August 9, 2010

Baptism of Paola Fredes


Me and Elder Frischknecht.... our last day together.


Monday August 9,2010
Hey momma! So this week was really crazy with transfers and everything but ended up being really good. We had the baptism of Paola Fredes on Dad´s birthday. Their such an amazing family. I¨ll be in contact with them for the rest of my life. We´ve come so close, and i love them so much. She asked me to confirm her a member of the church before sacrament on Sunday. It was really spiritual experience for me. I´ve baptised a lot of my investigators but this was the first time I confirmed them a member. Just doing so in that little old broken down iron shed turned chapel was a great experience. Really an experience to have a baptism in a tarp and metal pipes like our font is in Cordon haha. Something I´ll never forget. My new companion is great, Elder Mitchell from Cedar City. He´s a super good missionary and is helping me a lot with trying to get this Stake running how it should be, as well as our own branch, not to mention the zone of missionaries we´re over. It´s a lot of work every day, more than i´ve ever imagined. To know we basically run this stake... is overwhelming sometimes haha. This week we had a meeting with all the branch presidents and committed them to reorganizing their home teaching and starting to get the program running. It´s the largest reason why a lot of our retention is down. No one recieves visits, and they slowly but surely fall away and forget the spirit they felt with their missionaries. I have such a testimony now of home teaching and the importance it has. It´s so simple yet to vital to keeping people active in the church. We even made a contract and made all the men there sign it saying they swore they would reorganize before AUG 15 and for the rest of their lives they´d do their visits to be and example ot their branch and because they knew it was what god expected of them. Last Sunday i was feeling really overwhelmed during sacrament meeting with everything going on, we had the members mad at us because we changed our meeting hours to the afternoon (we weren´t getting anyone to church because of the terrible cold in the morning), but you know how old people are when you change anything from the norm so they were all upset with us, the day before we had just planned, directed, and saw through a baptism for a little member girl. We gave the talks, set up the font, bought the refreshments and afterwards the father came up to us and yelled for not playing one of the hymns he wanted to sing. After all the work we just left kind of down for being a bit unapreciated, and for the rough july we had a zone. Only to have to plan sacrament meeting, set up the chapel, and give talks the next morning. As we were sitting in sacrament it seemed like everything was just closing on me i was feeling so overwhelmed, i just said a little silent prayer right there on the stand. Just asking the Lord for a confermation that he was happy with me, that everything i was doing was his will, and if I was acceptable to him. I was honestly on the verge of tears when the Stake President got on to speak, and right away he said ´´ I just want to let you know how blessed this town is, to have two young men like these two missionaries we have with us here today. We know the missionaries, their always here but there is something different about these two. I just want to tell you how much I love them and appreciate them. Their my best friends...... and I know the Lord is happy with them.´´ And then just began to give his talk.... I lost it right then, i was just up there tears runnin down my face, i´m sure everyone was thinking something was wrong with me but i just couldn´t hold it in. I was so grateful, i know the lord answers our prayers! I know it, with out a doubt in my mind. Anyways, dad´s wreck looked fun! NOT! It´s always been like my biggest fear to fall on one of those things, ouch! By the way happy birthday dad!!!!! I know i´m 2 days late but if i could have written saturday i would have! Trust me! Just gotta let you all know i love ya! I´ll send ya a pic of the baptism and of me and frischknecht our last day together! Love ya have a good week!

Carson