Elder Eric Turner: Hangin' With My Peeps (April 23, 2012)

Hey everyone!

I'm really short on time today because of a long email I sent to
President Taylor. He asked us to share some of our favorite mission
experiences, and I wrote quite a lot. I'll get in as much as I can
before time runs out! For fun, take a look at my picture of Elder
Kamissoko's first experience eating a marshmallow Peep.

The family home evening last week with Juan at Rob's home was awesome.
Rob's father in law has all of his kids in the area, and their kids
too. It was very much like Thanksgiving at the Goodey's, kids and all.
What a blast. They made a Hawaiian chicken and had an onion-Hawaiian
pepper "salsa" over the top of it. Juan, Elder Kamissoko and I were
all sweating. Juan loved it when all of the kids came together and did
the message on choosing the right. Juan commented on how good he felt
being in the family atmosphere. We're in the process of scheduling
another one for this evening. Juan also expressed how he still wants
to be baptized, but he feels that May 5th is too soon. We said that
was ok, that we'd talk about it more this week. However, Rob will be
baptized this Saturday and the whole ward is excited for it.

We've had more and more great experiences praying with people in their
homes. We had four prayers this week that just changed the way we've
been seeing people. We prayed with a woman named Christina who is
fighting cancer. We prayed with Chuck whose wife just left him. We
prayed with Ann who lives alone, but her daughter has cancer. The best
was when we prayed with Shawn. We had spoken with him on the street a
few weeks ago. He's a scary looking guy, with tattoos covering every
inch of his torso and neck. When I was on splits the other night, I
felt a strong impression not to see a particular person, but to go see
Shawn. We went, and Shawn was there. We spoke with him outside and he
said how they were actually just taking off because his dad was in the
hospital. I asked if we could come into his home and offer a prayer.
We knelt on the tile floor and prayed, and the Spirit was very strong.
Shawn didn't have a whole lot to say, he just kind of sat there in a
sloppy kneeling position with his head down. You could tell he
appreciated the prayer. We'll be seeing them again this week.

I'm grateful for these experiences we have out here. It's getting hot
but the work is picking up. We're excited for Rob's baptism this
weekend. I thank you all for your prayers and your letters of support.
More to come next week. Take care and be good!

Much love,
Elder Eric James Turner