Balo!

Dear Friends and Family:

We met a person who spoke Bengali this week. He taught us how to say "How are you?" and "Good". Good is "balo", with a very slight b sound, so it's more like "alo". And "How are you?" is pronounced "toumikomanatchè" - written phonetically the way I would have written it if it were a Haitian Creole word, because I'm not sure how to write it in Bengali.

Yesterday was Haitian Flag day! Woo hoo! Dizwit Me!

We are doing great down here in Boynton Beach North. One of our strengths this week was, again, our member work - getting members to come out with us, and teaching with them. But one thing we're going to try to be better about doing this week is pairing up the investigators to the members who will fit best with each other, so that they can make friends instead of just providing support. That is one of the reasons that we feel we have not had more people in sacrament this week and in the past.

This week, we had a miracle with a person named Jamesly Pierre. He is Ketty Pierre's brother, and thus is a member of the Petion family, if you remember who that is. It has really shown me how much the Spirit can change things when it is present.

Two days ago, we started a lesson with Jamesly. He made it clear from the beginning that he was atheist, and he had a hard time believing that God existed. But he also said that he wanted to keep an open mind about it, and so we decided to give it a shot. At the beginning of the lesson, he refused to say the prayer. But by the end, you could tell that he had felt the spirit. He said a prayer, and he committed to come to church the next day. In church, the spirit worked even harder on him. After sacrament meeting, we invited him to prepare to be baptized next week. Rather than saying no, he indicated that he wanted to wait a few weeks to make sure that he was ready. But the change between before the first lesson and after church was like night and day, and we had nothing to do with that.

I have noticed that I don't use the scriptures as much as I should while I am teaching. So a few weeks ago, I started to memorize a scripture a day, so that I can think back and remember them in the future when I need to use them. I have kept this up for about two weeks now, and I have a few more scriptures that I can use. I'll keep learning more, and using them in our lessons, and hopefully eventually I'll have the Book of Mormon memorized. (At the rate of one verse per day, I can do it in about 18 years. It's obviously a long term goal.)

Thanks,

Elder Slade