Dear Family,
This e-mail says part 1, but i don't have the part 2 yet so i'll
just go off of this. It has been just a crazy week for me this last
week. We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off it
would seem. Christmas was awesome! It was so fun to be able to talk
to you (parents) on Christmas. It was the highlight of the day for
sure. Your example continues to inspire me to continue to become a
better missionary. As well as the example of now Braden and Whitney and
all the examples that came before. So some exciting news... we reached
our mission goal of 400 baptisms for the year 2012!! We actually
baptized exactly 400 people as of yesterday and i think there is one or
two more today. What is even more exciting is that Elder Dyer and I
ended up having a baptism yesterday and he was number 400! We baptized
Gary Weis. He was the one that I thought was crazy when I first met him
because he sang a song to me that he didn't really know the words to
and such. We've been meeting with him for a while now and we both felt
impressed that he was to be a part of the 400 souls that were to be
baptized this year. We picked him up for church last week and he said
that he had been smoke and drink free for 3 weeks now. He also came to
church yesterday. We saw him on Thursday and told him that he was ready
to be baptized on Sunday, 3 days later. He said Ok and we went over
the baptismal interview questions with him and he knew all of them. We
saw him Friday as well and filled out the baptismal record and did some
more review. He had his interview on Saturday and passed and then the
baptism on Sunday. Everything just fell into place and it's true that
the purposes of the Lord will roll on and be fulfilled. I'm just glad
that I could be a part of His work. It really was a white Christmas for
me!
Well normally P-Days we work from 6-9 at night but because today is
New Year's Eve, our cars are grounded at 6. We can be with members at
their house, but they have to pick us up and we still have to be back in
by 9 and asleep by 10:30 which I am more than happy to comply with. So
it's basically like we get the whole day for a P-Day. We are going to
be going over to the Churchill's for dinner and might play some games or
something. Our investigator Kirk is still doing well. We actually had
him drive us to church and stay with us so that was a great way to get
him to come to church! It worked out for us too because we didn't have
the car. We are teaching him the word of wisdom on Wednesday so we will
see how that goes. He is a pretty accomplished drinker you could say.
A member of our ward gave a talk at Gary's baptism and he phrased
something about eternal families in a way that I had never thought of
before. Imagine you are looking for someone in New York City who just
stays in one place the whole time. You eventually would find them, but
it would take years to look everywhere with the 8 or so million people
that live in that city. Now imagine being in the spirit world with
billions of people trying to find your family without being sealed to
them. Being sealed is a gaurantee that we will be able to find our
families and be around everyone that we love in the life hereafter.
Just a cool thought that I had never crossed my mind.
So the pictures are of Gary's baptism. Our bishop performed the
actual ordinance, but Elder Dyer was in the font as well to help with
the dunking part because Gary isn't in the best of health. Then i
confirmed him. The next is us with the Bruins. We spent Christmas Eve
with them and went back over on Christmas day as well. Then me with the
presents, and them under our little tree and the wreckage on Christmas
morning. I'll send more pictures in another e-mail.
I love you all so much and thank you for all of the thoughts,
e-mails, cards, packages, etc and mostly thank you for all the love and
prayers in my behalf! i know that this church is true!
I found the closest thing I could to a mountain here in Iowa. It's in the parking lot of the mall here in West Des Moines. i don't know how they plowed the snow up that high, but it's like 2/3rds of the way up that light pole. Also a poor little VW bug in our parking lot that won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
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