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

Post for December 12th

Dear family and dad,

Transfer calls came in and I will be staying in the Clovis 7th ward another 6 weeks but my trainee Elder Lantz is leaving to the Fresno North Stake to be in a YSA ward (Young Single Adults).  All I know is my new companion is Elder "H" and that he has been out for a couple of months and that I will get him tomorrow.  I know my trainee is going to like his new ward and is going to do some great work over there, plus he gets a car (he is so lucky).  So I realized that I have been on a bike for a whole year! Can you believe that! haha.
 
Anyways, we talked to "E" about her baptism and she said she wants to be baptized on Dec 29th!  We are really excited about that.  She has changed a lot and is truly going to be a great member in the church. We are still searching for other investigators as always and hope to get some from Sister "H". She's been working with a couple for a few weeks. We are going to set up a time when we can meet with them.
 
-We had our Ward Christmas party last Saturday and a lot of nonmembers were there. Me and Elder "L" were talking to EVERYONE! haha. We sat down for 5 minutes to eat then we started talking again. I never knew how much I could talk. We are hoping to get some investigators from it and to ask the members what their friends thought of the party.
 
As for Christmas....i can call anytime. So just tell me when a good time would be to call you.
-could I get those 180 ear muffs? It's starting to get cold at night.
 
Were you able to get Mike Ahern's address so I can write to him.

I hope all is well.

Love,
Elder DeMarco

Post for December 5th.

(Sorry it has taken me so long to update Jacob's blog.)

This week has been normal.  Here in the Fresno East Stake they held their 30th annual Christmas Concert. It was really great and we got a new investigator from it. Before the concert began we were going around saying "hi" to members when one of them told me that there is a young man interested in learning about the church.  We went up to him and started talking with him.  He's 15 yrs old. We taught him the restoration in 7 mins. haha  That is the fastest I've ever taught a lesson. We got his number and we are going to try and see him later on this week.

As for our other investigators...."E"  is going to be baptized into a different ward because she lives outside of my ward boundaries. I'm okay with it because we are all on the same team and whether she is baptized here or somewhere else  doesn't matter as long as she is able to make a covenant with our Heavenly Father.

We had an FHE with a family in the other ward we are working in.  The mom is from Boston and she had the accent and everything.  It was great to hear her talk. haha  She said she misses  Dunkin donuts and I told her I did too.  We were able to commit them to invite their friends to church so we will see what happens.

The last thing is transfer are coming up on Dec 12th. We get the call this Saturday night to see if I'm leaving or staying.  I never get the feeling of whether I'm leaving or not, so it's up in the air.

That is pretty much it for this week and yes I did get the candy from Judy's package she sent.  Tell her I said thank you.

I  didn't get my camera fixed because we didn't have enough time to stop by "best buy".  We will try next Monday.  Also can you find out what  Mike Ahern's address is? I think he is Utah right now but  I'm not sure.

I got to go. See you all later.

Love,
Elder DeMarco

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pic 2

Pic 1



Pic 3
 

The following happened this week:
- On Thanksgiving me and other missionaries played football from 9am - 11am
- We had dinner at 12pm at the Shiner's house ( I ate a lot of food)
- Then we went to another dinner at 3pm with the Wright family ( I ate a lot of food again) -Then we went to the Averall's house for some dessert around 7pm and played some board games.
As you can tell I did a lot of eating on Thanksgiving day. I'm glad to hear that everyone else had a good Thanksgiving also.
-Yesterday we taught our investigators "K" and "E". "K" said she wants to learn more about the church. I have realized that sometimes people ask deep questions about the church but we just need to let them know that the basic principles are the most important right now. I think we will probably have a baptism soon.
So...that was pretty much my week. But before I go I wanted to ask some questions for you and grandma..... -Who were the missionaries who taught and baptized both of you? - This question is for the both of you, why did you both join the church? and what was it that the missionaries taught that peeked your interest?
Well I have to go but I hope all is well in New York. Have fun helping out those in New Jersey. Love,
Elder DeMarco

picture 1: I am sooooo full.
picture 2: It's a spider and bees next to my plate. one of the members we had thanksgiving dinner with is a bee farmer so he showed me some of his bees and gave me a gallon of honey. picture 3: I took this picture because this pie was really good and I wanted to show elder Blanchard and Elder Gagne the nasty food I have to deal with here in California haha. P.S.

Can I get Elder Gagne and Elder Blanchard's mailing address. It keeps changing and I'm never sure which one to write to haha.

Fantastic week!

Hello everyone!!! The last week has been fantastic! We found 2 more new investigators and we are now covering another area. The assistants called me last Friday and asked if me and Elder "L" could take over another area, I said sure. ( right now we have "Clovis 7th ward" and will be taking over "Clovis 3rd ward", today). I'm nervous because there is more work to be done and I've never done this before haha. Both wards start at 9am on Sunday so I'm trying to figure out the best way to go. I think we will probably change wards every other Sunday or go on splits. I'm also excited because we are going to be as busy as a bee, balancing both wards and getting to know the new members. I know that this transfer I'm going to have to stretch as a missionary spiritually (with more teaching to do) and physically ( with more biking to do). I'm excited to see what this new ward is like.

Today we just finished having Zone Meeting and decided that a goal for baptisms by the end of November will be 30. We have 12 baptismal dates so far and will be working to get more as a Zone throughout the week. I had a spiritual experience happen to me last night. An inactive woman recently came to church, she has a little kid and wants to get her life back on track. We had set up an appointment to go see her yesterday and so we did. Some members went with us and we re-taught her the 1st lesson. During the lesson I quoted Joseph Smiths 1st vision and you could see her feeling the spirit because she became a little emotional. I reminded her that she was feeling the spirit and the spirit speaks to us through our thoughts and feelings. She said she hasn't felt good in a long time and she wants to come back to church. We are going to see her later on in the week and continue to help her get back to church. It was neat for me to again recognize the power of teaching people the restoration, even if they heard the lesson before.

Well that was pretty much my week and I hope to hear from you soon.

Love,

Elder DeMarco