Letter 79

         January 14, 2013

Hey Howdy Hey!

It sounds like ya'll are freezin your buns off up there! haha thats too bad... hey at least your not riding a bike in it! Thats cool about the experiences you had at the Big Apple too mom... your so freakin spoiled its not even funny haha. And I'm spoiled to have a mommy like you :D haha. LOVE YOU!!!!

I'm not sure what you can get me for my B-day... I'm shootin blanks! I've really been thinking for like 2 days and I got nothing. Ties are always nice. I need some purple ties. Maybe pink or blue haha. I told Sis. Harkrider that I was turning 21 and she said "Ay, entonces ya tu puedes tomar (drink)"  and she said we should go out to dinner and get some TAQUILA! She was just kidding though. haha maybe you could send me some taquila... but you probably cant send that in the mail :( haha just kidding thats against the word of wisdom! Anything is great mom I dont need very much.

Hopefully I'll be sending my package today! I need to do it... I'm just lazy.

This week the District was working on hitting our Zone Goal of being able to consistently hit an average of 5 New Investigators, 4 Member Presents, and 1 BD@Church per companionship by the month of February. As a District we have broken the Goal up so that we can take the steps to get there and this week on average per companionship we have hit our goals... except for New Investigators. This week as a district we have a goal to hit 4 NI per companionship. I know that every companionship needs to work on there own individual needs but as the District Leader I need to be more responsible for finding ways of helping them. I'm drawing blanks though. My own personal area is struggling in finding. I think I just need to take a few steps back and analyze the situation and ask the Lord to help me think of something. We have high goals to hit in February and we need to get going on finding in order to reach them.

The Sisters had a baptism this week and I had the opportunity to do the ordinance and it was a really beautiful experience. The person was a 15 year old girl that the sisters found knocking doors. A few weeks before they found her she was going through a very rough time with depression and she actually tried to take her own life. When I interviewed her a week a go you could see the power of the Atonement in her eyes. It was the most spiritual experience I've had interviewing someone. I know that the Atonement can heal any infirmity, any addiction, any scar. We can change though the gift and power of Christ. To think we cant change is to deny the sacrifice of Christ. We were not born to be average or to suffer... we were born to overcome those things. I saw that and felt that with that young woman and I know its true.

Our investigators Gustavo and Gus are doing really well and we've had Members at all of our lessons. The Zone Leaders committed us to try and have a different member help us each time and thats been fun to work with new members. Its really helped me to see that every member is important and is willing to serve, we just have to ask and set it up! The only thing that worries me about Gustavo and Gus is that they are really "busy" and we can only meet with them 1 or 2 times a week and their interview is next Sunday. I worry that they might not be ready by then. We still have a lot to teach them. Hopefully we can meet with them at least 3 times this week and get them ready. But if not... we might not hit our goal for January as a District, so we'll definitely need the Lord's help! Pray that everything goes OK!

I'm sorry I ran out of time but I love you and hope you all have a great week freezing your bums off!

Love,
Elder Jordan Stewart