She told us that she was really interested in learning more about what we believe. She said her husband wasn't too interested but we set up an appointment with her for Sunday! On Sunday, we taught her the Restoration at a Dunkin Donuts and she loved it! She told us that she grew up Episcopal and stopped going to church because she wasn't learning anything new. She was excited to begin reading the Book of Mormon and learn new things from us. She is not sure if she is Native American because she was adopted, but her husband is 100% Cheyenne Indian. They make and sell genuine clothing and jewelry for a living. She was very fun to teach and we are excited to see where things will go!

Another new and interesting investigator we picked up this week was Al. Al was taught by missionaries before about a year ago. He doesn't really have a home and for the most part lives behind the local grocery store. He's a great guy and has been to church many, many times. A member we had dinner with invited him over and he told us that he has been thinking about being baptized. We are going to meet with him this week and get things going on him being baptized! I'll be sure to let you all know what happens.

Funny story from this week: Our ward had a super fun BBQ for the 4th of July and we were able to have two investigators come! Amanda and Bob. Apparently, they new each other previously because they lived in the same apartment complex. While we were watching some fireworks, Bob asked Amanda out! One of our investigators asked out the other investigator, it was so weird !!!! She shut him down and then he leaned over to Elder Little and said, "I bet you'd have a better chance". It was so funny, we were all laughing.

Last thing, today for p-day, we were able to go to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass! It was a lot of fun and Elder Little and I even got our name tags signed by former NBA player, Sean Elliot. When he was signing our tags, he asked, "How's the mission going?" which was pretty sweet! He's from Arizona so he probably know a little about the church. Well it's been a great week and we are seeing exciting things happening. I'm so thankful to be a missionary and to be in the Lord's service. I'm very grateful to live in a country that has been prepared by the hands of God to be a free land so that I can worship Him. We are all so very blessed and I invite you all to count your blessings this week! Love ya!

Love,
Elder Gutierrez