23 September 2009

Howdy-do, The church is true, the book is blue, see ya in less than two.
I'm going on 8 months here, that means I'm almost a third the way done with my mission. I found out last night I will be staying in Lakewood for at least six more weeks. Exciting! My companions, all except my trainer will all be home soon. Larmouth goes home on Friday, Thomas six weeks after and Hunting ( my comp now) 12 weeks after that. Its so weird. Anyways I'm glad neither of us has to deal with packing today, and I am also glad Eliza got her luggage.
So anyways... Last week was awesome. We baptized Chase Barrett, the 13 year old son of a recent convert son. The spirit was so strong there and the ordinance was definately sealed by it. We had the youth involved in the program and one of their non-member friends who sings very well sang "Amazing Grace" Right before the baptism. They invited so many non-member friends that we had to move to the chapel to seat everyone. It was great! We both got to bear our testimonies and teach a bit about baptism. Everyone there admitted that there was a special feeling. I went and put my arm around his non-member dad who knows the church is true, but is struggling with smoking and was going to tell him I was proud of his son. He turned to me and said, "I know... It's telling me that it's my turn too." He says it won't be too long, I'm excited to work with their family more, because they are the sweetest family you'll ever meet. Their other to kids are in prison, but they are all getting their lifes sorted out. The one son asked to stay in until he graduates from high school, and then he's planning on getting a job when he does so.
We also had other investigators drop us, and are down basically to a 0 teaching pool again, so we gotta kick it up this transfer with member work. We have two awesome new ward mission leaders who we have daily contact with who are willing to do/coordinate anything.
The most disappointing thing however is that Melinda and Brent bailed on us. We had a Friday night appointment set at a members home. They called and asked to meet at 730 instead of 7 so we worked it out and showed up at 730. We sat and talked to the members and tried calling a few times and left messages, but they never came. We finally left at like 815 and drove by their house. Their one car was there and their lights were on. We made some visits elsewhere, but they still haven't called or answered our messages. He's a member, she's not, they're living together with a kid, in case I never told you that much. But its just disheartening. We moved on, dropped them and left a nice note in the area book, and then we turned them over to the ward for fellowship. But meanwhile we ruined a young couple's friday night. Thats what I felt bad about.
Other than that we went tracting in the rain this week, and we were supposed to teach the young men at mutual, but none heard about it and only one came, so we taught him and the wml. It was good, because he's been struggling I think.
My Pulsar watch also died, but it was ok, because our other wml is a jeweler, so he took it and cleaned it and changed out the battery.
Well I love you guys! Take care and have a great week.

Love,
Elder Stevenson