Justin in the MTC
(Justin's MTC Companion)
Dear Family,
It sounds like everyone is d
oing great! Sarah, I can't believe you can play all those songs on guitar already, it sounds like you're gonna have to show me the ropes when I get back. Mom, you sound like you're doing so good, and you sound so happy! Thank you so much for sending that package already, I'll look for it on Wednesday, and I got your valentines day package a couple of days ago, that was great! it meant a lot to me. It was so nice to read all those little notes from family and friends. It's good to hear that my SD card got home safely, did you guys like the picture
s with me and the little black kids, those are the best, haha.
This week went good, there was ups and downs for sure. Elder Badger and I did a lot alot of walking and tracting this week. I think it was Wednesday that we walked alll day long, and just went from door to door for like 5 hours, and nobody wanted to listen, or wanted us to come back later, lol. It was rough, and the sun was about to go down, and we were about to head back to the car to go seem some recent converts and less actives, but we decided to knock on one more door, and this lady Gia let us in, and we taught her the first lesson, and she is just golden, she's so solid. I've come to realize in the past month that those blessings only seem to come after the trial of our faith. It's always the last coupe of doors we knock on that we find those people who are searching for answers. Gia's great, and she has 8 kids, and.... she's married! it was like a miracle, the guy wasn't her baby daddy, it was her husband. That's almost unheard of here in Frayser.
Kierra and Chasity are doing well, and they're progressing. We've taught them everything required for baptism, and they have their own testimonies, you can tell when you talk to them. Chasity is nervous about baptism and feels like it's a big step so we've been working with her and trying to commit her to a date, she was planning on the 12th, but she missed church and we have to push it back to the 26th. Kierra wants to get baptized as soon as she can, but she's living with her baby daddy. We talked to her about it, and the church offers marriage counseling, and I guess that lowers the cost of getting married, so kierra and her baby daddy are going to take that and then get married, and she said she should be good for the 26th, and she wants to be baptized then.
Then our other date, Stephanie. She's awesome. The last lesson we had with her we
taught her lesson 3, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, so Faith, Repentance, Baptism, The Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. She was way into it. Here in Frayser nobody is used to this cold weather we've been having so they all blast their heat when it gets cold, and it was literally like a sauna in stephanie's house when we were teaching her this, and half way through the lesson she said, " I don't know what it is but when you guys teach me it's like it gives me chills, but they're good chills, and I dont understand because it's warm in here", ahhh, It's moments like that when me and Elder Badger just look at each other and smile, and then we talk to them about what they're feeling, and that it's the Holy Ghost testifying to them, but that was such a great lesson, I love Stephanie, she's great. She's commited to being baptized on the 26th.
We had a lot of dates drop this past week, and a lot of people that told us not to come back, and that's always rough, but that's why we keep finding everyday. We need to make sure we always have a teaching pool, so that when we do get some baptisms or people do drop, then we still have progressing investigators. The mission has a commitment we strive for called 4-4-2-2-1. 4- new investigators every week, 4- member present lessons every week, 2 -progressing investigators a week, 2-baptismal dates a week = 1 baptism a month. We strive for that and set all of our goals off of 4-4-2-2-1, the hardest thing is to get 4 member present lessons a week. It's a killer. But this woman in our ward, Kiesha, she's awesome, she got baptized about 2 years ago and she has the strongest testimony, she talks way ghetto lol, but she's great, she said she'll come with us anytime to teach. She's so cool. So she came with us this past week to teach Kierra and it went better than ever. I can see why getting 4 member presents weekly would result in at least 1 baptism a month. We try to get some of the young men to go teach with us, there are about 4. None of them want to come except Blue and Darion, Blue's only 13 so I don't think we're technically supposed to take him, but Darion is a stud, he's Blue's older brother, we're gonna try to take him to a lesson sometime this week.
I've come to realize that I miss dad's cooking more and more everyday, I miss yours too mom (and sis Boyds too I guess) but we all know that dad makes some dang good food, I took it for granted man, now I'm eating mac and cheese and ramen allll the time, before the mish I thought I'd be okay with eating ramen everyday, but now I know I was an idiot, lol. I tried the cream of mushroom soup in the mac and cheese deal, that was alright, and then the chilli in the mac and cheese, but I think the thing is that i'm just sick of noodles. I need to branch out and try something without noodles, next time I go shopping i'm gonna be brave and buy something that I might possibly screw up in the cooking process, something that doesn't have noodles. You all probably think this is silly, but cooking is like a foreign language to me, all I can do is boil noodles. I started making some omlets in the morning, those are good, but we have been getting fed less and less lately, haha. but I'm determined to learn how to make real food. I wish Josh Burton was my companion, he's like a wizard in the kitchen.
Besides the fact that I'm not eating too great and that it's snowing outside and our bike week starts tommorow, everything is pretty good. The end of my first transfer is in two weeks, then some Elders will come in that will be greener than me, that's gonna be crazy. A kid stole our phone last week while we were playing basketball with the youth, so that was a bummer, know we have this old school brick phone, and now we're going to lock all our stuff up in the kitchen.
I can't think of anything else at the moment, I love you guys! thanks so much for the letters. You'll hear from me next Monday.
Love, Elder Justin LeBaron
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