Improving the District

Well It's crazy that this transfer is almost over. Just one more week. So next week I'll be e-mailing y'all on Thursday. The baptism didn't go through for the 9 year old girl, because she went to her dad's house for the weekend. But we set everything up for this Friday at 3:30 before she leaves for her dad's. Then on Sunday she'll be leaving her dad's an hour or 2 early to get confirmed. The branch president won't let us do a confirmation at the baptism. Kind of lame. Well that's about all going on.

We are still working with a few people. But nobody really close to getting baptized. There's this one lady who is going to church every week so maybe we'll be able to put her on date soon. Then there's also the other lady, the one who had the dream, and she's been going to church too Her son is going to be baptized on the 25th, so we're hoping to baptize her with him. And still hoping that the family will go to the baptism on Friday and desire to get baptized. Those are the three people that are progressing and getting baptized. So hopefully we will be able to start baptizing every week! I think that's about all that's really going on. Just still trying to work with improving the skills that the district has. But oh well. It's all good. Sorry that the letter is so short, but it should be a good one next week. Just some things to look forward to are: transfer information, and telling how the baptism went!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy belated birthday mom! 


Well everything here is going good. We weren't able to baptize the family this weekend. They decided not to get baptized last minute. But we will be having a baptism this weekend. A 9 year old girl whos mom is less-active. She's pretty cool. I'm excited. Hopefully the family that was going to get baptized will go to this baptism have a desire and get baptized there. Yesterday we had an amazing lesson with this investigator who has come to church for the past 2 weeks. She's never really been religious, but likes our church. So we should be putting her on date pretty soon. We got a lot of good potential. It's amazing to see all these blessings coming to us. It's not only our companionship, but the whole district I"m excited for everyone. We have like 2 or 3 people on date to get baptized on the 25th. So we're trying to keep them on date. It's pretty exciting. We're trying to stay humble and make sure that we don't get prideful. I don't know. It doesn't seem like I have much to write about this week. We're just trying to work hard and do what we're supposed to. That's about all there is to it. Hopefully I will have more stuff to write about next week!

Dreaming About a Blue Book

Well everything last week was amazing. The trainings were great. It's pretty much teaching us how to do the things they tell us to do in Preach My Gospel. It's a lot more relying on the Spirit. So it's an amazing experience. Even just doing them in role plays, the Spirit is strong and we can find out the needs of the investigators. It's sick. To answer your questions real quick, p-days are still on wednesday for now. There's been some talk of having them Monday's, but we'll see where that goes. And President Atkinson is the first counselor in the mission presidency. Anyways, the family that we've been teaching and hoping would get baptized last Saturday didn't get baptized. But they are going to be baptized this Saturday. So I'm excited for that. And then on Monday night last week we stopped by a former investigator. She had some dreams about missionaries coming by and talking to her about church, but she has been going to a Christian church for a while and really active in it. So in the dream she told them the same stuff she always told us, that "I have my own church and I don't need to change." Then she had another one talking to them again and in it they were talking to her about church, and she says "I have my own and I study out of this, and this is the only weapon I need" and she reached down to pull out a Bible but instead was holding up a blue book. The Book of Mormon. And so we're starting to teach her again, and hoping to get her baptized her pretty soon. Then with the less-active lady with the 9 year old, we stopped by her and talked to her. Elder Cannon talked to the little girl while I talked to the mom. I applied the trainings we received and by the end she was crying and telling me about how she doesn't feel worthy to pray and all that. A lot of the stuff going on in her life. So that was a pretty good experience. Before we left we kneeled down and I asked her to offer a prayer. It was amazing. We have an appointment with her tonight. I'm not going to be able to be there though because I have some exchanges. But anyways yesterday I was on exchanges and my companion followed up on some referrals, and apparently he ran into some people that are pretty interested in learning more about the gospel. So I'm stoked about seeing how those turn out. It should be a pretty good month. Then yesterday we had interviews with the President Winn. Those went pretty well. He asked all of us to think about things we need to improve. So he asked me what my 3 things were, and I told him. Then he talked to me about becoming a zone leader. So I don't know. We'll see how that goes. Well that's about all I can think about right now.

Successful Week

So turns out we get to do our e-mailing and shopping today. I can't complain, because it's better than nothing! Well, since Wednesday nothing too much has happened. Still don't have too much time to write in my journal and do personal things but it's all good. Friday afternoon I performed my first baptismal interview. So everything went pretty well with that. I got a few more of them coming up this week to do too. The family that we had been preparing to get baptized is going to be baptized this Saturday. Well, 3 of them. The 15 year old daughter wants to be a rebel. So we're going to keep working with her. But something amazing happened on Saturday. We were going and talking to some potentials/talking to people and we ran into 3 or 4 people that can get baptized in September. We met this one lady who goes to church every week, and pays tithing, and all that. Her only hold up is that she worries her relationship with her son will be affected by it. Because he's catholic, so she thinks if she gets baptized he'll get mad and won't bring the grandkids around any more. Then another lady we found is less-active and has a 9 year old daughter that wants to get baptized. She was receiving lessons from missionaries, and the missionaries stopped going by because she got sick. Then we met another lady that has 3 kids that are members. Her and her oldest son are not members. She likes the church but was baptized when she was a baby so she doesn't see a need to be re-baptized. So it was a pretty good day on Saturday. Hopefully they all are as solid as they sound. We have a few other potentials for baptism too. so it should be good.

Well everything is going well here I'm kind of excited for the meetings this week. Yeah it's from 9:00-4:45, but from what President Atkinson told me everybody has loved the mini-trainings they did as test runs. Well my training that I gave today went well. I think. So that was good. I don't know I can't think of much else. I'm loving being able to serve and help the other missionaries It's tough, but good. Well I can't think of too much more to write.

Going a Little Crazy

Everything is going good here. Just a little crazy. I don't want to use it as an excuse, but since I've been a DL it seems like I have no time. I'm up doing stuff up until 10:30. But it's all good.  Just a little taste of what it will be like with a career. Well I don't have too much time.  Sorry this is so short.

Little Trials

Everything here is still going swimmingly. I don't  know the work is going really slow for me. I'm used to having a lot of success and baptisms, and here it's not like that. We're struggling to get someone with a baptismal date. But we added 7 new investigators last week, so we should be seeing some improvements pretty soon. The greenies are still doing good. They're both solid. But it's still taking a lot out of me trying to train the both of them at the same time. It's tough because they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and so I have to help both of them on two different things at the same time. But i'm loving it still. Right now there are a few investigators that we are working with that are close to baptism. One of them is Rosalva. She seems like she knows everything we are teaching is true, but that she isn't sure that tshe wants to know it's true. So that's a little frustrating. But we think that she will get baptized in a few weeks. Just in time for me to leave. Then there are a few more families that we are working with. One of them we taught last night. They don't go to any church, and have a son that was baptized three years ago. And they seem like they are going to be some pretty good investigators. I'm just hoping that we will be able to give somebody a baptismal date pretty soon. Well I think that that is about it. I mean it's pretty much the same thing. Trying to find teach and baptize the elect. But I guess I should have been expecting a time that would be a little harder on the mission. Especially since I've had so much success. It's kind of like with the story of Job. I've been given a lot so I'm just going through a little trial right now. Hopefully my next area will have a lot of work to do.  Well I will let y'all know how everything goes with transfers this week. Hopefully I'll be able to report good things and nothing bad.

President Winn

Well everything here is going pretty well. The work is still going a little bit slow. We have a bunch of good potential investigators and we just need to be able to contact them. From there everything will be good. So, work wise there's not too much to report on. We have an investigator that is pretty close to baptism. He said that he knows the Book of Mormon and church are true, but he wants to know a little more before he gets baptized. Which is good because we've only taught a little bit of the first lesson. Then we have another investigator that we're working with. I'm pretty sure she'll be baptized in August. And then we have all those potentials that we just need to contact.

We had interviews with President Winn on Friday last week. They went pretty well. He Told me that I'm a leader of missionaries and that I need to prepare now to be a leader. Then he told me that It was coming very soon. And he wrote those same things to me in an e-mail last week. So it'll be interesting to see the things to come. I don't know. It's tough training two missionaries. It seems like it's taking a lot out of me. I don't know. It's definitely the hardest thing of the mission so far. But, I'm growing a lot from it. I'm learning a lot. I've found that the things I have to apply to them, I'll be able to apply later on in life. Well I can't really think of too much more to write about. The time is still going by really fast. It's crazy I'm down to only 10 months left. I feel like there's still a lot I have to do and learn.