I really appreciate the emails.
It's funny reading Sarah's emails. It just takes me back to my days in Middle School. Except she's the girl in the front of the class answering all the questions, and I was the kid in the back of the class sleeping, or eating a burrito, one of the two. lol. I'm proud of you Sarah, you're making some awesome habits, you're gonna be the smartest kid in our family. I don't know how much that's saying, me and steve didn't put up much of a fight. (jk Stevo, I know you're smart) but seriously.
Man, knowing the hollidays are coming up soon makes me nervous, for 2 reasons. I hear being away from home this time of year is tough, but I'm tough, so that's not really an issue. The other reason is, Christmas is around the corner, and that means I'm half-way :/ whattt thee freaaak. I know I know, don't think about it too much. I hear the downhill goes faster than the uphill, and Elder Badger just reminded me this morning that he only has 5 months left... When that man goes home... I dont even know. The mission is madness.
So I should probably infrom ya'll with the good news. Elder Graham and I were able to see one of our investigators get baptized yesterday! Elder Graham got in the water and baptized Charles Redman. He's been investigating for about 3 months now, and when Elder Graham found him he was an alcoholic. He's been telling us this past week that the alcohol wasn't the hard habit to kick though, it was the cigarettes. Charles is awesome though. He's crippled (can't really use his legs, he gets around in a wheelchair) He's an older gentlemen in his 50's, he's retired military, he was in the Navy back in the day, loves to laugh, just an awesome guy. He's been through a lot in his life though. Let me tell you the craziest thing about this man, we were filling out his baptismal record, and we found out that brotha has 28 children! Charles wasn't playin' around when it came to makin children. He told us how 2 of his kids were born on the same day, in the same hospital, from 2 different women... and he thought it was the funniest story. lol. That man's crazy. But he sincerely loves his savior and is doing all he can to change his life and get on the right path. Yesterday was a goood day. The only sad thing is, that was the only baptism in our Zone this week... This Zone hasn't been doin' so hot the last few months. Last month there were 5 baptisms in the LRZ, but 54 as a whole mission. Our zone is 1/4 of the mission.... so we for sure need to pick up our slack. Elder Graham and I threw down at Zone Meeting. and by threw down I mean we had a really spiritual meeting. It was good. We drilled member work pretty hard. I truly and honestly believe if this zone started using more of the member resources we have we could easily be the top baptizing zone in the mission. We've been working with the District Leaders to really instill this throughout the Zone. We saw a huge increase in member present lessons this past week which was awesome. I guess we're still in the sowing stage right now, I'm excited for the reaping.
I'm really glad you guys sent me that object lesson book. It's come in handy for District Meetings and Zone Meetings. I used one in Zone Meeting this past week. We were talking about overcoming FEAR, and so I asked everyone in the zone to name some of the fears they have as missionaries, and so everyone started listing some fears, like fear of rejection, scared to talk to everyone, fear of looking stupid, scared to be bold- all kinds of things, and for every fear I blew a little air into a balloon. It didn't take long for that balloon to look like it was ready to burst. lol, I saw some Elders sitting right in front of me who were getting ready to plug their ears. After it was full of air we talked about how the balloon shows us exactly what fear is (just a bunch of hot air) we let fear hold us back but there's no substance to fear. Then I took out a pen and popped the balloon. It was Legit. It echoed and everyone was dead silent. It was sweet... So thanks for that book. It definately spices up meetings.
The Baptism and Zone Meeting were sweet, and the rest of the week was also really good. We found this lady named Rochelle, who was taught by some missionaries in the past, but somehow lost contact with them, and she is just golden. We set a date for her to be baptized on the 26th. She looooves to sing, so we got her to go to choir practice after church yesterday, and she just lit up, it was awesome. and we set up a dinner appointment with the choir director, and we're bringin Rochelle. It's gonna be perfect. I'm so excited for her.
Jerry is still in the same situation. He loves to vent when we're with him, so it's hard to do a lot of teaching, because he always has a lot on his mind and a lot he wants to talk to us about, but we were able to kinda throw an over-view of the Plan Of Salvation into our conversation yesterday and it really helped open up his eyes to why we go through trials in life. I compared life to the refiners fire that is always mentioned in the scriptures, and I think he started to understand the idea of eternal progression. He is sooo awesome, and such a great guy. I just wish we could get that man to commit. I think it might take him a while to complete his investigation. He has a golden heart though.
Well.... I'm gonna wrap this up because I still have to email president. You asked what I might want or need for Christmas. What I desperately need... is a GPS. Especially now that I'm a ZL we have to travel a lot for exchanges and baptismal intervies, and I think I'm becomming notorious for that fact that I always get lost. I get blamed because I seem to always be the designated driver, but my companion never seems to know where he's going either. lol. but if there is one thing that I want or need, it's a GPS. I know dad is good with online bargaining, so maybe he could find a gently used one.
I was thinking about Christmas, and something interesting about my companion. Elder Graham doesn't have family back home. He's 26, he didn't meet his mother until he was 17 and he's not close to her at all, and I'm pretty sure he never knew his Father, and the only people that write him are his ward from back home. So he's probably not going to get a package for christmas. It would mean a lot to me if you guys could put something together for him, just so he knows someone's thinking about him.... know that's me assuming we'll stay companions together through transfers, but I guess I'll let you know when it gets closer. Transfers are one the 15th, so like a week and a half before Christmas.
Well. I love you guys so much. Mom, thanks for your email. You guys tell me you're proud of me too much, it makes me tear up in the library, I bet the dude on Farmville next to me is wondering what's wrong with me. Have a good week. I'll talk to you guys too soon. Love you
Elder LeBaron
No comments:
Post a Comment