Baptism

Another week down and another email to everyone! Greetings all, I hope your week was fantastic!

So this past week was a pretty good week. We taught a lot, put some investigators on-date, and contacted some promising leads. So it was pretty busy. Yet not as busy as I would have liked. I don't feel like we have been able to get as much done as we normally would have. But we lose about 10 hours of time a week because of the training program. So not really much we can do there. But if you figure 10 hours a week for 12 weeks that is 120 hours... That is 5 days of time gone. But that is ok. Training is super important. So it is also helping me to be able to go back to the basics and relearn and re-apply the fundamentals taught in the 12 week program. Really all it can do is help me. But anyways yeah, it was a pretty good week. We were able to teach Jay and Jad twice. We finished the Plan of Salvation with them and then started teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't remember which lesson, but we put them on date for the 28th of June. Which is pretty much the earliest we can do with 9 year olds because they have to attend church a few times. But they are super smart. They have been going to Primary for a long time and know pretty much everything. Teaching kids is either the best experience or the worst. But with them it is great. We also met with the Pendley family. The wife and son are members, but the father is not. He has something holding him back, but Elder Sae-dan was super bold (I love it) and asked him to pray about it and if he got an answer if he would be baptized. Glen (the father/husband) responded yes. So now we just need to follow up with him and make sure that he prayed. But I was super impressed with Elder Sae-dan, he is a stellar missionary. So I am glad to be serving with him. So we also went out to Bryce Canyon City, which is where Ruby's inn is, and tried to contact some of the Thai people that work out there. We were only able to contact one person that was actually Thai. The rest of them were all working. But apparently they only come out for about 3 months and work here for that long and then go back to Thailand. So they leave in 2 weeks.... That was a little disappointing. But there is a new group of about 60 coming in towards the end of the month. So we will be following up there in a few weeks. So it should be good. Also we have been working on meeting with the Thai families that live over to beaver. It is hard to find time when we can meet with them and they can meet with us, but we will find a time. 

So also last week we had Zone training meeting, and then on Saturday Adrian and Andrew were baptized!!! That was on Saturday, and then on Sunday they showed up to Sacrament about 30 minutes late.... Talk about sweating it... I was like "where are they???" So they showed up and the member of the bishopric conducting handled it excellently and just did the confirmation after the first speaker finished. So that was by the skin of our teeth. But anyways, that was our week, I will try to include a picture of the baptism.

I love you all! I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Valentine

Weekly Email from Last week

I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW, I have been absolutely horrible about this whole weekly email thingy. So I may or may not have a good bit of info for you all. Since it has been so long...

So to start off with I am still in Panguitch or if you never heard that I was in Panguitch, well I am in Panguitch Utah. Which is about 50 miles north of my last area. So I did not go very far at all! Panguitch is a small town of about 1500 people. We are about an hour from the closest sizable city. Which would be Beaver. But it is really close to Bryce Canyon. 

So as for the work, we have a pretty good size teaching pool out here. We are teaching around 10-12 people. Not as often as we would like. Sometimes we are only able to meet every other week. That is super difficult, because then they really don't progress at all. You just can't teach once every other week and help someone get to the waters of baptism. Just doesn't work.... So we do have 2 cousins that are on date for this week end to be baptized. Their names are Adrian and Andrew. They were on-date for the 17th of may, but one of their moms couldn't be down here so they didn't do it. But they are pretty solid for the 7th or this Saturday. Also we are teaching 2 other cousins named Jay and Jad, they are both 9. So their parents want them to get baptized so we are going to put them on-date for hopefully later this month, probably 3 more weeks or so... So we should have a pretty good month. 

So this past Sunday (the 25th of May) Was the beginning of another transfer. I believe transfer number 8 for me.... Which is super scary that It has already been that long!!! I don't understand where time is going!!! But yeah, I have been out almost a year............ But so I got the transfer call from president Saturday night, which always means something when you get the call on Saturday. So he asked me to train. So I am training a new missionary. On Tuesday my old comp. and I went down to St. George. I stayed down there that night and on Wednesday picked up my new companion. His name is Elder Sae-dan. He is 19 and is from Thailand. He spent 8 weeks in the MTC learning English. But he is super funny. His English is not that good, but we are working on it. We get along really well. But yesterday we found out why he was called here. There is a decent little Thai community in Beaver and they have a family home evening over there the first Sunday of every month. So we went over there for the evening (with permission from President of course, because it is so far outside of our area) and met with them. Elder Sae-dan actually found out they want to be taught in Thai. So we got permission to start teaching them. But yeah, at the home evening there are some members who speak Thai and they taught the whole first lesson. It was really cool. In talking to the members they said they have been praying for a long time to have a missionary that speaks Thai. So that is where Elder Sae-dan enters the picture. We are going to try to start teaching them. Which means I am going to have to learn some simple Thai. But Elder Sae-dan was super excited. It will be really good for him to help these people. So it seems like work is popping out of places I would have never expected to find it. Every time we pray and fast to find new investigators, things which I would never have expected just happen. The Lord really is aware of us and he does answer our prayers, I know that for certain. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen that on my mission.

So yeah. Lots of things are going on. We continue to seek after those the Lord has prepared. But the work out here goes on! It is quite amazing really. 

Well I love you all, this is going to be a really good transfer. I hope you all are doing well.

The Church is true, and the book is blue!!

-Elder Valentine