Series of Letters

18 August 2009

Dear Family,

This week's been alright. One of our investigators missed church so now she's going to be baptized on Sep 5 (special day). Tomorrow I'm being transferred to Far West with Elder W[...]. It will be nice to be in a new area.

On Sunday I went to one of the wards to do a sharing time, and a less active family I was teaching was at church. They were really surprised to see me because their son, S[...], was getting the Aaronic Priesthood and he wanted me to do it, but they forgot to ask me. It was nice being able to do that.

Love, E[...] M[...]

1 September 2009

Life is good. Grandma and Grandpa are in my district and so when I was on exchanges I got to stop in for a couple minutes. It was nice to see them.
As for the work, it is going great. We baptized D[...] on Saturday and we have a bunch more lined up for September.

We have a family of four preparing for baptism in September. It will be the first entire family I have helped into the covenant of baptism. The major problem right now is the mother is going to have a baby September 17 so we are praying they will still be baptized at the end of the month. It's always difficult with pregnant women.

Its good to hear J[...] is a good guy. Grandma said she approves and I've only heard good things about him. That's great.

Love, E[...] M[...]

8 September 2009

Dear family

Well I got to eat lunch with Grandma and Grandpa last week. that was pretty nice. Is T[...] still preparing for a mission? i haven't heard anything about that since I left.

This week was pretty good. We taught a lot of lessons, and had almost nobody at church. One family we are teaching had to go to church to be baptized in September, but they were in Salt Lake so they missed it. That just means we had to push their baptismal dates back into October.

Love, E[...] M[...]

15 September 2009

Dear Family,

The family we've been teaching has lost their baptismal dates. That is because everything in the world has been coming up and they haven't been able to make it to church. Calls into work, family stuff, and sewage backup have been going on. This week the mother is having a baby so we'll have to wait a while longer on them because church attendance is a requirement.

We committed 2 people for baptism yesterday and one of them seems way solid. The other guy, K[...] (its a man) has to give up smoking first. He also has short term memory loss so we are going to have fun teaching him.

The work is great.

Love, E[...] M[...]

22 September 2009

Hey Mom,

I got the package this morning so don't worry about it. The W[..]'s are moving? They just got here not to long ago. Life is going to be different at the end of these two years.

The work is good. We have 17 people we are teaching right now so we get to teach a lot. Only 7 have dates for baptism.

We started teaching a man named N[...] O[...]. He is married to a member, but grew up around the church but not in the church. He actually had a really bad view of the church until he was married and now he has softened up. It's fun to teach him because he always has comments and questions. He doesn't want to be pushed so he is taking everything slow. He's open to the spirit though and so he will be baptized soon, but not until he really feels ready.

Love, E[...] M[...]

29 September 2009

Well transfers are tomorrow. I'm staying in Farr West, but I get a new companion. His name is Elder E[...] and he has been out longer than me. No worries though. The worst part of the transfer is my district is getting switched up and Grandma and Grandpa aren't in my district anymore so I won't see them as much.
We got a call from a lady a night ago and she wants us to teach her mom. Her mom was very anti, but now has Alzheimer's and forgot she is anti-Mormon. If she can remember what we teach her she will probably be baptized in a few weeks.

Love, E[...] M[...]

6 October 2009

Dear Family,

My week went ok. Two of the people I'm teaching got swine flu so we are avoiding them like the plague. Conference totally made up for it though. Elder Holland's talk was amazing as usual. I'm pretty sure he is my favorite to listen to. We watched some of it with the stake patriarch and the other day at the stake president's house. I really liked Elder Oaks talk as well. It's something difficult to deal with that many people don't understand how God's love cannot supersede his law. Even though he loves us infinitely, He cannot and will not save us if we won't abide Christ's law. The Honor He has would cease. Also the agency he has granted us shows his love.

One of the stake presidents over here taught me an important principle. To help his young men prepare for a mission he works with them a lot. One thing he does is he will let them drive him around in his brand new Camaro. He shows trust in them, maybe sometimes more than they trust themselves, and in return He gets trust back. God has done this with us as well, just with life and not a drive in a car.

Love, E[...] M[...]

13 October 2009

Dear Family,

I'm fine.

Love,
E[...] M[...]

ps

I guess I need to write a little more than that.
So this week we taught the A[...] family again. We found out the reason why they won't go to church. They are scared of offending someone because they are quiet and do not like big social things. We thought we made good progress with that concern and invited them to church, but they didn't go. It seems like they will just agree to anything and not mean or follow through with it. We will keep working with them though.

They dedicated a new stake center on Sunday and we got to hear one of the 70's speak. It was pretty nice to be able to be there. I don't remember ever being to a dedication like that before. It was nice though.

Love, E[...] M[...]