ELDER OLDROYD: 15 months Down….

Elder’s Oldroyd and Shin

Everyone in this area, is a Steelers fan I swear! We are closer to Pittsburg than Cleveland. Everyone represents with their flags, license plates, hoodies, you name it. It was hilarious to see what happened when the Browns beat them! Even though being a missionary and not being able to watch t.v. you would be surprised how much info you can get from people just by talking to them. It’s my favorite thing to do when we meet someone new. You talk to them about what they love and hold dear for a little bit and then you share what you love and hold dear. That being the Gospel. It’s really neat haha, you can relate the Gospel to anything and everything.

It didn’t even seem like Halloween down here haha. A funny thing that they do here, is that they move their trick-or-treating to the day before (Thursday) because we have Friday night football going on haha. They are super into their football down here it’s awesome.

I can’t wait any longer to tell you about the things that happened this week. On Thursday night we were going to a less active’s house who we have actually been bringing back to church, it’s amazing. His name is Dave. It was dark outside, we knocked on his door and he didn’t answer. Right before we were going to turn around back to the truck, a van honked at us. We started walking towards the van thinking we parked in its spot. Which we did haha. But the lady rolls the window down and in a Mexican accent the first thing she says is “Are you Elders?” “Well, Yes we are” we said with kind of a confused look on our faces. We asked “how do you know we are Elders?” haha “Nobody knows we are Elders.” She gets a huge smile on her face and starts telling us with her broken English that she is a member and hasn’t been able to find the church in over a year. She was just barely moving into this duplex next door to Dave. The first day she moves to Lisbon she runs into the missionaries. She hasn’t been able to see missionaries for over a year! How amazing is that? You know that’s Heavenly Father guiding all of us to the right place. Well she is from Mexico, she moved to Texas, then to North Carolina, then to Salem Ohio and now to Lisbon. She has been homeless for quite some time. She and her son were living in her van. She would make Mexican food and sell it to the people working the oil rigs. But got run out by some legal people because she didn’t have a license to do that. She had to leave her son in Salem and she got put into basically a homeless house, to where she is now. Get this, not knowing her son (Juan) is actually living with a less active member in Salem that is the Alliance Ward boundaries. We had a very neat visit and asked if we could come back Saturday. Of course she said yes. We took Brother Clark, who has been sending you pictures and videos. He went to the Dominican Republic on his mission and speaks great Spanish still! They talked Spanish to each other like the whole time haha. I was able to pick up bits and pieces, but Elder Shin and I were lost ha. I told her that we will teach her English if she teaches us Spanish haha. So Spanish lessons here we go! She came to church yesterday and bore her testimony in Spanish with Brother Clark translating over the pulpit haha it was really neat. That was one miracle we had.

Another miracle was actually at church, so as a missionary we obviously want to go teaching with members. This work doesn’t go forward if we don’t have members going teaching and fellow shipping our investigators. Well it’s been really hard to get members out teaching with us. This week was really neat we had President Gruber (1st counselor of Stake Presidency) come and speak to the brethren after Priesthood. He basically rebuked everybody and pleaded everyone to go out with the missionaries because as a Stake we are slacking on it. He bore his testimony and promised blessings. Well we have 7 people going out with us this week. We had people come up to us after and say that they have been really slacking in their lives and haven’t been making it a priority to help and asked if they could come out with us teaching. It was downright amazing. It was a huge miracle and this Ward literally has never seen this before with the missionaries nor is it the first time they have had this kind of talk. We have been getting fed so much more and we are just busy. It’s insane. Heavenly Father is amazing and all of the hard work we have been putting into this area is paying off. Haha it’s great to have this happening.

Another miracle is that we found six new investigators this week and already today we found one! Miracles never cease, I bore my testimony about miracles yesterday and these memories/stories are a perfect example of it.

The righteous will be lead to Precious lands. They will also receive miracles and be able to do great things. It’s true though, this area is beautiful. The country is amazing and it’s a really good place to be right now that’s for sure. Oh and it snowed a little bit a few days ago haha. It’s getting colder out here that’s for sure! I hope you see a miracle this week!

Love Elder Oldroyd