Hello everyone! I can't believe how much happens in one week and yet it passes so quickly! There's so much I could write about, and I don't know what to choose.
We should be having at least one baptism this month! We've been teaching a lady. She was actually going to be baptized just before I came, but then she was thrown in jail for a night, right before her baptism, lost her apartment, and is now living with her boyfriend who is a member (though less-active). She's in the middle of a divorce right now, so she can't marry him yet and she doesn't have anywhere to go. So we can't baptize her until that problem is solved. However, she has a daughter, D, who is 11. She really wants to get baptized. We had an obstacle though. Her father is a Jehovah's Witness and we needed his permission to baptize her. We were praying and praying that he would give her permission. Well, in court the other day, he temporarily lost custody of the kids. Which should mean we can baptize her, though we're still going to double check with our leaders. But we're expecting her baptism to be on the 23rd. And we have a wonderful, wonderful sister in our ward who does so much for us, Sister Garcia. She was taking care of a recent convert who had nowhere to live, who was having similar problems, but she moved to San Jose. We're hoping and praying that Sister Garcia might be able to take D's mom in now. If so, we could almost definitely reach our baptismal goal of 2 this month.
This is such a great mission! So many good things are happening. Oh, I have an interesting story. We were in our apartment at about 10pm last night, giving referrals to other missionaries in our district, when there was a knock on the door. There's a companionship of English missionaries who live on the floor below us in our apartment, and they're always coming up to borrow things or ask questions, so I thought it would be then again. But when I opened the door, who did I see? President Gelwix!! We were all a little in shock. He inspected our apartment, talked with us, and then informed the other elders that they're going to be training a new elder starting this week! We're getting eight missionaries who are waiting for visas and one of them is going to be with Elder Peacock and Elder Vera. President said he was thinking of putting another one with us, but he didn't want to interfere with my training. So luckily we won't have to fit six elders in our apartment, but we will have 5. I'll have to see if I can send you a picture of our five beds all in the same room. :) The new missionary arrived in Fresno today, and the Elders are picking him up tomorrow! We're so excited!
Our mission is on track for a great year. We had zone conference a few weeks ago, and the emphasized topic was finding. We're supposed to spend three hours finding people each day, which involves street contacting, tracting (knocking on doors), and contacting referrals and potential investigators. Two of those hours are supposed to be spent offering people blessings on their homes. President Gelwix gave that instruction quite awhile ago, and no one was really doing it. We got lovingly chastised and set out to do better. Two weeks ago we as a mission found 276 new investigators (investigators who have been taught one lesson and accepted a return appointment) and last week we found 296 more. That's a new mission record! I know that Presidnet Gelwix holds the keys for revelation for this mission and as we follow his counsel, we will find success. I'm so happy to be here!
Oh, one more cool story. One day a few weeks -- wait. I've only been here a few weeks. It feels so much longer! Okay, a couple weeks ago, Elder Hernandez and I were riding our bikes down the street. We passed a man sitting on the bed of a truck. We were going to just keep going, but we felt prompted to turn around and talk to him. So we did. We talked a bit, invited him to be baptized and set a date (March 9 I think) for him to be baptized. He seemed very prepared. He only spoke English thought, so we passed him on to the English missionaries. His name is Richard. The missionaries have taught him a few times now, he loves it, and he went to church this week. He told the missionaries that he's definitely getting baptized. We're so happy!
I know that this is the Lord's work. Elder Eyring taught that the Lord puts prepared people in the way of his prepared servants. There are lots of prepared people out there. The more we prepare ourselves to share the gospel, through scripture study (treasuring up continually in our minds the words of life), praying for opportunities to share the gospel, and strengthening our testimonies through church attendance, the Lord will put prepared people in our path.
Keep strengthening your testimonies!
Until next week,
-Elder Ryan Lofthouse-
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