Our New Apartment

We got a phone call on Monday morning from the Lakes Chateau Estates to let us know that we passed our criminal background checks. Amazing. So we went over and signed the papers and called the missionaries to help unload (luckily it was Preparation Day). Six of them came over and had the trailer all unloaded and everything up the stairs and into our second floor apartment.

We have grown to love the missionaries here in New Orleans. They work hard and always have a smile on their face. We continued to unpack and had furniture arrive all week. What a blessing to have our own bed!

Thursday we we able to attend the Outdoor Zone Conference. It has been very humid and we spent four hours outside that day. It drained all of our energy. We thought we couldn't go any more for the day, but then the Elders called with a need for transportation. The member that was supposed to give two investigators a ride to the church fell thru at the last minute. We have had the blessing of working with these two new investigators this week. Roberto and Marcus are from Honduras and we gave them a ride while practicing our spanish on them (really poor spanish). They were baptised on Friday night and Roberto was confirmed today. (Marcus had to go to New York today.) The first piano opportunity came, as I was called on to play for the baptism. It will probably happen more often since this is a ward that has baptisms every week.

We both attended the RS General Meeting. It was nice to have my husband there and the speakers spoke ENGLISH. Yippeee!! What a special treat to be filled by the spirit and hear from our leaders.

Today, Sunday, was a very emotional day. We arrived at the Church with the clean baptismal clothes and put them away. We had no sooner sat down for Sunday School when one of the Elders came up and asked if they could put some stuff in our car. Evidently, one of our new converts was going to move to Houma (about an hour away) and when they got there the job fell thru. They didn't have a place to stay, since they had vacated their apartment to move for the job. And now they don't have a job. A friend had given them a ride back up to the church and dumped all of their clothes and stuff in the parking lot and left. Don and the Elders put the stuff in the car and I consoled Ellen. The Bishop is putting them up at his house for a few days. It's amazing how much love our Bishop has for these people.

I (Michelle) bore my testimony today in Spanish. It was hard to get up in front of all those people and "read" my testimony, but I know that it made a difference in my language confidence.

We have met with the Bishop, Mission President and the Stake President. It has been made clear that they would like us to work on the New Member lessons and retention as well as Leadership Training. We will also be providing some piano lessons to the members, in order to help them play the hymns by the time we leave. We will be working hard this week to create a plan to do this.

The Church is true. We love the Lord and love the work we are here to do. We pray that each of you will bring up the Church in a conversation this week. It's a small thing, but will lead to great things.