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