Tay's Baptism

Elder Kelly, Elder Conley, Tay, Elder Blake

M- This has been a great week! Me and Elder Blake have had a good time working together. Throughout our lunches we have been watching the Youth Face to Face and I learned a lot about prayer. Elder Holland and President Eyring talked about how we should pray and that we need to be approaching the throne of God. My prayers are now completely different. I decided to stay in my church clothes at night for my prayer and I have really enjoyed it i stay more focus and it is easier to remember why I'm there.

I- Tay was baptized!! She shared an experience in gospel principles about how she was getting questioned by all her friends about her decision but then last week in church she had a peaceful feeling come over her and she knew that she had made the right choice in being baptized into the church.

R- Something I struggle with is not being able to study for a large amount of time. I love reading the scriptures but I feel like I don't get to really feast in one hour because I also need to be in PMG, pamphlets, talks, make training, etc. I was praying to know how the Lord would have me study. Well my answer was that 1. I need to stick to what  you suggest (initiatives, training plan, etc.) On top of that I learned that learning also comes through experience while laboring among the Lord's children. No amount of study can replace experiences that come while applying what you read.

A- Well we had a member come up to us and ask "Elders, when is the next activity that I can invite a friend to come to?" That is the best thing to hear out of a members mouth! We have had several people ask if they can participate in the end of this 40 day fast even though the days are well full. The baptism of Tay was very helpful too. I wish we could of had more people at the baptism but non the less the members are seeing that things are actually happening and they want to be a part of it.

C- Elder Blake is doing very well. He gave me a piece of advice that has been very valuable to me over the past couple of days. He told me to stop caring about what people thought. Just do the things I know are right and let the Savior take me to new heights. I have become more bold in my testifying and inviting, more dedicated to talking with every one, more excited to go work! I am grateful for the support he has shown me even though we are so different. I love him. :) In fact during weekly planning we set a goal to use the WofW pamphlet in our street contacting just to shake things up. People are really open to the idea. It is also a really good opportunity to testify of modern day prophets and our bodies being temples. Always nice to get out of the rut.

L- After zone conference I committed to actually repent of not using the pamphlets and I promised Heavenly Father that i would think up 5 inspired questions for each picture in the pamphlets. It takes a lot of effort to think of that many questions for one picture but it has really helped me branch out in my teaching. New ways of working new results. A sharper saw brings more wood.

That is a copy of the email I sent to President Vest. I don't have much time to email this week unfortunately. 

Four other things worth mentioning!

1. Ivan Does now have work off on Sundays and was at church on Sunday. He had his baptismal interview and it went great! He will be baptized this Wednesday at 7 pm! In our ward we have about 5 or 6 native Spanish speakers who speak broken English but the nearest Spanish ward is too far away for them. But since our ward mission leader is a Spanish speaker he will start teaching gospel principles in Spanish and his wife will be teaching the english one like she has been.
2. Sunday we stopped by S. Foster's home (She is the less active lady that feeds us all of the bomb food if you remember the pictures. Not s Diaz but the other lady) anyways she helps take care of one of her old friends. He is a really old guy named Jim Brown (classic white guy name). A sweet old man I wish you guys could hear him talk. Anyways S. Foster was not home so we started talking to him. He allowed us to come in and we shared the restoration. We invited him to baptism and he accepted! We will hopefully be setting a date tomorrow.
3. Tays Baptism! Tay actually had three of her non-member friend there along with her mom Georgette. E. Conley came back and baptized her and I loved getting to see him! The following day I had the opportunity to confirm her in sacrament meeting. I love being able to do that... very humbling. A powerful experience for everyone really.
4. Sunday night we had dinner with the Moncrief family. I can't remember if I've mentioned them before. They make all sorts of homemade bread and the dad just recently got the Melchizedek priesthood when E. Childress was serving here. Anyways they made us homemade pitas. They are health nuts and all of it was from scratch. Holy wow it was good. The reason they are such health nuts is because apparently she used to be "really fat" like "huge fat" her own words... I didn't want to ask a specific weight but apparently she was big. Anyways, she really loves chocolate chip cookies and what she does to not eat them is she figured out it takes two hours of really hard work out to burn all the calories from one cookie. For her personally. Don't know if I'm that committed but it was cool to hear everything about how they manage their health and stuff.

I love you all and would invite all of you to read from the scriptures! Also if you want some good suggestions on improvement go watch the Youth Face to Face. 

I know that Jesus Christ is our mediator with the Father. Remember to involve Him, the redeemer, in your efforts to change otherwise it is not actual repentance!

Love, 

Elder Kelly