"Service at the temple, snake encounter, and another baptism next Sunday"

 

Friends and family,

This week was great! We got a lot done, and had a good time doing it! Our Elders Quorum President made a list of all of the new LDS Disney CP's (A CP is one of the college students that are working at Disney! So they are in the College Program. Or CP)! This list included the name of the person, a phone number, their address, and their previous ward! It was pretty awesome! It definitely helped us use our time more effectively. We were able to call 35 people this week that we hadn't ever heard of! We were feeling pretty blessed!

Tuesday- We had Temple Service in the morning! Let me tell ya, temple

service is the best. I honestly love it so much. It's pretty cool to be mowing the temple grounds right as the sun is coming up. It was spiritual, peaceful, and relaxing. As I was mowing the lawn, doing my thing, About 15 feet ahead of me there was a huge black and orange snake! It wouldn't have been a big deal, but I can't stand snakes. They just aren't my thing. I didn't really know what to do. I had a giant lawn mower I could use as a weapon, but that would have been risky...  I decided not to take another step, and would let the little feller make the move of attack if he wanted to. It sat there and looked at me for a good 10 seconds, then slithered away. My heart was beating like 100 miles an hour!

After temple service, we had a couple lessons with members and were able to meet some new people! It was a good, solid day!

Wednesday- The Orlando South Zone had Interviews with the Mission President. For this interview, our District met at the chapel and the Senior Missionary couples gave a training on bike safety, car safety, healthy eating, etc... While these trainings were going on, President Berry pulled a missionary out one at a time and just talked to us about our area, and how we are doing individually. After interviews, we met with the investigator I've been talking about in my other emails. We were stoked for this lesson and couldn't wait to see what her parents had to say. We started small talking, anxiously waiting for her to tell us what her parents said. After about 15 minutes of awkward conversation, I finally just had to ask her. She said that she still hadn't talked to her parents about baptism, but she knew it was what she needed to do, whether her parents wanted her to or not. More importantly, she knew that Heavenly Father wanted her to do this, so she was going to do it! She's going to be baptized next Sunday, November 2nd! I can't wait for her. She's already way happy with life, and she's about to be even happier. I'll make sure to send some pictures next week!

Thursday- Since my companion (Elder Fullmer) is the District Leader, we had to have the Zone Leaders come and do her baptismal interview. She passed with flying colors, and is all ready for next Sunday! We had her interview in the morning, and were just on a spiritual high and feeling good about how things were going all day! We called some more people from the list we got, and set up. More appointments for this upcoming week. Thursday night, we got a call from one of the members in the ward that had received their mission call! She invited us over to watch her open it. She told us that we helped her decided to serve the Lord. Even if we didn't actually tell her she needed to go on a mission, we inspired her to serve. To me, this meant a lot. It proves that success on a mission isn't measured by the number of baptisms you have, or what leadership position you had on a mission. On a mission, you will impact somebody each day, and that's what I love about my life right now.

Friday- We had another long weekly planning session. It was fun to have that list because it made things a lot easier! We have a lot of appointments set up next week and we are looking forward to it! We went and saw a couple new CP's and then went contacting for the rest of the day. Nothing too crazy happened.

Saturday- The Orlando South stake was able to do a service project at Palmetto Elementary school! Last year they did the same service project and changed the grade of the school from a "D" to a "B" that's a huge difference. There were about 100 people there to help out! So we are hoping for the same result. It was a great time to trim up some Palm Trees (like I've done for my grandpa) and pick up some trash too. All around, a good day.

Sunday- Sunday after church we were able to meet with our investigator that has the baptismal date. She is all set and ready to go! We then went out and did some more contacting. It was probably the longest day of the week, but that's alright!

Another successful, fun week here in Buena Vista! Transfers are next Tuesday and it's coming up pretty quickly! It would be nice to stay here in the YSA Ward, but you know what they say, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord!" Have a good week everybody!

Ether 12:27

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Elder Brock Doman

I was able to email back and forth with Brock for a few minutes today and it was awesome!!  It almost felt like I was able to have a conversation with him.  He said that today they had their District P day! They were headed over to this place called Mickeys Retreat.  He said there was a big grass field, basketball hoops, sand volleyball courts, and ping pong. They were going to hang out there with the district and play games! He sounded pretty excited about that.  He also said that he’s really hoping to stay where he is for another transfer, that he really loves it there.  I guess we’ll find out next Tuesday.  Some good news is that as of tomorrow, Brock is out of the 600 days left, tomorrow will be only 599 more J

"We went down and stood about a block away from the entrance to Disney World! We were able to talk to a lot of different people from all around the world."

Another week in the books here in Buena Vista. It was a long, challenging week, but we also saw many blessings from our hard work. I learned a lot this week and am excited for the week to come!

There was a lot that happened this week, so I'll just give day-by-day updates!

Tuesday- We had a lesson with our most solid investigators Tuesday morning.  She is the same one I talked about last week in my email. She said she is 110% sure she wants to be baptized, as long as her family is okay with it. She is so nervous to tell her family about wanting to change her religion it's killing her. And let me tell ya, it's killing us too. She promised that this week she would let them know that she wants to be baptized! So here's the thing, we've taught her everything and she knows it's true, she is just too afraid to tell her family. It's hard for us as missionaries because now we are just in like a waiting period. There isn't much more we can do then just wait and keep spiritually uplifting her. We are praying like crazy for her and her family and are just waiting for her to call us saying she is ready!

Wednesday- We were at lunch with a member, and they brought along

their friend who was curious about the church. We explained to her what we do as missionaries and shared some of the first lesson with her. She loves it and was very engaged. She said she would be at church Sunday, and we also set up a return appointment for next week! That night, we went to Night Games! It was a blast. There were about 35 people there, and we went to the basketball courts! It was nice to relax, take a few deep breaths, and just have a good time!

Thursday- We had a solid day! We taught 5 lessons to members right in

a row, first thing in the morning. After that, we went finding for 4 straight hours... It was long. It seemed like it lasted 4 days! We only have 2 ways we can contact and that's just standing outside of apartments. Hah it's fun and we see a lot of people. 4 hours is just a long time. When we got home Thursday night, we open up the back door to cool it off inside the apartment and we found a giant wasp nest! It was huge! I attached a picture at the bottom of this email of it. We found some wasp killer, toughed it up a little bit and sprayed all of the wasps. There were at least 45 wasps inside when we sprayed it. We were lucky we didn't get stung!

Friday- We had a long weekly planning session... It lasted just about all day. That's all I have to say about it.

Saturday- It's really hard for us to get some CP's to meet with us and "waste" their weekends talking to the Elders. Unfortunately, we did another 4 solid hours of finding! It was pretty cool and overcast so that was a blessing! We went down and stood about a block away from the entrance to Disney! We were able to talk to a lot of different people from all around the world. That made it pretty interesting!

Sunday- We had so many meetings on Sunday! We arrived at the church at 7:30 and didn't leave until 3! It was a long day, but we also got a lot accomplished. Sunday night, President Wood in the Mission Presidency had us over for dinner. He lived a block away from the temple and lives in a beautiful neighborhood. They fed us a ton of food, which is always nice. Then we went to Night Sacrament. They announced that they are going to be splitting the Orlando Zone and the Orlando South Zone to make a whole new Stake! That means there is going to be a new Zone in the mission! Pretty crazy stuff right? But to us missionaries, it doesn't change much. We are called to invite others to come unto Jesus Christ wherever we are! I love that fact about a mission. No matter where I am, my purpose doesn't change! 

I hope everyone has a great week! Thanks again for the emails and letters I receive! You guys are awesome! I miss you guys, but this work is what I need to be doing!

Much Love,

Elder Doman

Elder Fullmer, Brock's current companion, Elder Albin, and Brock

Brock and Elder Peay from Australia

From the wasp nest they found in the apartment this week

Brock knows this is the true church

A picture from his old area in Palm Bay, one of his favorite new friends

"So, I guess I'm going to be in the background of a Mormon Message!"

Friends and Family,

I had another great week here in Buena Vista South, and I hope all of you had a good week as well! With the temperature starting to cool down, it makes it a lot more enjoyable to go “finding” in the hot sun, and more people are out and about as well. I no longer return to the apartment dripping sweat, so that's a bonus!

We had the opportunity to watch "Meet the Mormons" at our Zone Transfer Meeting this week. It's an awesome movie and I highly recommend watching it! The movie is a documentary about 6 members from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints doing their day-to- day activities. It will be playing in regular movie theaters, and it came out on Friday! It's awesome how it shows 6 completely different people in different situations all believe and practice the same faith. For more information about it, go to meettheMormons.com

                                                                           

I can't remember if I said this in one of my prior emails or not, but one morning in Palm Bay we were in the middle of personal study when Elder Willard's chair broke and he fell over backwards all the way to the ground. Well, it happened again here with Elder Fullmer. We returned from our apartment after our morning workout and were in the middle of our studies. It was quiet, peaceful, and spiritual when all of the sudden I hear a loud snap and then down goes Elder Fullmer. He had been leaning on the back wheels of his office chair when one of the wheels had snapped off! It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen! I was laughing so hard! One thing I've definitely learned is that I better not lean back on my chair! 

Thursday night, BYU came and played UCF (University of Central Florida) for football! Unfortunately, we, as missionaries were unable to attend. That would have been fun, but too bad for us I guess! UCF is in our mission boundaries and is only about 45 minutes from Disney World. There were so many members of the Buena Vista YSA Ward there it was crazy! They organized a road trip just for those who wanted to go to the game. It was funny to try to set up a lesson with a member, investigator, or even a potential investigator Thursday night because they were all either going to the game or watching it! It was making us laugh just how many people happened to be "busy" that night.

So, I guess I am going to be in the background of a Mormon Message! The church wants to do a Mormon Message on General Conference and what a Recent Convert thought of it. They randomly selected a recent convert of the church, and it just so happened to be from our YSA Ward! How lucky is that? They followed her around on Wednesday with occasional interviews, then filmed her playing volleyball at Night Games! I thought that was pretty lucky! There were 3 camera guys filming us playing volleyball, I felt like a pro. It should be out in a month or so, but I'll make sure to let you know! 

For an update on the investigator I talked about last week who started reading from the Book of Mormon- 

   We met with her again on Tuesday totally excited for this lesson. We went through the Restoration again and it was a totally different experience for her. She was asking questions and was very engaged in what we had to say. Once we finished, she said an awesome closing prayer and the spirit was just so strong. We left her with a the Plan of Salvation Pamphlet and told her to look through it if she had time.

   We came back to our return appointment on Saturday and we're looking forward to this lesson so much! We sit down with her, say an opening prayer, and ask her if she has had a chance to read from the Book of Mormon or anything from the Pamphlet we left with her. She then reaches down, and pulls out a journal along with the Book of Mormon. In her journal she had taken notes on every bullet point in the pamphlet, them wrote down her own thoughts on it! What an awesome feeling that was! She said she read through the pamphlet and couldn't stop smiling after. She had never really thought about Heavenly Father loving her so much that he mad a specific plan for her. On top of that, God made a plan for her family. It just made her so happy! We were able to see the joy it brought to her just by the way she was talking about it. I remember her saying this that made me feel pretty special too, she said,"Out of all the people that have ever been on earth, are on earth, and will ever be on earth, God knows and loves me. He loves me so much he made an individual plan for me to return to Him." I thought that was just awesome. 

I know that this church is true. The joy it brings to people couldn't come from anywhere or anyone else other than our Heavenly Father. It's so cool to be able to feel the spirit this way each day! It's something I'll never forget! Thanks again for all of the support!

Much love,

Elder Doman

In letters home this week:

Thank you so much for the package!! Holy cow, you saved me! We have gotten so much Halloween candy and other bad food from investigators and members it's crazy! Now that I have my triscuts, fruit and nut mix, mangoes, and protein bars I'll be great! :) The work in this area is tough. It's a challenge. We can't really go knocking doors, because our whole area is just 3 apartment complexes which are gated. The only way to get inside is if a member comes to let us in. But if we get caught "soliciting" we can never go back in there! So the way we find new people to teach is just walking back and forth from apartment complex to apartment complex. It gets a little boring! Luckily you taught me a fun game where you pick a number between 1-10 (let's say I pick 4,) then the fourth car that drives by is mine! Hahah it keeps us pretty entertained!

To answer your questions:

- when I said I was looking forward to the transfer, I meant like we were looking forward to working together. Every 6 weeks, there is a transfer. And there is a possibility that after the 6 weeks are up, one of us could leave. So we were looking forward to these 6 weeks.

-it would be awesome to stay in this area. It's so much fun! I think I will probably stay for one more transfer. So another 6 weeks after this transfer is over.

- I think it would be best if you just put some money on my card for some pants! These ones are getting giant. It's almost funny to see! Thank you! If you need to wait until the beginning of next month,

that's okay! I bet if you told grandpa, he'd give some money for it. And tell grandma there is no way I'm wearing suspenders! Hahahah