Advice from the Elders

Everything here is going great. I guess the biggest news is that on Wednesday we had interviews with President Winn. In it he talked to me about how for my last two transfers he's going to put me back down in the valley. So I'll probably get transferred this Wednesday. The plan is to have me train again for my last transfer. He asked me if there was a particular place that I wanted to go, which I didn't have any. I figure I'll go where I'm supposed to go. I did ask if I could serve around Elder Hiatt or Elder Morris though. Then midway through the interview he realized that there weren't any new spanish missionaries coming in on the April transfer, which will be my last one. So hopefully he'll keep me here a little longer. We've been able to see so many miracles this past week. We have a copy of the consent form for getting the kid baptized. We're still waiting on the parents to humble themselves and pick a date. Then on Thursday we received a referral and checked it. The dad opened up the door and started talking to us and he said that his daughters wanted to ge baptized so they had their friend send a referral, and they had another friend send another one just in case the first one didn't work. He also wants to start coming back to church. We'll be going back to visit them next week. They're down in Vegas getting married and all that stuff. And it turns out the mom might not be a member. So we're excited about them. As we were leaving their house a man pulled up in a truck and motioned for us to come over. So we walked over and started talking to him. He told us that he has a friend that's been reading the Book of Mormon and is sincerely considering baptism. But he had a bad experience with missionaries in the past so he doesn't want to be taught by us. So hopefully we'll be able to get him baptized pretty soon as well. Then a week ago we tracted into a house with a less-active mom and a non-member dad and a kid. So we set up an appointment to go talk with the mom and dad. Come to find out the kid isn't baptized either. But the dad doesn't want them taught in their home. So we get a call the day before the appointment from the mom cancelling our first appointment. As she's talking she mentions "you know, it's a weird coincidence. The day y'all knocked my door, my son came home from a band trip and said 'mom I want to start going back to church.'" So he had been taught by the missionaries before, but the dad wanted him to wait until he was older to decide to be baptized. Well it's been a few years and the kid is now older and is leaning towards baptism.

This week we also taught the young women in one of the wards for their mutual activity. It was kind of weird. I can't even talk to girls any more. I guess that's a good sign? But it went well, there wasn't much participation though. Yesterday we had lunch with the young womens leader who has been helping us with one of our investigators, Kayla. So we went over there after church and talked with Sister Adams and her husband and Kayla, just chatting. And one of the laurels came over that is Kayla's friend and Sister Adams told her to ask us for relationship advice about a boy she likes that is going on a mission. Naturally I deferred to Elder Byrd because I don't have any experience with girls. So I let him take that question. We came up with a plan for her. So that was pretty fun. Then at the end when we had to leave Kayla said that she wanted to start meeting with us more often. So that was sweet. It's been an amazing week.

So a little fun story for y'all. Saturday was prom here. And it is A LOT different than back home. They go out on an all day date starting in the morning, then go home get ready, go out to dinner, then go to their prom. They only have junior prom here, not senior. They have Senior ball. Anyways what they do for prom is have them walk out with their escort, introduce each of them and who their parents are, then do a choreographed dance that they've learned for the past two weeks before school starts, then have a dance with their mom/dad. And then it's pretty much over. So it's more of a community event here. But it's what they've grown up with, so to each his own I guess.

Oh and for the month of February the zone had 27 baptisms and 26 confirmations, which beats the Wyoming zone record. This weekend we had 9 baptisms and 10 confirmations and have 38 people on date as a zone. So we're doing pretty well. And as a mission we finished with 283 baptisms for the month, which is also a record. And there were 86 baptisms and confirmations that weekend. Another record.