The Bi-Centennial--July 9

I am under the impression that bi-centennial will mean 50 years....if
i am wrong, then i apologize. But, i thought i would need to begin
this letter with a warm greeting to an officially old man. Happy
birthday dad. i bought a card to send you months ago, and this week i
just got lost with training and doing everything else, so i'll send it
tomorrow most likely. I hope you enjoyed the video, and i would love
a copy of the dvd. I can find a way to see it.
Well this week, somewhat suprisingly, went very well. On Tuesday i
went to pick up Elder Dunn, my trainee. One of his first questions
was, "So when do we get to work?" I was a bit taken back by the
question...."i guess as soon as possible." So we got out to working
around 3 o'clock. The first house i took him to were some potentials
i met at Wal-Mart the night before. They let us come in, we taught
them, and we had a good lesson. When we walked out, i made sure he
knew, "That generally doesn't happen...." Talk about a good first
lesson to be in on. Right after that lesson we went to Wal-Mart to
get some food and stuff. I told him, ok, go talk to people. :) And
he did it. I was very surprised and impressed. I hardly have to do
any "training." Compared to last transfer when i was basically doing
90% of everything with someone who had been out 6 months, i now find
myself not having to do as much, with someone who has been out less
than a week. There were a couple of lessons we'd go to, and generally
i'll start it out and lead it, and he would just start talking. Of
course, i'll still gain control of it and use some experience to
direct the lesson- by the way, some old guy,....maybe like 50 years
old, or something old like that, cough (dad) cough, his cell phone
just went off and it was snow by the peppers.- anyways, back to the
letter...
One of the most joyous moments happened this week....remember 6 weeks
ago or so....a man by the name of Alexander Martinez. He was going to
get baptized and just a few days before, he called and said he was on
probation, and then i lost track of him and couldn't find him. Over
the weeks i came to suspect that his mother-in-law didnt like me, and
was lying to me. So i had a Spanish person call their house, and only
speak Spanish.....well this Spanish person squeezed a phone number out
of the lady. Then they called the number, and guess who they talked
to...one Alexander Martinez. They talked for a bit and he said to
have me come by, and gave this person his new address, still near by.
So Friday night i showed up and knocked on his door and he opened up.
Well over the weekend we talked and we have plans for him to be
baptized this upcoming Sunday. Now, he works from like 6 am to 10 pm
all throughout the week, except for Sunday....so it will be tough to
keep good contact with him during the week, but we'll do our best to
get him baptized. He still wants to be, and he is off of probation,
as of a few days ago. Perfect timing, eh?
We did have a baptism this last weekend. It was a long awaited one.
It went very well, nothing came up that would cause a problem.
It was just a really good week. We taught a lot of lessons, got some
good new investigators. My greenie is having a hard time realizing
and understanding that things wont always go this well. I've been
trying to tell him that this was a VERY good week. Hopefully things
will continue like this. Alexander is comitted for baptism this week,
and another lady is comitted two weeks later. We met her on
WEdnesday, taught her on Thursday, and i comitted her to baptism right
there after 30 minutes. Then i had a flashback of back home when i
heard that sometimes missionaries challenege them the first time they
teach, and i thought that wasn't very smart. Oh how things have
changed. :) That wasn't the first time we've done it, but that memory
came back to my mind.
On Tuesday i got to meet President Darrington. He's a funny guy, i
doubt that many of the rules will change though, but thats okay.
Things went well. Training this transfer wont be a problem at all.
I've got a missionary who will follow rules....what a change.
Sounds like everyone had some good times this last weekend with the
surprise. I'll hope to see some of those pictures and that dvd. Have
a good and safe week. Love ya.