Last Weekly Update from SLC

Wow. It's kind of crazy. I'll keep things pretty short since I'll just be able to update y'all in a couple of days. But things here have been pretty crazy. I've been getting ready to leave and starting to do all my goodbye's. It was kind of crazy on Sunday. I gave a farewell talk. They had the dad's with missionaries out talk, and then I talked at the end. There wasn't much doctrine taught. It was mostly just me up there reflecting on my mission. It made it harder because I saw so many people from a year ago that I taught and they were all there with their church clothes on, preparing to go to the temple. And that's what true joy is. Saturday I had my departing interview with President Winn. It was great. It helped me feel more ready to go home. So it helped me calm down a lot. Then today I said bye to the Lopez family. They might be able to get sealed the weekend we're up here. Hopefully. Well today is p-day, tomorrow I'm going to the temple and out to lunch with all the missionaries that are leaving, and then Wednesday transfers, then that evening will be the devotional. I'm still kind of in shock. But I will see y'all soon!

End of the World

Hey! I'm glad I'm able to write to y'all today especially considering I thought the world was going to end on Saturday. Pretty scary stuff. Friday a bunch of people walked up to us and asked us if the world was really going to end. That's how we figured out about it.

Everything here is going well. We have a baptism on Saturday of the Puerto Rican girl. And we're working to get the family baptized. We'll be able to do it. This weekend was kind of crazy. Sunday came and we were pretty mad because the family that we're trying to get baptized, didn't come to church on Sunday. Neither did one of our converts. So we were mad standing at the doors greeting people. Then we saw a lady that we met the day before that we didn't think would come. And she came. So I was happy right there. Then half way through the couple we were helping to get married showed up. We ended up having 8 investigators to church which is the most we've had since we've been together. So we were pretty happy after church. Then after church we get a call from the couple we were helping to get married, and the woman said "I'm not getting married today we're going to have to cancel it. We've been having problems lately.." and just went off. So I told her we were on our way over. We called the branch president and he came. We ended up staying and talking with them for around an hour and a half, with them planning on getting married. It was great. So at 8 we had the marriage. We asked members to help with food and to make it a little special, and they pulled through. It turned out being really good. Oh and she said that she wants to get baptized, so we're going to put them on date this week. That's about all going on here.

The Real Mormons

Everything here is going well. The family that we had on date for the 20th is now on date for the 29th. We're going to help the kids get married when the girl turns 18 on the 25th. This week we also started teaching a little 10 year-old girl from Puerto Rico. Her mom is less active because she always worked on Sundays in Puerto Rico. We talked to her and gave her a Book of Mormon picture book. After the first day she already read half of it. She's great. She's so smart and catches on to everything pretty quickly. So she'll probably be getting baptized on the 28th. We're going by (to see) her today. We're continuing to try to find more people to teach. As we've been knocking doors we've ran into some interesting people. A lot of doors getting slammed on us. It's great. The other day we were on our bikes going through the trailer park and we saw these two girls on bikes, one of them with a Wal-mart bag. And they said they were "playing Mormons." They had 2 Book of Mormons in the bag. And when they saw us they said "Hey it's the real Mormons!" It was great. One of the things I won't miss is all of the stress that comes on Sundays of trying to make sure investigators get to church. It's such a stessful day, and always ends up being one of the busiest. It's getting harder and harder to wake up every morning. I'm just a tired worn out old man. I think that's about all that's going on for me right now. I can't really think of anything else. And if there is I can just tell y'all when I see y'all in a few weeks.

Happy Mother's Day!

Everything is still going good. Nothing new to report. I hope y'all have a great week and that everything goes well for y'all.

Finding the Elect

Well things here are going great. Like I said last week we were able to put that family of four on date. We're just trying to figure out how we are going to get the kids married. They're both underage and the parents of the girl live in Rock Springs. So we might have to wait until she is 18, which is on the 25th. On Saturday we were able to meet with some new investigators. They seem pretty interested. They're names are Jessica and Jose. They're living together and need to be married, so we're planning on helping them with that. We're also hoping to get them baptized on the 28th. They'll be ready by then. We were talking with them and she started talking about how she doesn't want to go to Catholic church because a lot of things have happened lately to disgrace it. So I think that they've been prepared. We'll see I guess. Their next appointment isn't until Friday.

We've been doing so much finding lately it's crazy. We're trying to make sure that we work with the elect. People that are really ready and prepared to hear the gospel.  So if they aren't progressing by the 3rd lesson we are just dropping them. Other than that there hasn't been too much going on this week. We met a guy that served a mission and is less-active now. He said that he found a book that was twice the size of the Book of Mormon. I guess he thinks that he found the sealed portion. It was kind of weird. Because he believes in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson, but he believes there's another prophet on the earth. It was just really weird I don't know. I think he just learned too much and thinks he's above the church now or doesn't need it. I think that's about all that's really going on. This Saturday a family I baptized a year ago is going to be going through the temple to get sealed. I'm excited for that. It will be good to be able to see them do that.  I think that's about all that's going on right now.

Servants of Christ

Well it's been a pretty interesting week. Wednesday we had transfers, and we stayed together. It was kind of sad to see some of the people go. I can't believe that it'll be me the next one. I'm not gonna lie, it's hard to focus sometimes but I'm doing my best to work hard.

We've had a lot of trials this week. We've continued to drop a lot of investigators and trying to find new ones. So one of the days we went out and tried to find some, and the whole day nobody answered the door. That was hard. I felt a little discouraged that day. So when we got home we sat and talked and tried to figure out what we were doing wrong that was preventing us from finding new investigators. We talked it over and figured some things out and decided to change. So we started changing it that night and started updating the teaching records. The next day we went tracting and one of the first few doors we knocked there was a white guy that opened up. And he started to try and bash us and pick all the things out of our church that were wrong. I was tempted to open the Bible and start bashing back, but I restrained myself because it wouldn't get us anywhere. So we just stood there I defended our points, through a few scriptures out and was just smiling and laughing about how ridiculous this guy was. Then towards the end of the conversation he started criticizing us for going by the title Elder. And how we don't deserve the title because we're too young and that we couldn't go around with that title when he has grandkids older than us and telling people about what they need to do. And I kind of got mad at that and explained about it again, and told him that only prideful people would get offended by that and that prideful people wouldn't want to listen to Servants of Christ that are younger than them. And he got defensive about that and so we left. That took about a hour and a half. Then later on we found a lady who seemed pretty interested. We talked to her for a few minutes but she had to go so we're going back this week.

Then Saturday we had the baptism of Humberto. I baptized him. Everything turned out well. There were almost no complications. The Spirit was strong the whole time. Sunday we were asked to give talks in sacrament meeting. So we were waiting for Humberto to show up and get confirmed but he didn't show up, so we started giving our talks. I talked about the Atonement. I think it went pretty well. It's my favorite thing to talk about. There's so much to it. But half way through Elder Zambrano's talk Humberto walked in. So he finished his talk, I gave mine, and they had Humberto come to the front to be confirmed. So the day went on and we were planning for Silvias baptism. The plan we came up with was for her to attend an english ward and have a translator. So she went to the english ward, it went well. So we had her baptism and confirmation on Sunday night. It was great as well. The Spirit was strong, there were a lot of people, it was great. Oh and Sunday we were able to contact someone we've been trying to talk to for a week or two. We found the whole family there and we talked with them. They've been talking to missionaries for a few years now. We talked to them, had a pretty good lesson, and at the end me and my companion sang a hymn for them. The Spirit filled the room, and we invited them to "follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God." Each one of them said yes. The son needs to get married and we're going to help him with that. We're going to the temple with them this Thursday. It should be good. It was a great way to end such a tough week. 2 baptisms and 4 people on date to be baptized!

Go Karts

Things here are going alright. We aren't sure if we are going to baptize Silvia because her schedule changed and she now works on Sunday mornings. So we don't know what we're going to do with that. We don't want to baptize her into a situation that wouldn't be good for her. And Humberto is still doing well. He's been reading and he came to church on Sunday with his family. So we're still planning on that. We're pretty excited for it. Things are going well for them. As for the work in the area, we're still working on getting the work going again. It's been tough. We've been dropping a lot of our investigators that haven't been progressing or that don't want to progress, and trying to find some new ones. We aren't doing so well in finding new ones. We're getting a lot of people that are not ready to hear the gospel. But we're still trying. We know that as we work hard the Lord will bless us and find those who are ready. It's been a little bit tough. But oh well.

Today we went Go Karting with a few missionaries and Sis Winn. It was pretty fun. They took a lot of pictures so you'll probably see some of them on Sister Winn's blog (http://www.mamawinnsplace.blogspot.com/). Other than that everything is going well. We found out on Sunday that we are going to be giving a talk on Easter Sunday next week. So that'll be good. I'm ready for that. I'm just trying to keep working hard and keep being diligent. It's kind of tough though. The area I'm in has planes that fly over it all the time. I can't believe that I'll be going home in 6 weeks. We have transfers on Wednesday. So I'll probably be staying in the area. This transfer has been going by so fast. It's crazy.