May 20th Letter

Holy Texas !!!!

It is so humid out here now!!!!!!!!!!!! You have no idea. So you know how in the winter how you get fog and you see that. Yeah well this week it was like that but super-hot and humid it was ridiculous!!! Feel bad for me yet hahah ok never mind then.

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!!!! We set 2 baptismal dates this week for the same date!!! The 22nd of JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!! So that is a miracle week for us lately!!!!!

Michael LeBlanc.

This is the former Marine who has been taught for about a year now. It has been a long process and I think it will continue to be a long process. He has a lot of questions and it’s sad because he never had these concerns before and until certain things happen. But we met with him on Tuesday and we sat down and talk with him. While we were talking he was talking about setting goals in his life were hard for him and kind of explain why. So the first thing I thought of was we need to give him a goal for baptism and see how he does. So we gave him the date of the 22nd of June and he was kind of hesitant. I ask him what was wrong and he has a lot of doubts and questions. One of the questions he had was this “why do you need to join a church to be baptized" So I told him that we will do some studying on it and we will come back to him on Friday and answer it for him. Friday came and we went over to his house and we first did some service for his friend. We went over to his house and did the lawn and clean up the yard. I felt so at home when I did it. I was mowing, edging, cleaning up it was awesome. I did all of it cause my companion has never used a mower and a weed whacker before, so I was like alright so I did it they only thing missing was a cold Mtn Dew at the end and my music. (Oh by the way I had my first mtn dew for the first time in 3 months and it was weird haha ) After we did some service we went over to Michael's house and taught him. After doing some studying there was something that stood out to me that I needed to mention to him and it was that there is a difference between being baptized into a church and being baptized into a religion. A church is just a place to we meet to worship and mingle. A religion is a way of life. It’s the kind of life that we promise god that we will live. Just like the life Christ lived. He understood that and it overcame his concern. And now he has a concern with prophets and Joseph Smith and he has had this concern for a while. And I promised that we will overcome it next week. SO hopefully all work out. He mentioned to me that we were persistent about him joining and I said OH YES WE ARE.

Sydney Goddard.

Sydney is the one that I was talking about the other day. She is going to be the soon to be daughter in law to the Ripley (believe it or not :) haha ) family. She is so excited about coming to church and being baptized, she wants us to come over every time she has the day off to come teach her so that is what we are doing. She is keeping us busy which is good. But this week we were going to talk about prophets and the restoration more and we had a plan to give her a baptism date of the 22nd of JUNE. The plan was to have Elder Cornwall give the baptismal commitment and you can tell that he was nervous and going through the lesson I was waiting for him to give it at any moment. We were done and I was nervous that he had forgotten so I kept nudging him and was like ask her ask her. So he was talking and right before he was about to give the commitment the dog somehow some way open up the glass window sliding door It was so weird. So we were trying to get the dog outside and to lock to door. Well after about 10 mins we sat down and we were talking and they were like so what was the question you were going to ask me. He said will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and she said YES!!!! She accepted the 22nd of June for her baptismal date. A week after she gets married and she invited us to her wedding. It was awesome and super awesome experience. Sydney is excited about it that she even posted that she was getting baptized on Facebook and she had a lot of friends be like don’t do it and she was like well how bout you talk to these men and they will answer your questions. haha it was awesome she is going to post mormon.org on and see what happens haha.

As you can tell this week was a MIRACLE week but there is something that stood out to me and that was when I was studying for Michael about how a religion is a life style and most people don’t understand that. In April 2012 Elder Hallstrom gave a talk about the difference between converting to the gospel and the church. Most people just convert to the church they come each week and go to activities and just come but it’s different when we are converted to the gospel. It’s a life style people will notice a difference when you convert your life to the gospel and I have noticed that in my life also. I know that I am converting myself to the gospel. I want to live my life as close as I can to Christ’s life he is my Savior and Redeemer he is my Mediator and I love him for that. I can’t think of a thing I wouldn’t give to be with him or live a life like his and that is my testimony.

I love yall and thank you so much for all that you do, Be safe this week and remember who you are and what you represent.

Love

Elder K.Christensen