Rachel = baptized!

Aloha. This week was pretty crazy. Lots of good things and lots of less than good things happening. The rough parts weren't anything to be worried about though. We just had some rough experiences with investigators. You probably remember me telling you about the guy calling us up a few weeks ago saying he wanted to be baptized. There really was only one thing that could have gone wrong, and it ended up happening this week. When he was meeting with missionaries a few months ago, he was set for baptism but he had some complications with his girlfriend, and then some more issues came when she left him. That's basically what ended his contact with the missionaries. And when he called us up about a month ago, all of that was out of the picture. but a few days ago, from out of nowhere she came back into the picture, and we've lost contact with him since. his baptism was set for this weekend coming up. so that was a big disapointment this week for sure. but hey, the church is still true.

and the work rolls forward. this week Rachel was baptized! woot woot. it was great. it has been a very humbling experience to work with Rachel at times. i've probably told you a little about her, i think we talked about her on the phone on mother's day. but if you remember kristena who was baptized a couple months ago (kristena had lost her parents in the car crash), rachel is a close friend of kristena and that family. so rachel had always sat in on our lessons with kristena because there's always a ton of people at the house. after kristena's baptism, we asked rachel what her thoughts have been about everything that had been happening and what we had been talking about. she said she felt like it was from god and wanted to strengthen her relationship with God, but didn't think her family would be very supportive. but the turning point was when kristena spoke at a mission fireside last month about her conversion story, rachel was really inspired. and the next time we went over, she had told us that she told her mom she wants to get baptized. her family was not happy. they basically disowned her and kicked her out of the house (she's 21). so it was rough, it broke her heart, but incredibly she never let it slow her down. she knew what she wanted and was going for it. it was faith-building for me to see, and i'm sure it only solidifies everything for kristena's own testimony and the rest of the family. it was a great baptism service, and she asked me to do the confirmation yesterday in sacrament meeting. that was my first time doing a confirmation. it was very special.

so all things considered it was a great week. another highlight was that i went to young womens this week for the 3rd hour of church. we're still working with elizabeth (she's the girl who came up to us at the end of cyaira's baptism and said she wants to be baptized), she's doing incredibly well. but she wanted someone to stay with her in young womens to help her get to know some more of the girls. so elder barfuss and i went with her (he's from the other companionship in the ward). it was weird. i felt out of place. i felt....pretty? nevermind. it was weird though.

well that's about it for the week. hope everyone's doing great. don't forget to read your scriptures and say your prayers every day!

much love,

elder lamb

bugs up my nose

May  29, 2012

Happy Memorial Day! The libraries were closed yesterday so we didn't get to email right away. Hopefully everyone had a good time, maybe set off some fireworks even? We celebrated by having a barbeque with the other missionaries in our district. We went to a park in the sisters' apartment complex. We played a lot of volleyball. It's been too long. And I only got a little sunburned.

This week was good. We had a fireside and Dan and Rachel both came. They're working towards baptism real soon. Rachel this weekend coming up and Dan the following week. They both really enjoyed it. And I saw a few familiar faces from other areas. Remember Bill from when I was over in Flint? "The old baptist minister" as he likes to refer to himself as. He's the guy who would come to church in a wheelchair and had the issue with giving up smoking before his baptism who smoked for health reasons. He was there. And so was Laura who we baptized in Plymouth. She was baptized by Lil' Wayne if you remember seeing the pic. She's doing awesome right now. She told me she's been called as a Single Adults Rep, and she's tearing it up as would be expected. So it was neat to see them both as well as other missionaries you don't get to see very often. Things are going great. The weather's been warm and humid, it's been raining a little too. And we've been out of miles as the month has come to a close so we've been biking a lot. We rode through about 5 minutes of bugs one night, big swarms of something were hitting our faces, I ate a few and some definitely went up my nose. A highlight this week was when I was on an exchange in a town called Brighton and we did some yard work on a pretty big farm property. I got to use a sit-down lawn mower for the first time. It was awesome. It was the kind you steer with the two levers you push out and pull in. I did a couple donuts and picked up some good speed. Too bad we don't have enough lawn back home to use one of those things.

This week is zone conference so we have to put together an instruction in the next couple days. we have a few good ideas so far. we'll probably be instructing on retention. john 15: and we heard we're getting a senior couple in the ypsilanti ward to also help out with the singles ward. senior couples are awesome, i'm excited. we haven't met them yet but they're always the coolest people. 

well that's about it.

have a great week and keep being awesome. thanks for everything.

much love, elder lamb