Week 69: We Had a Baptism

Hey y'all, we got a baptism this weekend!! Yay!! :) Anyway, I'll write to you all now. :)

Mom - I can't believe Easter is already here again! It was just barely Easter! I hope you have a great weekend with the Easter Egg Hunt and stuff - we're trying to pull off some kind of activity here for the investigators and stuff to come to; it'll be cool. Anyway, I pray for you always Mom, and just think - it's almost Mother's Day! :)

Dad - It seems like the whole theme of reach out and rescue is churchwide, because that's what our focus is as a mission. No more proselyting - we find the less actives and then we find investigators through them, and then we bring back the less actives and baptize the investigators. It's really cool to see how it's working so well here in Puerto Rico. But yeah, I'll keep my eyes out for the package, and thank you! That's really cool about the missionaries from the stake though! That's really amazing actually. And thanks for everything Dad, I keep you in my prayers too, as always! 

Marilee - Hey you! I hope you're doing alright! Tell me about school, about anything so I can write you back! I'll be sending some stuff for your birthday soon, so keep your eyes peeled. :) Love you!

Anyway, moving to our area, we had a really great experience like I already said with R… and his baptism, and he's already wanting to go out with us! He's going to come with us Tuesday evening with the nights of rescue, and he said he'd come with us on Thursday. He's so great!!! 

We had a really cool experience also with C…, who was sick. She asked us to come by and to give her a blessing of health, and she loved it. She came to church yesterday, and she said she loved it! She already knows it's all true, but for whatever reason she's a bit weak on her commitment for baptism.

We also want M… G… to accept a baptismal date this week. We had another great lesson this past week with her, and her friend accepted a Book of Mormon and said she'd go visit the church in the DR, because she's moving back there. Oh well, it was a cool experience. Anyway, M… said that she'd get baptized, but that she won't commit to a date until she really feels like this is the true church. We focused on her reading the Book of Mormon so that she can know, so we're really hoping that that will all work out for her.

We had a good lesson also with N… A… on the Word of Wisdom. We definitely have the support of his future wife, who said that she hates drinking and doesn't like that he does it. We're not sure if he totally understood everything about the Word of Wisdom, but we'll be following up on it, and I think M… will really help out with that.

And finally we have A… S…, a guy who just kind of found his way to the church and asked us to go teach him! He plays the accordion and is pretty cool. However, he's a bit hard to find, so hard to teach. We still need to sit down and go through how to begin teaching and the Restoration with him, so those are our plans for him this week.

Talking about less actives now, there was a cool experience this week where a man named J… M… just showed up to church out of nowhere, saying he wanted to come back! I remembered what you said during the meeting with Pres. Rosa about how because of the efforts of the members, the less-actives come back, even if it's not those who they visited. He's just a guy who came out of nowhere to visit the church! He has some problems with his mother not accepting us, but he says he's going to come every Sunday, so I'm really excited to start working with him and helping him on his way back.

Also, on Sunday, we went with Pres. Reyes, the EQP to Hno. Feliz' house to give him a blessing, because he had been sick. It was a really great experience, and I know that there was a friendship forged there. They were talking and getting along great, and who knows? Maybe a future counselor to Pres. Reyes? Not my call, but I could see it happening. It would be great for the both of them, but the Lord knows and whatever He wants is what'll happen.

Anyways, that's the week, and I'm going to try and send some pictures now. :) Love you and look forward to hearing from you next week!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Kimball Ray Gardner

Puerto Rico San Juan Mission