Praise the Lord our team has arrived Santa Rosa/Novato area this afternoon! We have nine trainees on this team. In addition, there are around eight full-timers and more than thirty local saints from the Berkeley and San Francisco area plan to join us partially during our two-week stay. There are three campuses in this area: Sonoma State University, Santa Rosa Junior College, and College of Marin. Although the saints currently have some contacts in each of these campuses, the main burden during these two weeks is on Sonoma State University.

This evening we had dinner with some local saints at a house right next to the gate of the Sonoma State University. We were all very impressed by how wonderfully the Lord has prepared this place for the church life in the past few months. The location and the structure of the house are very convenient to have students over. Currently there is a core family and one student living in this house. The saints have registered a Bible club and plan to have Bible studies at Sonoma State University throughout the semester.

Prayer burdens:

• The Lord will gain five core students and fifteen solid contacts who will remain in the church life and enjoy the bible studies during this semester
• The coordination among the local saints, the serving ones and the trainees. There will be a kickoff meeting tomorrow evening after the Lord’s Table meeting.
• The Lord will burden some young families to migrate to this area

The Lord is surely moving in Salt Lake City! The saints have testified that ever since the church has taken the ground here, there has been a shift in the spiritual atmosphere from that of oppression to one of clear skies.

We all arrived by plane yesterday and spent the afternoon resting/working on the meeting hall in Salt Lake City, which is in fact a house that the church bought and converted into a meeting hall. The saints are currently working on it, and we have joined in their labor. In the evening, we split and blended with the saints in two different home meetings, Chinese and English-speaking.

Today, we spent the day continuing to work on the meeting hall and packaged 400 New Testament Recovery Versions to be distributed in these coming weeks. Tonight, we had dinner and orientation at the Eliason’s, where we prayed and went over the focus of our time here (contacting people at the University of Utah and joining their church life), our gospel work as BfA volunteers, and some things to know about Mormons, as Salt Lake City is the Mormon capital, and thereby heavily populated by such. All our labor, whether construction or handling Bibles, is preceded by prayer. It has been a joy just going from house to house, blending with the saints and entering into their burden.

Prayer burdens:

• We will be going door-knocking tomorrow in the Sugarhouse neighborhood nearby the campus. Pray that we would find the sons of peace, those that the Lord has prepared to meet us.
• Pray for the campus work. At the University of Utah (aka U of U), there are 2 core “Utes” and many new ones. There were five newly baptized students last week. Pray that in our appointments these ones would be properly nourished and fed. Pray also for our first Bible study this coming Thursday.
• Pray for the blending among the saints, that the saints would learn to depend on each other, to see each other more and to shepherd one another.

On Friday, we arrived at one of the saints’ homes in Rancho Cucamonga where the local saints warmly welcomed the trainees and visiting saints who came to join the Rancho Cucamonga GTCA 2015 team. Even before the activities began, some of the visiting saints contacted a few people at a store while waiting to be picked up. After dinner and fellowship the evening was filled with prayer and singing, affording everyone to be filled in spirit.

On Saturday, after prayer and coordination, we went out into the neighborhood door-knocking and contacting people. It was a very windy day with 25 mph winds, but this turned out to be an advantage to us as many people remained indoors in their houses. This provided us the opportunity to contact them. We also passed out invitations to a series of gospel meetings that will be held over our time here. Praise the Lord for His move on Earth!

Prayer burdens:

• One accord among the team and the local saints
• Those contacted to come to the gospel meetings, the first of which will be on Tuesday, January 27th, 2015.
• Many remaining fruit

The winter 2015 gospel trips will begin on Friday, January 23, as part of the continuing burden to gospelize, truthize, and churchize North America. Gospel teams of full-time trainees and other saints will visit 18 cities in the United States and Canada to preach the gospel, shepherd new and young believers, and give away free BfA materials. The trips will conclude on Monday, February 9, after visits to each of the following cities:

• Birmingham, Alabama
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Fargo, North Dakota
• Fort Myers, Florida
• Huntsville, Alabama
• Huntsville, Texas
• Lafayette, Indiana
• Merced, California
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Novato, California
• Rancho Cucamonga, California
• Salem, Oregon
• Santa Rosa, California
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• Temecula, California
• Virginia Beach, Virginia
• Wickliffe, Ohio
• Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Please pray for the coordination and blending of the gospel teams and local saints in these cities. Pray also that the Lord would work in the environment outwardly and in people’s hearts inwardly to connect His seekers to the saints during these gospel trips. May the Lord increase and spread in North America!

The 2014 winter GTCA gospel trips were a blessing to all involved. The following video reviews the highlights from last year’s gospel trips that occurred across the United States. Over 100 full-time trainees and many other saints from nearby supporting churches traveled to join saints in the following 19 U.S. cities. The goal of these trips is for the continued labor in the burden of preaching the gospel, spreading the truth, and raising up churches in North America:

• Columbia, SC
• Edinburg, TX
• Fargo, ND
• Fayetteville, AR
• Fort Myers, FL
• Greeley, CO
• Lafayette, IN
• Lexington, KY
• Lincoln, NE
• Lubbock, TX
• Merced, CA
• Murfreesboro, TN
• Novato, CA
• Olympia, WA
• Omaha, NE
• Stillwater, OK
• Temecula, CA
• Virginia Beach/Newport News, VA

The teams preached the gospel and distributed free Bibles for America materials at local college campuses and public areas. They also followed up with those who have previously ordered BfA materials.