happy halloween

Oct. 31, 2011

Happy Halloween! So Flint and Detroit have the false traditions of starting house fires on Halloween. and all sorts of stuff happens in the neighborhoods, so we'll be coming home early tonight. our apartment isn't in a rough part of town so we'll be good. it sounds like you guys are keeping busy. we went to the ward's halloween activity on saturday night, which was a lot different than the foothill ranch ward's. it was a lot smaller, no trunk or treating either. the part that i missed was mom's angelic singing. no ward band in the burton ward. it was still fun though. elder clark and i were the judges of the chili contest. there was some good chili, a lot of it too. we had some people we're working come to the activity too and they had a good time. we gave out some pass along cards to some members to pass out with their candy tonight. that's way cooler than the toothbrushes i'd get at some houses growing up.

i got to go on an exchange with elder hoffman this week, he was my follow-up trainer, so that was fun. he's the assistant now, i don't know if it's a good sign to have the assistants call you up and say they want to go on an exchange with you, but it didn't seem like we were in trouble so i think we're in the clear. it was a good exchange though, i was in their area. elder hoffman and i went to a house of a former member to help him get motivated to quit smoking. he wants to be re-baptized but his hang up is smoking. so we brought over a 7-day quit smoking program. his two daughters (one's a less-active and one's an investigator) and their non-member friend were there and they wanted to quit smoking too. so we talked to them all and got them to sign their own 'declaration of independence from smoking' to hang on their walls, throw away all of their cigarettes, and just get pumped up. it was pretty exciting. the program sounds really legit too, i was pumped for them.

elder clark and i had a lesson with one of our own investigators where we taught the word of wisdom. he was bummed about having to give up tea, had given up other things earlier in his life and thought he was doing good, but we went over obedience and the importance in following the prophet before we introduced the word of wisdom, he was receptive and when the commitment was extended to live the word of wisdom he was willing even though it took some faith. he's still excited about baptism.

we're working with a really awesome investigator who's married to a member. might have talked about her before. our progress slowed a little bit because she had a surgery not too long ago, but yesterday she and her husband both made it down to church. it was ward council and the bishop invited the husband to come up and bare his testimony on the spot, he was pretty nervous but it was a powerful testimony. the bishop was def inspired to call him up. so she's back on track, she's ready spiritually so once she's feeling physically up for it, she'll be able to be baptized.

elder clark and i found some new people this week. we had a lesson last week with the guy, i think i mentioned him, who was receptive to hearing that he wasn't baptized by the proper priesthood authority. we showed up for our follow up appointment with him this week, he wasn't home but his son and the son's fiance pulled up right after we knocked. they let us in for some water and eventually we were talking about the restoration. the dad showed up about a half hour later, and the discussion went really well. the spirit was really strong. what was cool is the dad had told us that the girl wasn't very interested in religion, but when he brought up some arguments in this lesson she was standing up for our message. the lord leads us to prepared people, we need to make sure we do our part to prepare for them though. we're trying. so we're set up to see them tonight and we're planning on bringing our ward mission leader with us. should be a good time.

this week we're going to the temple for our district activity, so we'll be going on thursday. has the ward taken any trips to do baptisms for the dead lately? kenzie, sign yourself up if there's one soon. there's nowhere cooler than the temple. real talk.

well i gotta go, have a fun time tonight, and have a good week. 

love you guys

elder lamb