42nd & 43rd Weeks—June 27-July 8, 2012

Dale & Connie at Mormon Night at Dodger Stadium

Front Row--The Olsens, Hardys, Fowers, Sister Jackson (He took picture)
Row 2--The Shakespeares, Andersens, Petersens, Shumans
Row 3, Sanfs on right side 

2nd from Left--Jay Bird (don't know if that is his real name)
Jay Bird baptized man on left.  The man on left baptized man on right.
The man on right is going to baptize the black man.
Jay Bird was a drug addict and alcoholic.  He is now a ward missionary and
choir director.  He brought 17 investigators to the ballgame.

Dale & Connie, Marisol, Jorge, Leslie Arzu, Christina, Grandma Segovia, Fernando,
Sister and Obispo Segovia at the Galaxy Soccer game at Home Depot Stadium

Donut peaches--very sweet, yellow meat, more fibrous than regular peaches.

Last Friday we went for a long walk down to Verizon Wireless.
We found a farmer's market on the corner of Vermont and Wilshire Blvd.
The fruits and veggies were wonderful.  The strawberries were sweeter than any we've
tasted.  The mangos are 33 cents each.  Connie eats 3-4 a week.  The plums had a
very dark purple meat and were also very sweet.  Their corn and tomatoes were
also very good.

July Birthdays

Happy Birthday Dear Nate—July 4—30 years old!

and Happy Independence Day to everyone!

Happy Birthday Dear Becky­-July 15­-Sweet 16!

Happy Birthday Dear Kate—July 17—2 years old!

Happy Birthday Dear Ridge—July 22—15 years old!

Happy Birthday Dear Brad—July 23—38 years old!

Happy Birthday Dear McKenna—July 26—7 years old!

MISSIONARY WORK

          Friday, July 29, we went with the other senior couples to Mormon Night at Dodger Stadium to watch the Dodgers play the New York Mets.  We had fairly good seats, all the free hot dogs, nachos, peanuts and soda pop we wanted—all for $28 per person.  President Uchtdorf threw the first pitch and Alex Boye from the tabernacle choir sang The Star Spangled Banner.  We all had a great time. 

          Sylvia Campos is progressing and we enjoy visiting with her.  She has told us she will be baptized “soon.”  Don’t know when her “soon” is.  She asked me if I knew how to make cupcakes.  She said she had never baked anything so last week we made cupcakes and while they were baking and cooling we read the Book of Mormon.  We had a great time!

          Andres Ascension’s wife, Sylvia Cabrera, left a week ago for Guatemala.  Before she left she confided in us that she wants to take the temple classes when she returns.  She also talked to him about finding out if the church is true—especially finding out if the Book of Mormon is true.  She told me about it in her limited English and in my limited Spanish, I told her we would pray for him and her.  She is just the sweetest woman.  She has been feeding elders every week for many years.  When we visited him a week ago he told us the company he works for lost their contract at the airport and he would be traveling a lot in the next several weeks.  There are several locations associated with this contract.  So the company has to have all its equipment removed or make inventories to sell to the new contractor.  Andres has to go to the different company locations to help with this process.  He also said he has quite a bit vacation time and decided to go to Mexico to visit his family.  Dale taught him how to use the Topical Guide and how to use the cross references in the scriptures.  He told Andres about the promise in the Book of Mormon and the Joseph Smith story.  When he asked Andres how long it would take to read the Book of Mormon—he answered about three hours!  We thought he was joking—he wasn’t!  (Andres is very intelligent—still goes to college and is capable of working at several diversified jobs.)  However he added it would take much longer to really study it.  We asked him to read and study and pray about it while he is away and has extra time in the evenings.  He said he really wanted to know if it was true.  He wanted a triple combination with tabs so he had all the scriptures to study.  We made a quick trip over to the distribution center to get him one before he left.  He then showed us his wife’s book where the missionaries had written in it.  He wanted us to write in his.  Please send some prayers up for him.

          We have been visiting with Laura Escalante and trying to set up a time to talk with Carlos again.  The new elders met with them and Carlos consented to take the lessons!  We were so excited to hear about them last Saturday!!

          Jose Guzman was doing really well for 3 weeks with his alcohol addiction.  We felt he had a “change of heart.”  Yesterday before we met with him he started drinking again.  He kept saying if he had to work he had to drink and he had to work for money.  His family feels he needs to go to a place to dry out and they are probably right.  They can’t afford to do that for maybe a year.  His drinking is so hard on them but he can’t see past himself.

          Now the Arzus—we had been talking to him about the whole family going to Mormon Night at the Home Depot Center.  (Remember he was a professional soccer player from Honduras.)  He really wanted to go but didn’t know if his daughter,Leslie, would go—she likes to spend time with friends instead of family.  She loves soccer and track and is a really good athlete.  We were visiting with him on July 3 and while we were there Leslie came home.  Dale asked her what she was doing for the 4^th.  She said she wanted to go to the Home Depot Center to watch the fireworks after the game.  We had given up on taking them, but asked her if she would be interested in going to the game.  When she said yes, it surprised— all of us including Jorge!  That evening Dale wrote what happened. . .

              WE ARE SOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!! It is 10:30 pm and we just returned home from getting six tickets to the LA Galaxy vs. Philadelphia Union soccer (fútbol) match for tomorrow.  For those of you who may not about the Arzu family here is a quick up-date: We started working with Jorge the father about five or six months ago, just teaching him about what the Book of Mormon teaches about Jesus Christ. About three months ago Jorge, the son, got involved in a gang fight at school and was sent to juvenile detention for 6-months. Jorge Sr. would not go anywhere because he was so concerned about Leslie the daughter making bad decisions getting involved with the wrong type of friends. So he would not come to church without her and she was unwilling to come because she did not want people to ask her where Jorge was..

              The dad has gained a testimony and says that he will get baptized when the son gets released. President Baker wants the Elders to do the lessons preparing him for baptism. This will begin shortly. In the meantime the opportunity for a Mormon Night at a Galaxy fútbol match came up. We have been trying (thru her father) to get Leslie interested in going, but she refused. We have not been able to catch her home. Then today while we were teaching Jorge she showed up. We asked her what she was doing for the 4^th (Jorge had already told us that she probably would only want to do something with friends and not the family.)  We were all surprised that she said she wanted to go The Home Depot Center to watch the fire-works.

              We were surprised because that was where the Church members were meeting for the game! So we asked her if she wanted to go to the game using the Mormon night tickets and she got excited and said yes, she would like to go and take a friend! That was a little before 3:00 and we have been working ever since then to get the tickets. It worked out that Pte. Chaves only had $70 tickets instead of the $30 ones. The attachment shows that the $30 tickets were going for $15. So our tickets should be a lot better. Their Bishop (Segovia) was there wanting tickets. Pte. Chaves gave him four tickets next to ours and they just happen to have a handsome son who will be bringing one of his friends! Since this is a Mormon Night the Arzu family will get in free!  Who knows what will happen now!

          The rest of the story is that the Arzus had a great time at the game.  It was so nice to see them doing something fun together.  The Galaxy lost but other than that the night was wonderful.

          We had virtually nothing scheduled on the 4^th and kept wondering what we could do.  President and Sister Baker asked us to help with the new sisters and elders coming into our mission the morning of the 4^th.  We helped with lunch and clean up.  It was very enjoyable.  So our 4^th turned out very memorable with the Arzus and the new missionaries.