May 26, 2009

Yay! You're back in the states! Congratulations! You probably wouldn't have been able to do that had you gone into Canada. :-P
Nope, my P-Day was yesterday, but I had to Email today, 'cause the libraries were all closed yesterday.

I bet the ruins were awesome. I can't get the pics to open-- they're blocked on these computers. I'll have to wait to open them. But it does sound like a fun trip. Like Disney Land during the school year ;-)
Tell Kaydee she'll never pass up my amazing tan, no matter how hard she tries. lol.
But the "mexican minute" is classic.

So, Theophile and Suzanne were baptized on Sunday, and Jorge was confirmed and given the Aaronic Priesthood. Theophile is from Togo, Africa, and Suzanne is from the neighboring country of Ghana (spelling?). Theophile was looking for a church, and he went to a few different churches and read things on different religeons, but couldn't find a the right one. Then one day he showed up to the Gateway Ward during their sacrement meeting. The missionaries (Elder Ahern and Elder Edmonds) talked to them and started teaching them. After a while, they found out that they actually lived outside of their area, so they referred them to us. Theophile's wife, Suzanne, only speaks French, so that was a tough challange. Theophile had to translate for her, and we had to find a missionary who speaks French to help with the baptismal interview. (We had to coordinate a date/time with our District leader, the interpreter, a ride for the Tenuda's, and reserve a room at the Visiters Center where we could all meet for the interview.) But we got through it all and they got baptized! We took Theophile with us to teach and investigater last night-- he's really excited to get out and teach people. We made the mistake of showing him "Preach My Gospel" and now he REALLY wants one. lol. So we've got to find him one, now. He's really awesome.
Really, all converts are amazing and want to help out like crazy. :-) (See Mosiah 28:3-4) As of now there are no baptisms coming up, but we're working on it. There is still tons of work going on here, so we're doing our best to keep up with it.
President Bassett said he could split the area to get the work moving faster, but the ward wouldn't be able to handle it, so he's not going to. The reason he gave us three, he said, was because that was the next best thing. We could get more done without overwhelming the Bishop and the ward.
A few people you might be hearing more about in the future: William, we've been teaching for a while. He loves the church, but doesn't want to get baptized until he knows for sure that it's true. So we're trying to help him get an answer to his prayers.
Milten, who finally came out to church not this past Sunday but the Sunday before. He said he hadn't ever come to church before because he didn't think he'd like it. But, as it turns out, he loved it. He called this past Sunday to say sorry that he didn't come--his back was hurting. He also seems to really like the church.
And there are a few brand new investigaters that are really great, as well. I'm sure you'll be hearing more on them soon. :-)
Anyway, this is week six of the transefer, which means transefer news come in on Saturday. . . . Dun dun dun! I don't expect to be going anywhere, but the whole trio thing makes it hard to guess what will happen.
Anyway, that's about all from Pheonix.
How are all of you recovering from vacation?
love you,
--Jason

May 18, 2009

How goes life?
Everything here has been going great. Two people got baptized this week. The first was Jorge! I've got some pics I'll send another time, if this computer lets me. Jorge is really excited, and will get confirmed next week. What was really neat was that some of our investigaters went to that baptismal service and started asking questions like "how many times do I need to go to church before I get baptized?" etc. The spirit is really strong at baptismal services, and people can't help but feel the need to follow Christ's example.
Okay, so who's the other one, you ask? Well, it was none other than EMAD!!! Yeah, he finally got out of the hospital, finished up lessons with some elders in north Mesa, and got baptized on Saturday. I tried REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hard to get there, but I didn't make it :-( I was really, really, really unhappy about that, but at least he got baptized. He's an awesome guy. :-) Elder Christensen went and is supposed to send me some pictures. I'll foreward them to you as soon as I get them.
And work continues to go foreward. The one family will hopefully be baptized this coming Sunday, the same day that Jorge will be confirmed a member of the church. Needless to say, we're excited about that. It will probably just be the husband and wife getting baptised, as their daughter isn't sure that it's what she wants to do right now. The tough thing is, the wife only speak french, so the interview will be hard. But we should have that worked out-- A sister missionary from Canada speaks French, and a sister in the ward does as well. :-D
I think that's about all that's going on this week. Not too much else worth mentioning. Well, we helped an investigater move on Saturday, and he was getting rid of a couch, so we gave it to another investigater who needed a couch, and they both came to church Sunday, so we were like "hey, here's the guy who gave you his couch." That was fun :-) lol. The guy we helped move-- he actually moved right next door to us in the appartment complex. :-) He's a really neat guy, too.
Ah, well, I guess there all great! I say that about everyone. :-)
Yeah, it's getting pretty hot. "But at least it's a dry heat." I hate when people say that, lol.
I got Kassie's package, BTW, and Elders Turner and Rutledge were jealous. :-p It was great. Thank you!!!
Bye everyone!
Have fun on your trip and be safe!
Love you all,
--Jason

May 7, 2009

Jason only had 20 minutes on the computer today, and alot of emails from family to read. So his letter is very short this week. But we get to talk to him on Sunday for Mother's day!!! His letter follows....

Had to take a P-day on a Thursday today, 'cause of "training blitz"'s which the mission does once a year. It's a big mission wide thing where we go on exchanges with people to help each other get better. We'll be doing it again next week, so my P-Day will probably be on a Wed. next week.
So I learned something new this week, much like Kellie and Alex in Cub Scouts (ha ha ha) and that is this: I don't last a week and a half without a P-Day very well. . . Man alive! In missionary time it's like 10 years! Don't get me wrong, I love teaching (especially here where it's busy) but you do get tired after a while.

Anyway, glad Kellie's doing okay. Is the pain going away? Hopefully?
BTW: Kaydee, no Phoenix isn't pretty! It's like downtown Houston, lol.

Anyways, we had training blitz's this week, and another elder came with us on Mon. and Tue. to critic us (yeah, there were FOUR of us going to lessons! I think we scared some people), and President Bassett and the Zone Leaders and the Assistants all taught us how to do better. Next week me and my comp's are going with some other missionaries, so P-Day will likely be on a Wed. One of our investigaters, called us and said he just couldn't wait until the 24th to get baptized, so we moved it to the 17th of may! That's one week from Sunday. If all goes well, we should be having a few baptisms over the next few weeks. Keep your fingers crossed :-)
Phone calls will be in the afternoon, it looks like. I'll probably be calling around 2:00pm AZ time. Other than that, not a whole lot is going on. :-)
Love you all,
And I'll talk to you on Sunday!
Jason