Crystil's Baptism

The week here has been really good. It was another really busy week preparing for Crystil's baptism. Crystil is awesome. She has taken the Gospel and has been living it and running with it 100%. At her baptism, when she came out of the water, she said, "Oh, wow!" and then she started to get really emotional because of how good she felt. It was a really unique experience. At the end of the baptism she bore her testimony and it was really powerful. She talked about how she was at the darkest point in her life when she started to talk with us, but then after two weeks of meeting with us she said that she started to feel a sunshine in her life that was hard to explain. It was a really powerful testimony and had an impact on a lot of people who were there. We have a stake temple day coming up in a couple of weeks, so she is going to go up to Portland for that to do baptisms for the dead. We are excited for her! She is also a great example for her family. She is excited to help them accept the gospel because she wants them to all feel how she is feeling. Her son, Anthony, will be baptized on the 7th of April, so we are extremely excited for that as well. 

Other than that, the week was really good. I was able to go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders this week. I was with my MTC companion, Elder Fisk! It has been so cool to see the way that he has changed over the past 19 months. He is an awesome missionary and has been a great example to me. We saw some cool miracles on the exchange. At one point, a lesson that we had set up on facebook was having to be pushed back, so we decided to go out and talk to people for the 15 minutes that we had. We walked in one direction and talked to a bunch of people. Then we saw a hispanic guy across the street and started talking to him. We were able to talk to him in our broken spanish for just long enough to see a guy walking past us. This guy is an investigator that the elders have been teaching recently and have not been able to make contact with him in a while. So we finished talking to this hispanic guy and ran down the street to chase down the other man! It was crazy that we were able to be there to see him and set up a time for the other elders to go back. That was pretty cool. 

I am excited for the upcoming week. On Wednesday, I get to go to Newberg for a District Leader Training. That will be a lot of fun! 

Elizabeth's Baptism

The week in general went well. We had a really good turn out at Elizabeth’s baptism. The Spirit was definitely present and the people in attendance really enjoyed it. Her confirmation was done on Sunday, which went well. We had ward conference so it was really cool to be able to have that on the same day. 

We had a good day Friday. We have been struggling to find people to teach recently, compared to when we first got here. On Friday we really tried to focus on having better contacts with people when we met them. We only had a couple of hours to be out and contacting people, but we were blessed with a ton of people to talk with. We also had a cool moment where one of the people that we have been teaching saw us outside and came out to talk with us. He has been having trouble with one of his neighbors and he wanted to pray with us to help himself forgive her. This was a really big step for him because he hasn’t been too open or anything with us. So we were able to pray with him and then give him a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and he read it. Then we went by the next day to read with him and had a good experience. After we read, he texted us a question about the reading, which was another big step, so that was cool. 

This week should be good. Crystil and hopefully Anthony will both be baptized on Saturday, so we are excited for that. 

Upcoming Baptisms

We are teaching a 9 year old, Elizabeth, who will be baptized this upcoming Saturday. We are excited for her. We are also teaching Crystil, who will be baptized in a couple of weeks. She is doing really well. We taught her about the word of wisdom and she has totally given up everything that she has needed to. She feels the Spirit really strong, so it has been really cool to watch as she has embraced the Gospel and has felt good about it the entire time. 

We had another cool experience this week. We have been teaching a guy named Ryan who has been living at a friends house for a few weeks. Apparently, we found out this week, that he has been taught by the Zone Leaders for a long time, but they recently lost contact because he lost his phone. When we found out that it was the same Ryan, we were going to try and get them in contact with him again, but when went back to his friends, he wasn’t living there any more. Well, a few days later we were riding our bikes and started riding next to some guy that we were talking with and rode all the way to some apartment complex. As we were talking with this guy, we saw Ryan in the background! He apparently moved in with a different friend. It was crazy how we were guided to him. 

Staying in the High Desert

We are doing well. Transfers are this Tuesday. Elder Holt and I will both be staying in High Desert. The work has been going really well out here. The ward has been doing great. We are teaching a family; Crystil, Anthony, and Angelica. They have been coming to church consistently and it has been going great. We taught the word of wisdom this week and Crystil has been 100% on board to live it and has been doing great the past few days. She is preparing to be baptized on March 24th, so we are excited about that. This week Anthony committed to work towards April 7th as a date for baptism. It has been really well. The ward has done a great job in fellowshipping them. 

We had Stake Conference this week. President and Sister Tateoka were there to speak. One of the things I learned from them is that when you speak at Stake Conference, you need to stay on time so that the Stake President has the time he needs to speak. Well, the first few speakers took a ton of time. There was only 30 minutes left by the time President and Sister Tateoka both still had to speak. they were the last two speakers before the Stake President. It was really powerful because they both kept their talks short and powerful to allow for President Stevens to have all the time he needed. President and Sister Tateoka are amazing. One thing I liked from President Steven’s Talk was that we need to believe. He said that a lot of people say that seeing is believing, but truly believing is seeing. As we believe in God and have faith, we will see Him more in our lives. 

Oh by the way, the Edwards in Newberg got baptized, so that was cool to see!