Elder D. Andrew Greenman

Our son, Elder Andrew Greenman, has been called to serve in the Mozambique Maputo Mission. He has asked me to create this blog so that you, the reader, can read his letters to home. His current writing address is found below along with the most recent letter.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Our Area Is Exploding


It was another great week filled with inspiration and perspiration.    Elder Largent and I got rents paid and were able to get the office work done a lot quicker.   We still didn’t have as much time in our area because an Elder had to fly down from Tete to go to the Hospital and Elder Largent and I stuck with him until we went back up Friday night.   Our district is doing a lot of work.  Three of the elders in our district are going to be leaving in the next two transfers.  My companion is one of them.  (I’m super happy that he isn’t trunky)   the other two are the Assistants, one is leaving this transfer and the other is leaving the transfer after.    

Elder Paxman, the assistant leaving this transfer, decided to extend his mission by a transfer.   His entire mission he has had a girl writing him.   (don’t get me wrong, Elder Paxman is one of the best missionaries I know, and is super focused on the work)  but we always joke around with him saying that now that he has extended the girl that is writing him will find someone else.   Well today it happened.  We’ve made fun of him in the past, but when it actually happened today it turned into an awkward turtle situation.  We all kind of looked at each other in dead silence after he read us the Dear John.   It was like that for about 10 seconds when Elder Paxman burst out laughing and we all did too.   Elder Paxman said that the moral of the story is found in Doctrine and covenants 4.


Our area is exploding.  Miracles are happening.  Elder Largent and I are teaching another new family.  This past Sunday we had 4 different families at church and 11 investigators in total.  With all the Elders working in our branch we had almost 30 investigators.    God is truly blessing us by guiding us to the families that he has prepared.    In one house alone we are teaching four families.  Three of them live there and the other lives a little bit further away, so we’ve invited him to come and sit with us.   Joaquim and Argentina are doing very well.  When we passed by there house Joaquim wasn’t home.  At this time it was 9:30 at night and his car had broken down close to the border with South Africa.   He said that he’d do everything possible to get to church the next morning at 8.   Laivino and Presalina, who live in the same house, are doing very well.  Laivino is changing so much.  The first time we taught them he wasn’t as interested, but now there is a special light about him.  He’s so much happier.  He has stopped drinking and smoking since day one that we taught him the word of wisdom.    

The collective marriage is marked for March 1.  Laivino said that he’d be starting his papers this week.  This can be a very hard process, especially if you were born in another province.  Laivino was born in Gaza so that makes things more difficult and more expensive.   Regardless of the difficulty, Laivino has the desire to live the law of chastity and is doing everything possible.  The first day we sat with Laivino and Joaquim, they didn’t have a job.  Since then, they have gotten a job and are saving up to start their legal documents and then get married.    

I feel  that Elder Largent and I are having so much more success right now.  I wouldn’t be able to tell you why it is now that God has granted it unto us.  I know that my first transfer with Elder Largent we were still working just as hard, but now things are happening.    The worth of souls is great in the sight of   God.   Whenever I make a contact on the street, or whenever I’m teaching a lesson I’ve been trying to keep this in mind.  I try to imagine in my mind that the families we teach are going to the temple together to be sealed.  Instead of seeing a drunk man, I look at him as the person he could be.  When we contacted Joaquim he was drunk, but because we contacted him, and taught him, the Lord has guided us to three other families as well.  As human beings our potential is phenomenal.  It is impossible for us to comprehend who we can become.  We do not have the capacity to understand what it means to be a God.  That is our goal, to one day be like our Father in Heaven.   That is Joaquim and Laivino’s potential, to one day become like Him.   Missionary work is incredible.  I’m having the time of my life. 
-Elder Greenman

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