Hey family, I just got back from playing football with the zone and we decided to get right into emailing. Things are going great up here in Lakewood.
We had probably one of the most busy weeks of my mission this week. We've been teaching a guy named JC who's been coming to the YSA branch. He's a really smart guy with a good amount of religous background, but he sees the Book of Mormon as the missing link, the "middle man" and he was excited to get baptized on Friday. Another girl in the YSA branch named Kaiah has been taught for quite a while, but just had a hard time keeping some commitments but was finally felt ready to be baptized. She brought a friend named Alicia that's been coming to the branch with her and so we interviewed her and they were both baptized on Friday. So that was pretty good start to the weekend. We had several more investigators committed in the Lakewood ward for Sunday. Sirino Lucas, the Micronesian that was baptized last week, helped us teach his wife Kristiana this week, and we found out that their grandson Peterson that has been coming to primary is only 7 years old, we thought he might be 8. But, we also found out that they have a granddaughter that's 9, named Britaniana, so they all came to church on Sunday and Kristiana and Britaniana was baptized Sunday night. Another woman named Latresha has been coming to the Lakewood ward the last two weeks and had committed to be baptized as well, so she joined in with the baptism. I remember seeing Latresha on the side of the road 3 weeks ago, and thinking, "oh that's perfect," so I rolled down the window and said, "hey you wanna come to church?" She agreed and we took her on a church tour right then. Anyways, both the Lucas family and Latresha are great examples of the principle that is clearly outlined in the PMG yet so often ignored by missionaries, and that is: "Talk to Everyone!" If you're looking for people to baptize, then literally invite everyone around you, the principle also was explained by the Lord when he told Joseph Smith that it is not needful for him to travel quickly by the river when the inhabitants on either side are perishing in unbelief. It is not needful for us to be hurrying around, focused on ourselves, when there are people all around us who are just waiting for the gospel. I believe that if members were to just start inviting everyone they meet to come to church with them they could find someone that would eventually get baptized, and the amount of missionary work would easily increase ten fold. In fact, the whole mission is starting to catch the wave that started in Lakewood and people are just driving up to people and inviting them, it's called "car contacting," and it's working fairly well, the mission is finding more new investigators and giving more church tours. One more story: so we had another investigator int eh YSA branch planned for Sunday night, but when we sent Hazelbarth and Sanders to go get him, they couldnt find him anywhere. So the members of the branch are all there, but no investigator. Wait a minute - there is an investigator named Jon who came to watch the baptism. He had been coming to the branch the last 3 weeks but had never committed to be baptized, he always just told me, "I've already been baptized twice!" But we take him to the font anyways and show him the water and start telling him about baptism. One of the branch members was about about to pull the plug to drain the water and Jon says, "wait!" And the member was like, "Jon, are you gonna get baptized?" and he said, "let the man speak." So we tell him that we can interview him right now to see if he is ready to be baptized and he agrees. Turns out he's been on Mormon.org all week and learned about the restoration and he believes that Jospeph Smith is a prophet! So he's way solid, and wants to get baptized so we call the Branch president and tell him to come back. And Jon was baptized that same night, pretty amazing baptism. So a pretty darn busy week. We had 7 baptisms, 7 confirmations, 13 investigators at church, and we still have 9 investigators on date. We already broke the record for the most baptisms in our area, if we keep it up we might just break the mission record for the most baptisms in a transfer. We have two more weeks, and we have the desire, we have the faith, so I don't see why we couldnt.
Well, I hope everything is going good for you guys. Love you guys!
