Letter 87

March 18, 2013

Hello Family!

This just in... Effective immediately Missionaries have 75 mins... I repeat.... 75 mins to write emails and they can write friends and converts! So hopefully my emails will be better (I'm not making any promises). It’s good to hear that everything is going well for everyone back home. Do you guys ever see Chase and Austin anymore? Are they okay? How is Chases job/love life? What kind of craziness has Austin got himself into? I need to be in the loop with these types of things! I'm still a part of this family!

It’s very bittersweet to hear that basically all of the girls in our little group are now engaged/married. I send my best wishes to all of them and hope they have great futures. All you return missionary friends of mine... don’t you even think about getting married until I get home!

Funny Story: So during church the Ward Mission Leader, Hno Rubio, started to fill the font for the baptism after church. It takes about 45 mins to fill. After Sacrament Meeting we went to go check on the font and the water was freezing cold. Also the plug of the font doesn’t work and in order to drain it you need to put a doorstop under it, but the doorstop was floating in the middle of the font! So we grabbed a long broomstick and shimmied the doorstop over to us, but now we had to get it under the plug to drain the font and fill it with warm water! By this time the Zone Leaders (E.Rupp and E.Stevens) had joined us. The Zls manned the doors and Elder Hobbs stripped off his suit pants down to his garments and and hiked up his bottoms so they wouldn't get wet. All the while I went through the Baptismal Room/Gospel Principles Class, which had a class in session, and snuck on the other side of the curtain to the baptismal font to help Elder Hobbs as he tried to work the doorstop into the plug with his bare feet! Haha man it was quite the sight to see! Long story short we got the font drained and filled in time for the baptism! No mess! Good times on the mission.

Michael Lastra's baptism was such a beautiful experience and it was amazing to work with little Michael and his family and watch how the Gospel softened their hearts. When we first met them the parents hadn’t been to church in a while. The husband had done some things that put in jeopardy his membership in the church and he was feeling a little discouraged about starting the repentance process. Elder Hobbs and I were aware of the situation and instead of teaching him and his problems we focused on the family as a whole and showing as much love as we could. As the lessons progressed so did the love that we felt for this family. The Ward has been there every step of the way supporting them, especially their family friends the Zaletas. Hno. Zaleta was able to baptized Michael and now he and his family is one step closer to being eternal. I had the opportunity to bear my testimony during the service and I testified of the beauty of our Heavenly Father's plan for us and how the Lastra family is a living testimony of that. After the baptism, Michael's mom came up to Elder Hobbs and I with tears in her eyes and thanked us for helping them. Elder Hobbs and I both felt the Spirit very strong. We love the Lastra family and I'm thankful the Lord let us be apart of that experience.

The Cameron Park Elders were able to find a new investigator and bring him to church for the first time this week. He's a really awesome referral from a member and I feel great about him. After church he even offered to take a less active family of 5 home! Haha what a sport! I'm really excited to see what happens with him! I'll be going on an exchange with Elder Sturgell this Thursday to see how everything else is going in their area this Thursday.

Now that Michael is baptized Elder Hobbs and I are going to have to work super hard to find new investigators to bring to church and baptized... cause right now we don’t have very many. But our hopes are high and our faith is strong! We're going to focus this week on finding a full family and helping them come into the waters of baptism.

Well that’s basically all I got for this week. I'll be sure to tell you anything else when I think of it next week! I hope you all have a very good week!

-Elder Jordan Stewart

PS-I'm not sure what I want in a package... maybe just some inspirational talks? A new watch? You said you would send me a new watch but you never did! You don’t really have to. I bet I can find one here in Downtown for really cheap.

PPS- Tell Auntie Tye that I love her very much and I'm looking forward to seeing her in a few months. If you could send me Tanner's email that would be nice. I would like to email him too. Thanks!