Hey!
We had 2 baptisms on Sunday! and it was awesome. Tyena and Jessena Neely. Two 10 year old twin sisters. I think I've talked about them a little bit before. Well we stopped by the Neely home a little over a month ago to check in and see how they're doing. They're an awesome family, lots of fun. Each time we go over we'll end up cracking up about something. The family had become less-active a while back and we wanted to talk to drop in and see what's going on. They had also gone through some tough times earlier this year when their house had caught fire. We found out later that they had a neat experience where everything on one of the walls was damaged except for a picture of Jesus they had on the wall, that was left untouched by the fire and the smoke damage. So the Lord has been with them the whole time, and when Elder Lewis and I dropped in about a month ago the first thing Sister Neely said to us was we need our daughters to get baptized. We said we could help them out. So we've been working with them since and it's been a neat experience. The two girls are a lot of fun, they're definitely a force to be reckoned with, Two real solid additions to the kingdom at age 10 even, plus they're hilarious. Anyways the baptism went great, a lot of ward support. Their parents gave the opening and closing prayers even though they were a little reluctant at first. And Bro Armstrong came to the baptism and had a great experience for himself as well. He's the man in the wheelchair we've been working with. He had a great experience. We've had a couple of really awesome lessons with Brother Armstrong lately. The whole time I've been working with him he hasn't ever wanted to say the closing prayer in a lesson. His excuse was he feels like the Lord has abandoned him and he doesn't want to tempt or bug the Lord. Elder Clark and I talked to him about his relationship with God and explained some doctrine that would give him encouragement. At the end he gave the closing prayer, the first time praying with other people in years he said. So that was a simple thing, but a significant step in his progress. The next night we asked if we could kneel for the closing prayer, we were hesitant because he has bad knee problems but he was more than willing. He said he had felt a lot better after he gave the closing prayer the night before. And something else that's small that I noticed is he would never say "amen" at the end of our prayers, but at the end of the kneeling prayer that was given he said "amen" for the first time.
Simple things but great things are being brought to pass. We've been more forward about baptism and our purpose with him lately. He wants to be baptized and believes this is the Lord's Church. He knows smoking is still his issue. If you don't remember, he smokes so that he can control his seizures. This whole time the thought of a priesthood blessing has crossed my mind, but I didn't want to bring it up until he was ready to really place his faith in that. Well on Sunday, the sacrament talks were on the priesthood. And the Gospel Principles class was on obedience. That night he brought up a priesthood blessing. He said if he's going to get baptized then the Lord will have to provide a way somehow, and he'd like to try receiving a blessing. So that was significant. It hasn't happened yet but he's making progress.
I could go on about Bill. But I'll stop there this week. He's awesome though, each experience is some sort of miracle. But more on other parts of the work. At church this week a man came up to us and asked if we could pray for him because he's having thoughts of suicide and struggling finding the reason to stay in this life. We took him aside on the couch and talked about some of his loved ones he's lost recently and read Alma 40 with him. He had a great experience at church (he's the friend of a less-active who came and brought him and another friend that Sunday). But all three of them loved church and have a ride figured out for next week already. We went by and had a lesson with them last night that went great. So we're working with them now. It turned out the man who came up to us was baptized into the church a long time ago so we need to find his record. But we picked up the other friend as an investigator.
Things are going great, I feel like we're working as hard we can and we're seeing good things happen. I could go on with more exciting things that have happened this week, but I'll leave it at that.
Quick update on training. My companion is Elder Clark. He's fresh out of high school, even fresher out of the MTC. He's from San Jose, California. He swam freestyle in high school and played whole set on the polo team. Sounds like a good guy huh? He's solid though. He's ready to work and it's been neat being able to figure out how to train him. Mostly just figuring it out as I go. There's a brand new 12-week training program the church has started that's built around Preach My Gospel. We get an extra hour of companionship study everyday to focus on this training program. It's awesome, I feel like these new missionaries will be way more solid than I'll ever be because of this training program and the whole new program they go through in the MTC now too. So I'm learning lots from him too. So it's been good. Things are really picking up in the area, we're finding new people who are sweet and we're picking up momentum with people we've been working with before. Good times. Well I've gotta go, we're giving talks next week in sacrament meeting and my topic is the Doctrine and Covenants. I need to do some quick research while I still can.
Thanks for the package, it showed up last week and the reese's bars were just as tasty as always. they didn't last long, thanks for the tie sean and arin. till next week, love you guys.
elder lamb
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