December 12, 2011

Hey Family and friends

Hope this Holiday season everyone is doing well. This last week has gone by in a blur. Actually most weeks go by in a blur. When I first entered the mission field I was so excited to find people and share the gospel, and although that is our major focus it seems to be the members that need our greatest attention at this time. We have a lot of less active/part member families that we work with each week, and this last week we were able to see almost everyone that we had planned on visiting. We had a really good visit with Kathy and Kamen (LA) and Kamen’s friends Teagan and Gracie. We haven't been able to teach them for the last month because they each took turns getting sick. So we were pretty excited to teach them. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and Gracie and Teagan loved it. We had brought cardboard cut outs to help us and after wards they each took turns teaching us. Gracie and Teagan are so close to being ready for baptism. The only thing is their mom doesn't care to be taught (but has no problem with her kids being taught) and Gracie and Teagan are 9 and 12. So they need a good support system, and someone to bring them to church each week. So that's one mountain that we still need to climb.

We've started attending YW's activities periodically. We're trying to strengthen our relationship with the youth and support the leaders in their callings. We only have I think four YW and we're lucky if we have one show up for activities.

Friday night at dinner sister shutt started feeling sick at dinner so we went home early and spent the morning at home. But we had an appointment with Roland later that day that we both wanted to keep. Our zone leaders at Thursdays DM had talked about the need to strengthen our faith and ways that we might go about doing that. And then from there they kind of challenged us, if we hadn't already, to invite our investigators to be baptized. And so at our lesson with Roland we did just that. We invited him to be baptized on December 31st and he accepted. We're both really excited about this. He still has some things that he needs to be taught but I know that if he remembers the answer he received after praying to know if the book of Mormon is true and the feelings he gets when he prays that he will be baptized. Last night we had our stake Christmas concert. We invited Roland to come to the concert and at first he was kind of hesitant. But then his niece piped in and said that she's be interested in coming. They both came and really enjoyed it. And the members were great. Many of them came and introduced themselves and welcomed them in. That's so important. Investigators need to feel included and loved right off the bat.

I don't know if I mentioned that Sister Shutt and both sang in the choir. It was so much fun to be up there singing. At the end all the performers gathered on the stage and we all congregation included sang Joy to the World. The spirit was so strong in the chapel. Someone in the congregation came and talked to me after the concert and asked if I had so much fun singing in the choir. They said that they'd watched me and during that last song I had the biggest smile on my face. Which was probably true. I was just so happy. I love singing about the birth of Christ.

Oh and then last night after our concert we were making some Christmas cards and we discovered a dead mouse in our basement. Bro. McConkie had set out some traps. I guess mice aren't all that uncommon in the fall and winter seasons. All the mice from the corn fields come in to find someplace warm. We caught three last night.

I love you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas!