El Bautismo de Las Uruguayas!

My Posterity! :  Elder Waite (grandson), Elder Jellen (Son),Elder Hicks (Father), Elder Peterson (Son)

Things here are going excellent. This transfer has definitely been quite a change from the last transfer going from having an experienced companion, to a greenie. My new companions name is Elder Connor Peterson. He is from Salt Lake City Utah. He's a fun loving guy, really funny, and if I would have to describe his personality from a movie character, it would be Jack Black from "The School of Rock." Elder Peterson is a rocker, it's true, and had his own band and everything before the mission. We definitely come from very different backgrounds which has turned out to be quite a challenge over these past few days, but it also makes for good learning and growing experiences. It was exciting to see Elder Jellen get his new Trainee, named Elder Waite, and he's still serving in Trenton. I included a picture of my posterity in the email to follow. Elder Peterson is a good Elder, and has the desires to learn and become a good missionary. As far as his teaching and spanish abilities.... He's definitely still learning. It was a new experience for me, especially since Elder Jellen came out with stellar Spanish, so now I'm just trying to find the best way to include Elder Peterson in lessons.

 Elder Ferrell and I with Mikayla and Nicole

SO.... Just got done playing some basketball, and I'm super fatigued. I hope I don't get heat exhaustion again.... So I'll continue with the letter anyway. The best news of the week... Mikayla and Nicole got baptized yesterday! I finally got to baptize someone from Uruguay!!! Just what I was hoping for! Everything went really well with the baptism, although there was a lot more preparation needed than I had anticipated. Like making the program, making copies of the hymns we were going to sing, because the chapel with the font doesn't have spanish hymn books, and so it was really just a lot of running around trying to get everything set up. The baptism was scheduled for 2 o'clock, but Mikayla, Nicole, and their family didn't get there until about 2:45. Whoops. But everything came together quite nicely. It was a good first week for Elder Peterson. He baptized Mikayla and confirmed Nicole. Thats a lot of ordinances performed on your first week in the field. We received a lot of help from the ward though, and they provided a lot of food afterwards which was really helpful. I had the opportunity to baptize nicole, and I must admit, it was really hard baptizing in english. The words just sounded so awkward coming out, so I said them with a lot of hesitation waiting for someone to correct me, but I got it all right the first time so I didn't have to re-do it.

Elder Peterson and I with Mikayla and Nicole

Transfer conference this past week was really crazy. So many new missionaries came in, and so many left. We had to listen to almost 20 or so departing testimonies from a lot of the legendary missionaries of Morristown.

 Farewell Elder Erikson

 It was pretty sad saying goodbye, and Elder Erikson is leaving this week with Elder Munk (The one from my MTC district) who is going home early for school stuff. There is actually about 4 or 5 missionaries from my group that are heading home 2 weeks early. Sometimes it get's hard thinking that I could have been heading home 2 weeks early which would have been nice, but I already made my decision and I'm here for a reason right? I'm pretty sure if I would have chosen to go home, I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to train Elder Peterson, and I would have missed out on a lot of growing experiences. I'm enjoying the work though, and we are still seeing good things in our area.

  

I guess I would say one of the cooler things that happened this week was when Mikayla and Nicole's step-dad Samuel (The one we are teaching that brought out all the anti stuff) came to the baptism! We taught him earlier in the week about the plan of salvation which was a little too deep to say the least, but he enjoyed it, and understood it. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and committed him to read and pray. On Sunday when he came to the baptism, he had already read, and said that he felt more peaceful after he read and prayed. I joked with him a little bit telling him that he was next (meaning the next one to be baptized in his family). Hopefully I'll be able to get at least one or 2 baptisms more before the end of my mission, but if we want that to happen, we are going to have to see a lot more progression with our investigators.

   

The Rayon family is doing good, but we are still moving slowly with them. They said they were going to come to church, but didn't end up coming which was a little disappointing, but they said they would be coming next week so we'll see. Believe it or not, I left my planner at the apartment, so I can't remember a lot of the happenings of the week, but I guess another good experience we had this week was when we did service for a member up in Sparta. Elder Peterson, Elder Ferrell and Elder Romrell (Elder Ferrell's trainee) went to help the Bravo family. We worked on chopping wood and stacking it all up. To say there was a lot of wood would be an understatement.  He had this really cool wood cutting machine that sliced through the logs like they were butter. It was a way good experience though.

    

This is going to be a good transfer though. I'm going to learn a lot, and teaching Elder Peterson is going to keep me focused and busy for these next 5 weeks. President Jeppson went back to Utah yesterday for another surgery he's getting on his back, but he's set to come back in about 2 weeks, so I'm hoping he'll be here when I head home. But that's enough of that talk. 

  

I do love you all very much! The Gospel is True! It's so interesting to see how Heavenly Father provides everything we need to become who he would have us be. I know it can sometimes be difficult to understand why he does some things, but I really like the scripture in Isaiah when the Lord basically says, 'Look, My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.'  The Lord knows exactly what we need, and I'm a witness of that here in the mission field. Even though times get tough, I know it's all for my own good.

Until Next Week!