July 11, 2011

Hello everyone!

We have a new mission president! President Bowen is absolutely amazing! We had the opportunity of having him come with us to teach one of our investigators named Jocelyn. I admit, we were pretty nervous to go teaching with the mission president, but it was one of the best lessons we have ever taught, the spirit was so strong!

This past week and few days have been some of the best of my entire mission so far. It started out with a lot of knocking and finding but we saw amazing miracles. Our investigator Michael was baptized on sunday!!! He asked me to baptize him so that was the first person I have personally baptized on my mission. It was such a beautiful baptismal service. He has such an amazing story. When I was on exchanges with another missionary we saw a young man playing basketball, so I walked up to him and started talking to him. He eventually walked over and sat down with us at a bench. We taught about the Restoration of the Gospel, at the end we invited him to pray but he wouldn't pray with us, so I told him to pray silently, and he did. He said afterward that he felt tingly and pretty happy, so we scheduled another meeting and left. At the next lesson we asked him if he had been reading and praying and he said he tried but didn't do much. We focused on helping him know the only way to receive and answer is through reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. We struggled the next couple of lessons but then at one particular lesson, I had a strong feeling to tell him "Michael, I know that you already know it is true. What are you willing to do to show your faith?" and he just said I don't know, defintiely not going to be baptized. At another lesson, we brought members with us and they were recent converts themselves, after that lesson he started reading like crazy from the Book of Mormon, he came to church every sunday and he started going to institute as well. He told us later, that one night he was walking to his house and he stopped and had an overwhelming feeling come over him that brought him to tears, and he said at that moment he knew it was all true and that he needed to be baptized. He has such a strong testimony!! It was interesting because from the first time we met him, I knew he was special, I could just feel it, despite the fact it wasn't easy.

I also got word this week from an investigator I taught named Tony. We found him a while back also while I was on exchanges and we taught him everything and passed him off to different missionaries back in his hometown because he wanted to be baptized where all his family could come. He was baptized this saturday!!!! There have been so many miracles out here. I am in awe at how much the Lord really loves each and every one of us. I love this Gospel and I love being a missionary out here in southern California! I hope everyone is doing well.