Eric's Baptism!

Our week was good. It was really busy. We had an exchange this week with the Elders in Cascade Crest. It went really well. During the exchange we met a lady who has run into missionaries three times within the past few weeks, so she thought that was interesting. We had Zone Conference this week, which was really good. It was really good to be able to see some of the missionaries in the other Zone, like Elder Oswald. A lot of the missionaries that came out around the same time as me are going home, so it was weird to here all of their final testimonies before they leave. It has been really cool to see how much the mission has changed since when I first got here and to see the impact that President Tateoka and Sister Tateoka have had on the missionaries in the mission. The highlight of the week was Eric's baptism. Eric has a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ and has a very strong knowledge of the Bible. We have been teaching him for a couple of months and it has been really cool to see the changes that have been made in his life as he has started to learn more about the Gospel and read the Book of Mormon. But specifically as he has started to come to church. The first time he came to church was right at the beginning of the transfer. He was struggling to make it out to church, and Elder Nonu just asked him, "If Jesus Christ was here inviting you to come to church, would you come?" That really changed his perspective and ever since then his progression has taken off! That was really cool for me to see how simply Elder Nonu put it and how much of an impact that it had on Eric. The baptismal service was great and the confirmation on sunday was really good as well. 

 

We are seeing a lot of miracles with finding people to teach and with the people that we are teaching having desires to progress and work towards baptism. The faith of the members in the ward has been growing steadily over the past five months. I have been thinking a lot about that and about how important faith is, especially as we unify our faith as children of Heavenly Father. As the faith in the ward has grown, more miracles are happening. I believe that as more miracles continue to happen, the faith in the Savior preparing the hearts of the people here will grow in the ward. As that faith continues to grow, I think our faith as a whole to stretch out of our comfort zone and invite our friends and acquaintances to learn will grow, and in turn we will see more miracles. I am learning a lot about unity and how essential it is. There really is no limit to what the Savior can do. Things can change everywhere if our faith as members of the church and children of Heavenly Father is unified in the Savior.