6/23/14

I'll give you a little run down of how our week has been!  Well, not a little run down but the real interesting things!

We currently have 2 people on date to be baptized, Brenda Wishart and Ray Smith.  Brenda's baptism is this Saturday and we have so much to do to prepare her for that still!  Also, I do not like Satan at all, because like always, he's working hard to prevent this baptism.  Brenda's been very stressed out this week and just fell apart with everything that has been going on in her life yesterday.  We are still there for her and working with her and doing the best we can to help her.  If the spirit wasn't there to guide us I'm not sure what we would do.  She's so prepared for the Gospel though and we know it, and she knows it!  We're going to give her a blessing of comfort when we see her again.  It's amazing how much you can love someone and that enables the spirit to be present in every lesson we have with Brenda.  If the spirit wasn't there we wouldn't and couldn't teach.  We learn that lesson the hard way sometimes with other investigators.  Yes, even missionaries make mistakes, but we're constantly trying to better ourselves!  Back to Brenda though, she's very in tune with the spirit.  It's great that she's our next door neighbor.  Satan's got to get past her missionaries/bodyguards first to get to her, ha ha!

Ray Smith is our other investigator on date.  His wife is a member and has been for a long time.  He's been coming to church off and on for about 15 years.  We honestly thought he was a member the first few times we met with him, ha ha!  The Spanish Elders thought the same thing because they dropped by and shared a spiritual thought with him!  A little while after that he said he wanted to be baptized after thinking for a long time about the blessings that come from the gospel!  He's on date for the 23rd of August!  We're teaching him every Tuesday after a delicious meal provided graciously by Sister Smith!

Chad Byerly is a former investigator we found in our area book.  We read the information on him and I called him up and set up an appointment to meet with him.  That was about a month or so ago, we've been able to see him once and I think I may have mentioned that.  Well, his wife has returned home and we were going to meet with him but that happened.  We're hoping she won't be as hostile as she was in the past to us, because Chad is ready for the gospel!  He is prepared!  He does have a copy of the Book of Mormon that we left him that he said he couldn't wait to read again.  We will have to see what happens this week when we meet with him again.

So, sorry to freak you out with the pictures.  I'm still thanking Heavenly Father for keeping us safe!  Before the crash and up to that point I had always been a backseat driver with my companion telling him that he drove too fast!  It was a wet day too.  He said he wasn't used to driving in rain.  I will be driving once we get a car again.  So, a few more details about the crash, when we hit the tree, we didn't roll or anything, we spun out till we were about 50 feet from the tree.  It all happened too fast.  I still have a muscle on my left side that I think I pulled in the crash from the whiplash, but it's healing.

That's awesome to hear about stake conference.  I'm excited to go to another stake conference here myself but I keep missing it because of being transferred.  Dad, I'll be able to send the SD cards I have to you next week, hopefully the family reunion is after that.  Luke, how was your birthday?  Kate and Ellie, did he go on a date yet?  Are you two still in soccer?  Alex, how goes the prep for college?  When is the reunion?

Love y'all,
-Elder Austin Mounts