October 8-November 18, 2013 Update

 

 

 

November 18, 2013

Good news, this week went great. We found 5 new investigators and our teaching is up to 10 people. We were just going around talking with people and then God placed them in our path. This week we plan on asking all of our investigators to be baptized even if they already been asked. We want to see where they are all at in their desire to come unto Christ.

Our baptismal goal for November is one. We have 2 dates but both of them are for December.   I'm focusing on the things I can control (D&C 58:27-28) like inviting them to church and talking with everyone in hopes that the Lord will place someone in our path that can be baptized this week.

 Also we had a ward chili cook off and that went great. A lot of people came. There was also a country band playing. Things are going good with my companion. Just grateful to be a missionary and to help change lives.

Elder DeMarco

 

 November 4, 2013   

This week we have seen a good amount of success. We found 2 new investigators but we also lost  a couple of them. So right now we are teaching about 8 people. And our goal that we have set is 1 for this month. We were going to see our appointment and this man came up to us and asked what we did.  We told him and he said he wants to know if God exists and wants to change his life. When we read with him Moroni 10:3-5 , it touched his heart. As I look back on what I learned from that experience I realized how much God is in control of everything. This is his work, and he has people he is preparing, All I'm doing is trying to find them and  teach them. 

The day we found him we did nothing special to find him. He just went about our day as normal and God knew this man and knew where we would be. The more I realize that God is in control the less stressed I am. All I have to do is take control the few things I can control and trust God.  Heavenly Father will provide the rest. 

I am sad to see Elder "L" leave. I'm going to miss him a lot but it's okay, I am sure my new companion will be great though.

I'm okay with doing the fireside with Aaron and Brian. 

love ya,

Elder DeMarco

October 28, 2013

The following happened this week...
- we had a successful Halloween party.  A lot of people came and a non-member gave us her address and told us to stop by and see her this week....yay! 
- didn't find new investigators but we are teaching around 12 people right now.
That's pretty much it. By the way I'm not allowed to watch videos, sorry about that.
love you,
Elder DeMarco

October 14, 2013

This week has been great!  We found 6 new investigators and 2 of them have a baptismal date for October. It is great to be able to teach the gospel to them.
Personally I feel better with being able to teach more people and focusing on them rather than myself.
Also today I went to "old navy" and bought a coat because it's getting cold at night. Now I'm off to get my flu shot ....yay...not.
love you,
Elder DeMarco

October 8, 2013

Dear dad, grandma, and everyone else. 

 This week was okay for us. We had an investigator with us for general conference which was great.

We are focusing on the FMP (Family Mission Plan)  and ATM (Awake The Members) with our members. Especially now that conference is over and that 3 talks were given about missionary and members working together. We are going to use are less productive time in the morning and afternoon to see  members and do our part talking to everyone we see.

 We had interviews with President Gelwix on Thursday and had a zone meeting too from 9am -1pm .  President came in around 10am and started to interview people. Me and my companion were one of the last missionaries to go. We finished around 8pm and then President was nice enough to give us a ride home in his fancy car. He told of crazy stories when we worked for the airline companies and all the places he's been too. He said he enjoyed going to go to Ireland.

Now for the habanero pepper story. So during the first part of general conference on Sunday we were with the zone leaders around 8:45am. One of them had some peppers and I tried this small one and it wasn't so bad. Then they dared me to eat the habanero pepper and I knew it was going to be very hot. So I thought to myself this will probably be the first and last time I ever do this. Well, after eating it for 30 seconds my mouth was on fire. I ran to the kitchen sink in the church and had my mouth open under the faucet for about 20 mins . Then once the heat calmed down I went to watch conference which only lasted 30 mins before my stomach was killing me. I got up with my companion and we went off to the side in one of the rooms and I was laying on the floor. It felt like a giant war was going on in my stomach. The other missionary who took the habanero too came in and said " is it hurting you too?"  So we were both on the floor in pain. Luckily my ward mission leader came to the church and gave us "tums" and "Alka-Seltzer", which helped out alot!  So by the time the pain was gone it was around 11am. I missed that session of conference but was able to watch the other and I had some ice cream for lunch. yay! I'm doing fine now. 

Elder DeMarco

 

October 2, 2013

Dear dad,

The week went great.   We found 1 new investigator named "V".  He is not your ordinary investigator. During weekly planning of last week I was going through the potentials list and one of the names that I felt impressed to go see was a man named "V".  But I thought..." I don't think I'm going to see him, he speaks Russian and I don't know how we would speak to him".  So the next day, the Spanish sisters gave us a referral for a man named "V", and I was like okay we are definitely going to see him this evening.
So that evening we saw him and he has an amazing story. To sum it up, he lived in Russia and became Christian and then left Russia because of religious persecution. He went to Italy and met a man who had a copy of the Book of Mormon in Russian.  There is so much more about his story I will share later....like him meeting President Benson as well as...Elder Monson.
He wants us to come by again and we are going to find someone that served a mission in Russia and help us out with teaching. so the next visit we are going to talk and help him to be baptized. it was an honor to meet him and we are excited to see what happens next.
I just got my new suit today and it fits great! got it at Macys......and yes I would like the new smaller messenger bag.

love you ,

Elder DeMarco

 

September 23, 2013

Yesterday we had a baptism for "Y". It went great. "C" baptized her and next Sunday she will be confirmed. Since I've been here for awhile I've seen this family grow. After we baptized "C" and "T" their family has increased. "T's" mother "P" , was a less active most of her life but because of them being baptized she became more interested. Eventually  her son "S" was baptized and then a month later "T's" sister "Y" wanted to be baptized also. It's an honor to see the effects of how 2 people who are baptized will have forever changed the life of their family. And now they all attend church , they're living the gospel and enjoying the blessings from it.

We found 3 new investigators this past week. His name is "J". He said he was catholic and wants to become closer to God. We taught him about the restoration and he invited us to come back again. We are planning on seeing him tonight. 

We also found a family of 7 to teach.  We were doing harvest blessings and they said to come back later that evening. When we came back we taught the mom and dad. They said they are open to learning more.

Tell grandma thanks for the package and thank you dad for the messenger bag. It's great and it works fine ( I feel like the kid on the movie " premium rush")  ....the only thing is , since I am not a big person would you be able to get a smaller one and I forgot to tell you I wanted a small one because I only want to carry books of Mormon and that's really it.

Well I got to go,

love,
Elder DeMarco

 

September 16, 2013....

 

 (Sorry I haven't updated in so long...)

This week has been pretty good for us. Our investigator "Y" is still doing great. She came to church this past Sunday and is on track for Sept baptism. Unfortunately our other investigator who has a date for Sept 28th didn't make it to church this Sunday. We are not giving up!

We taught a great lesson with our investigator "T". She said she feels it to be true but is afraid of leaving behind what she knew to be right. We told her that we are building upon those things she cherishes and some things might be a change for her but it's worth it. Our ward mission leader who was with us bore his testimony of his conversion and the spirit was strong. I asked her what she felt, she said I feel good. She knows that feeling comes from God and recognized the spirit.  She still wants to meet with us, so Elder "L" and I will continue to pray and work with her. I have  realized on my mission how powerful someone's agency is. All we can do as missionaries is invite but never force someone to the gospel and pray that their hearts will be softened.

That was pretty much it, thanks for the pictures.

love,

Elder DeMarco

This week has been good for us. Though we have been able to only get 1 new investigator he is prepared. His name is "J" and we found him through a mormon.org referral. We stopped by Friday and taught him about where the book of Mormon came from. He had lots of questions about our doctrine and church. When we invited him to read the introduction you could see the spirit work on him. He was touched and wants us to come back.

 We were suppose to have dinner with "C" on Friday but he wasn't feeling well. We still stopped by  to see how things were going with him. We are seeing him tomorrow and we want to talk about the blessings of keeping the commandments and reading the book of Mormon.

 "Y" is still set for her baptism in Sept.  The ward is excited for it. This week we are reviewing the plan of salvation with her. It's interesting too because her mother who is a inactive member has been coming out more and more to activities and church. Thanks to other family members getting baptized, they are affecting the rest of the family with the gospel.

Thanks for everything dad,

love you.

Update for the past couple months

 

May 20, 2013

Tell grandma I said thanks for the letter and package. and I got the Mormom messages.

We had a baptism yesterday and it went great! It went perfect! Next Sunday they are getting confirmed. Last Saturday President Gelwix called and said I will be a trainer again with Elder "W" (we are going to be in a tri-panionship) . We are getting a visa waiter that's suppose to go to Denmark. So I'm pretty excited about that. Other than that life is great.

Love,

Elder DeMarco

 P.S. I have a cast on my foot because during rugby one of the elders hit my toe and I got a small fracture. I'm fine though, I'm getting a car and I only have this on for 6 weeks. 

 

May 27, 2013

Let me start off and say that having a truck is the best! I'ts annoying getting in and out of the truck but other than that it's great.

We'll right now my companion is Elder "W" (from Utah) and we are training a new missionary named Elder "E" (from Utah) he is going to Denmark but he will be with us until he gets his visa.

We are all getting along great and getting some more new investigators. We have 3 dates for June and we want to get 2 more.

We had Elder "E" confirm our new converts and we are going to help brother "P" get  the priesthood. They are excited to go to the temple to be sealed together also, which is awesome!

Going from Fresno to Turlock we got into a little car wreck. we were half a mile from the church when the driver in front of us stopped quickly and turned , so we then also stopped but the car behind us re-ended us. We pulled over with the other car and exchanged information. The woman was really nice and kind. We actually taught her about Christ and she became a new investigator for some other missionaries in Turlock. We went to the doctor the next day and everyone was fine and there health is good. So yeah, this week has been crazy haha.

Well have a great week!

love,

Elder DeMarco

 

June 10, 2013

Well I have some good news and bad news.

The good news is we found 2 new investigators this week. It's a young couple named "J" and "P" They live near us. Brother Smith and I taught them about the restoration. We invited them to church. They are really nice and I hope they join us for church.

Our baptismal date for "M" (she is 9 yrs old) is still on for June. She doing well and we gave her  a BOM stories book to help her read.

We are teaching 4 people right now. A boy and a girl  came to church yesterday. The girl is a member but the boyfriend is not. He came to sacrament and then Sunday school and he enjoyed it. We then set up a time to see them both... he is really nice.

The bad news is our trainee Elder "E" got his visa. President Gelwix told us after zone conference on Tuesday. So yesterday one of our members drove him down to Fresno and today he is leaving to go to Denmark. Elder "W" and I  already miss him. It's quiet in the car with him gone but I know he will do a great job in Denmark.

Tomorrow I have a doctors appt about my foot. The doctor will take off the cast and take another x-ray of it. If it looks good then I won't need a cast but if not I will have a new cast put on.

Well I got to go. Love you bye.

-Elder DeMarco

June 24, 2013

So things this week are starting to pick up. We found 4 new investigators. We are going to see "C" tonight...he is a great guy and is prepared to receive the gospel. 

Yesterday we saw a the worldwide leadership training on the church. It was great! Everything they are talking about is going to move the work faster. The Bishop and the missionaries are going to work more together in unity. The members will do the finding and we will do the teaching. One thing Elder L. Tom Perry said was " We all know that tracting is not an effective way to find" and it's true. Once the members feel comfortable or desire to invite friends to church the ward will increase in membership. Needless to say I'm excited to see what happens to our ward.

Right now I'm wearing a boot and tomorrow I can take it off and walk again.....HALLELUJAH!!! My right foot feels a little weak but I will be able to get its strength back up.

Well that's it thanks for the updates on what's happening. Talk to you soon.

Love ya bye,

Elder DeMarco 

 

April 29, 2013

Thank you grandma for your letter, i received it a couple of days ago. Wow this week was another great week! Our investigator wants to be baptized and so does his wife!!! We stopped by yesterday and was checking up on him. He said he and wife have been reading from the book of Mormon. I asked if he has received an answer yet, he said yes, I want to be baptized and so does my wife! It’s the sweetest words to hear. We are seeing them both today and are going to set a specific date for May. It’s taken a lot prayer both parts but I know that heavenly father answers prayers. The baptism on Saturday went great! I took pictures and will upload next Monday....I was able to see a lot of the members and they told me how much they missed me. I was also able to see elder “G” who I came in with during the MTC and he’s doing good. Baptisms are the best! Anyways I have to go. Hope you all have a great week. Love, Elder DeMarco

April 9, 2013

Dear dad and grandma and everyone else, Well we got transfer calls last night. it looks like I'm staying here in Ceres 1st ward with elder vaughan! I'm excited to be here for 6 more weeks and to help our investigator progress towards baptism. I told Elder "V" that we are going to "work more smarter and not harder" and use our time effectively. I still can't believe how much time flies. This week we found new investigators. We taught them about God and about the Book of Mormon. We are going to give them a church tour next week and then invite them to be baptized! Not much else for this week, I enjoyed General Conference as always and loved Elder Holland's talk about faith. It is true, that it's alright to say "I believe...." if you can't say " I know...." Thanks for the funny pictures from brother Downey and of Bruce's puppies. By the way.. for my birthday I would like a puppy. (I will let you ponder about that) Well I got to go. love you all. -Elder DeMarco

April 3, 2013

Well things here are getting better. We still have 3 dates for this april. One of them is solid. President Gelwix and the Assistants gave us GREAT training last week. Every time President talks to us I feel chastised HaHa... but he always lifts us up at the end, he is the best! One of the things that was happening to our mission was that we have "spiritual ADD" meaning we have all these tools for missionary work but we can only focus on them one at a time. We have a district standard and then a zone standard and then a mission standard. So we are doing away with all those things and just focus on baptism! We need to rely more on God and the spirit for answers. I'm really excited the direction we are heading, as humans it's hard to focus on a bunch of stuff at once and not many people can do it. So by just focusing on 1 baptism a month minimum for each companionship then we can see more success......when I was a trainer I went to leadership training and this British business major person named Greg McKeown came in and talked to the mission. He is like a motivational speaker for businesses. He talked about "less, but better" and basically it means focus on the essentials each week and get rid of the things which are wasting time. It was an awesome training I hope to show you one day. I had a nice Easter Sunday and it was nice to see that James is getting skinner haha. love you all.
-Elder DeMarco

March 26,2013

This week had been fan-tast-ic! We set a baptismal date with April 13th. He is 22 yrs old and he has a great family. He came to church last Sunday and it was great to see him. We are seeing him again this Tuesday. During personal study this morning I was reading a talk called the "fourth missionary", which talks about there are 4 types of missionaries and we need to strive and be like the fourth missionary who is willing to give up his heart, mind and will to heavenly father. I was chastised by the spirit when I read that because there are some days I want to do things "my way". I just need to continually change and stop having an inner battle within myself and just do it his way. We are doing this project as a mission called "the Easter project" and we read about 1,000 references about Jesus Christ in the scriptures by August. President Gelwix asked us to do this because he wants us to be exactly obedient because we love Christ . I'm learning a lot from it and I know my love for the savior will increase because of it. Thanks for keeping me updated on how everyone is doing. love you all! -Elder DeMarco

February 18, 2013

So this week we found 7 new investigators and 3 of them are a whole family! We worked hard this week but it was worth it to see the Lord show us these miracles. We taught the "L" family yesterday and it was a spiritual experience. We didn't plan on seeing them but my companion had a thought pop into his head to stop by. When we got there they were home and they let us in. (usually they are busy as a family so it's hard to catch them.) We talked to them about how there week was going and then talked about the Book of Mormon with them. Mr."L" had a lot of good questions and was into the whole lesson. He asked about prayer and we were able to tell him how we receive revelation. The spirit was strong throughout the lesson and they were excited to read the Book of Mormon. We set up another appointment for today and they as a family are prepared by the Lord to receive the gospel.

I realized that not all lessons have to be this big emotional thing, it can be a very nice peace and the holy ghost can be there just as powerful. This week we are going to be busy with a lot of appointments and we are doing great! The more I focus on the people of California the more I feel joy in my life. I'm starting to understand charity and how Heavenly Father feels about us.

Talk to you soon.

love ya bye.

-Elder DeMarco

 

February 11, 2013

This week has been busy but a good busy. We found 2 new investigators. We found them through tracting and we were able to teach them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We set a return appointment and we will see them this Tuesday. Our investigator "D" is still reading the Book of Mormon and  we try and keep daily contact with him. We are seeing miracles here in the mission with doing a minimum of 3 hours of finding every day.  Last as a mission we found 275 new investigators!!! How great is that! its hard work but worth it.

Also on Friday went on exchanges with Elder "S" (my Australian amigo). He has been out for awhile and gave me a lot of good advice. I always learn something new that I need to improve on. One of them is being diligent. It's hard for me to work for a long time without being distracted so I need to focus harder on my purpose.

So yesterday at church something funny happened. Me and Elder "C" were sitting down because sacrament was about to begin when the 1st counselor came up and asked if we could give a 8 min talk because the members who were going to do it , forgot about it. ( in my head I was thinking, well....this is going to be interesting). With what time we had we prepared as much as we could. I went first and talked about missionary work and how we need to find joy and to make it a natural thing when we talk to people. I read a couple of scriptures and the spirit took care of the rest. When I was looking out into the congregation some of the members were getting emotional but I knew that it wasn't because of me. It was because of the spirit and I am grateful for the chance to speak. It definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone but I was able to do it in the end. My companion Elder "C" spoke on patience and he did a great job. I realized that members know that they need to do missionary work but they need to know how much joy they can bring and that it takes work.

Other than that not much else happened this week. I will write to Aunt Veronica and could I get Uncle Bruce's address?

Hope you and everyone else have a great week! By the way can you send my Elder Gagne and Elder Blanchard's blog....and also did you get my letter?

Love you bye.

-Elder DeMarco

New Location

Well it looks like I’m being transferred, and I’m going to Turlock! My new companion will be Elder “C” and I leave Wednesday which is tomorrow. My trainer Elder “F” is actually coming to my area that I’m now.  How funny is that…. my companion who I’m with now (Elder “H”) is going to Potterville which is the most southern part of our mission.

I’m been saying bye to a lot of families before I leave and I’m going to miss this area. I am excited to go to the new area in Turlock and see how it is. I packed most of my stuff today and I will probably be done tonight.

This week has been really good because we found a new investigator named “A”.  He is Catholic and is trying to turn his life around. We talked with him about God and why bad things happen to good people.  He wanted us to stop by again this week :)

I had a spiritual experience last Saturday night. It was around 8:20 am, we didn’t have any appointments and we had to be in by 9pm. So we were trying to think of people we can go see but no one came to our mind. (As a side note our goal as a zone is to talk to at least 10 people a day). I was thinking and I said we are going to start heading home and see if there is anyone we can talk to on the way. While we were riding I said a little prayer in my heart that heavenly father will place 4 people in our path that we can talk to. And sure enough by the time we got home we talked to 4 people and 2 of them were interested in the church. It was so great to see Heavenly Father provides a way with righteous desires. I definitely had to do my part and made sure I was looking everywhere to see people we can talk too.

I’m glad to see how many people came to Tyler’s baptism! Talk to you soon.

Love,

Elder DeMarco

 

Great Start to the New Year

I'm glad you, Mom, James and Josh enjoyed "forever strong".  There is a lot of interesting facts about that movie that are funny but I will tell you them later. Yesterday for district meeting I gave some training on "thy will be done, not mine" and how we need to let go of your pride and do it heavenly fathers way. Because His way is always better in the end. I shared with the other missionaries the story about you being at the MTC having a hard time with Spanish and then you were given the option to go state side, but you chose not to. How in the end the decision you made was what God wanted you to do and it made all the difference. All the missionaries told me they really enjoyed my training so that was pretty cool. This week has been slow just because a lot people are still coming back from vacation. But on the plus side.. as a mission are goal for this year is a minimum of 1,000 baptisms!!! It's never before been done in the history of this mission, last year we got to 800. So I'm excited to see what we can do this year knowing that we are going to get more missionaries in this mission. Right now we are around 225 but by the end of the year we will be about 270.

 

While biking back home a couple nights ago I bumped into some members I worked with in my last area. They told me how they got a new place to live and have been going to church more. It was great to see them again and knowing that things are improving.

 

We received a couple referrals so go see tomorrow so that means a new investigator hopefully. Right now we are focusing on helping members make a mormon.org profile which is a like a facebook profile. By making a profile members can write a little something about themselves then write ways that the church has helped their lives. Once that's done we give them a pass along card so they can tell their friends and family to check out their profile. People can see that Mormons are normal every day people.

 

Let's see....that's pretty much it for this week. We are going to the temple next week as a zone so that's going to be great! I'll take some more pictures.

love you all.

-Elder DeMarco

December 19th....(sorry it is taking me so long to post)

Hey Dad and everyone else.

So I will start off with telling you a little bit about my new companion. His name is Elder "H" and he is from Orem, Utah.  He is 6foot 5 inches. So I feel really short compared to him haha. He is really good at drawing.

Things that happened this week....

- I met a member from my previous ward in Wal-mart yesterday and he told me how one of the Young men there got his call to go to the Rochester, New York mission! How cool is that and he is going to be Spanish speaking.

- We got 2 referrals for investigators so we are going to start teaching them later on in the week.

- as for phone calls , I guess you have to call me.....so my number is (xxx)xxx-xxxx...(Of-course I wasn't going to leave that in this post!! Haha).....you can call me anytime from.....12am-8pm.

So tomorrow me and Elder "L" are going to be playing a song at the Christmas zone conference....we will be playing "o holy night" and I will be on the guitar and Elder "L" will sing. If I can I'm going to try and record it. Also I sent some Christmas cards home with different pictures for everyone, so you are going to decide who gets what picture.

make sure you give one to all the people I mentioned

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Elder DeMarco

 

Happy New Year!

Elder DeMarco and Pres. Gelwix

Ugly tie Christmas

Charlie Brown Tree

 

(sorry....a few of the posts are out of order)

Hi Family

Well I forgot to print out the cards so I hope you will forgive me. I can still print them out next Monday if it's not too late?

This week has been really good. Yesterday we had a tri-zone activity and played the most craziest game of dodge-ball! And then for new years eve we went to a members home and had a really fun FHE (family home evening).

Not much happened this week because a lot of people were gone during Christmas vacation. By the way before I forget to tell you, because of all the missionaries that are coming, the transfer days have been changed and my transfer day for coming home will be December 18th, 2013. Looks like I'll be home for Christmas.

Wow, I can't believe a whole year has passed! I remember when my teachers in High school told me how life is going to by even faster. I didn't believe till now haha.

This year I'm going to work harder and squeeze every drop of joy out of my mission. I've learned some much and there is still more to learn. I'm excited for this year and I know it's going to be GREAT!

Elder DeMarco