The Power of the Priesthood is so Awesome!

Hello! This week went really well (: This past Saturday was soooo hot! Apparently Mexico had a tropical storm, so it pushed all the warm air up into the states. So it was hot and humid... Nasty. Not a good combo! I have decided I'm never going to live somewhere where it is hot and humid.... So that's good to know (: I am so climatized to California it is funny.... Anything below 50, and I'm cold. Anything above 80, I'm burning up. It's going to be a sad experience when I come home and it is 3 degrees. Ha should be fun!

Anywho! We had a great week! this past week was the 5th week of the transfer. The transfer has gone by so dang fast! I can't even believe it. I really feel like I just got here! Ventura is awesome though. The member and investigators here are great.

This week we were able to see Luigi a couple times. It is so funny, because he knows that he needs to be baptized and is going to be baptized, it is all just up to him on WHEN he gets baptized. So Elder Castro and I hint at it so much, it's funny. But we are just reading the Book of Mormon with him, because he feel like his "answer" will come that way. We went over the baptismal interview questions with him, just to see where he was at. We figured out that he is good on all aspects of the interview excecpt about Joseph Smith. I think that is his big hold up. He has a skewed vision of Joseph Smith, and I have no idea how he got it.... but he did. We are hoping to help him over come that! He has three daughters, and two of them are baptized, and one is being baptized next year I think. Past missionaries and his wife's family have been working with him so he could baptize his daughters but he has missed two so far. His wife was joking with us yesterday, and was like, "maybe when he can't go to our daughter's weddings he'll start really getting into it!" haha I got a kick out of that. But yeah, we are just praying that he gets whatever answer he is looking for, or that we can help him understand what a true answer is.

We were also able to see Rose again. We showed up to her house for a lesson and she had a question of why do bad things happen to people, because whenever her son would ask her that, she didn't have an answer. So we read Alma 14 with her and talked a little bit about Ether 12:27 to kind of help her vision. She was really appreciative of the visit.

We are also planning on stopping by the Gagnon's this week to hopefully talk a little bit and set up a return appointment.

We have been still seeking out all the less actives in our ward. There have been lots of varied experiences with that one! A few slammed doors, a few people looking confused becuase the people we are looking for moved, and just a lot of other things. But we are making real progress with that. We haven't found anybody to teach through the people on the list, but we have found a couple potentials from the areas where they live, so that is good (: we also have found some great less active members that we are trying to help get back to church, including the Martin's who I will talk about a little bit.

We were also able to give a couple blessings this week. They were both amazing experiences! One of them was with Sister Gonzales, the first person we gave a blessing to here. She couldn't remember much of the last blessing, so she wanted another one along with a blessing for her leg. She wasn't having a good past couple weeks, due to stress with work, health, getting her bike stolen, etc.  So we gave her another one and one thing that was said in the blessing was that she would "remember what the previous blessing said" After the blessing, we looked down at her and with tears in her eyes, she said, "that's it. I need to go to the temple." The blessing talked a lot about the temple, and getting back to it, as did the previous one. She hasn't been to the temple in 7 years, and she is going back this saturday, and she explained to us how it all made sense to her that she was having a bad couple weeks, because she was planning on going through the temple again. The adversary really is working on her hard. Keep her in your prayers!

The second blessing this week was one for Sister Martin. Bro and Sis Martin are less actives, but they are sooooo cool! They are awesome. We have had dinner with them in the past and we are going there in a couple days. We have been helping/inviting them to come back to church, and the came a week ago, but weren't there yesterday, so we stopped by last night to check on them. Sis Martin's back was hurting quite a bit, and she asked us for a blessing. They went for a long walk yesterday, and she said that her back had been bugging her a lot all day. (I could tell because she wasn't walking too good.) Bro Martin insisted on us giving the blessing so Elder Castro gave her one after I anointed, and it was so great! After the blessing she was very grateful and she said it felt a lot better. and I could tell because she was walking normal! It is so amazing what the preisthood can do (: It is so amazing!

I hope all is going well at home! I love and miss you and you are all in my prayers every day! Thank you for all that you do for me (: I hope your schooling is going well and I hope you are getting into the hang of things! Love ya!

Love,
Elder Teeples