April 29, 2013
Dear Family and Friends,
This last week was pretty good! I love it here in my new Zone and Area. My companion's name is Elder Nielson. He's from Boise, ID and he is a big ol’ nerd just like me! haha we get a long great! He reminds me of a young Conan O'Brian haha except he has blond hair. He's been out for like 19 months. I'm not a District Leader anymore. Just a regular ol' missionary. In ways I'm kind of sad that I don’t get to work as closely with my district but I'm also grateful I don’t have to do follow-ups on Wednesday. Friday, and Sunday!
I did not get a chance to sell my bike before I left :( I'm going to try to sell it another way though. Maybe I'll pawn it. I still have all of the gift cards that Grandma sent me for Christmas and my birthday... so I'll have like $125 right there when I get home. I'm really good at saving :)
Elder Nielson and I are basically just trying to build up our teaching pool this week. When I got here we weren’t really working with anyone and no one was really progressing towards baptism, but that is all going to change! I have some major goals to start working with our members, finding solid people, and obviously, BAPTIZING! Even if I'm not here to see it all happen I definitely want to leave this area on fire.
We were able to find a few investigators this week but the ones that I'm most excited for is the Velazquez family. We just contacted them as they were walking into their house and asked if we could sit down. Sis.Velazquez is super nice and said yes. We decided to do a fun lesson on baptism for their 12 year old girl called the Soap and Pepper lesson.
For all of you that don’t know about this lesson you need 2 bowls of water, a toothpick, pepper, and soap. You put a bunch of pepper into one of the bowls of water and that represents the world (pepper=sin), then you take the toothpick, which represents us, and take a little walk in the peppery water. You then get dirty with all the sinful pepper! So, you need to be BAPTIZED! by immersion of course. Dump the little toothpick in the other bowl of water and get him all clean. Then you give him the Holy Ghost (put soap on it) and put him back in the "world" and see what happens! Sins will slide right off ya!
Anyway... this family that we taught wasn’t very well off and didn’t have toothpicks or pepper or regular soap. So for the first time in my mission I used a stick I found on the ground, Seasoning Salt, and Laundry Detergent! haha it worked alright... but they got the idea. They also accepted BDs! They didn’t come to church :( so we'll be helping them with that this week.
Other than that there wasn’t very much else that happened. Oh... you'll have to ask me about what happened the first day of church here when we talk on Mother's Day! That’s a good story... SUPER AWKWARD. Elder Nielson and I almost died of embarrassment!
I cant express with words how much I love all of you. I am so grateful for your love and support and for always encouraging me and helping me throughout my life. Mom and Dad you are such great examples to me and have helped me in every aspect of my life as well as my great brothers and little sister. I love you all and you are some of my dearest friends. Not to mention my extended family and friends. I love you all. Thank you Aunt Paige for your letters and the tie you sent me around last Christmas. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you thanks before now. You're awesome! Grandpa Garner I love you and your example to me and the rest of our family. You are a wonderful Patriarch and your Heavenly Father is so proud of you and your children. I am so full of gratitude and love for all of you and I just want you all to know how blessed I am to be a part of your lives now and, because of this beautiful gospel, in the eternities. Life is wonderful!
I hope you all have a great week and remember to SMILE! :D
Elder Jordan Stewart
No comments:
Post a Comment