Baptism

Hey Yall!

What a lovely week it has been.

Monday was super funny, sister covey was going home that day so it was her last p day and also her birthday. Well they sent us a picture during The transfer of a super stereotypical photo in flowers and so we decided for a birthday present the other elders and us took one as well to mock them and then I went to Walmart and printed it off and framed it, it was hilarious. Everyone thought it was golden. We then had a funeral because when missionaries go home you have to have a funeral. It was all a fun day.

Tuesday was transfer day and when elder fox got here I was pretty skeptical. He told me he wanted me to take charge of the area and help him learn the people and everyone but that he wanted to equally contribute in lessons and teaching. He is humble as heck and we've had some amazing talks together where I've been truly edified by him. We are an awesome team. But I had him unpack and get settled in Tuesday. We also went and finally got into contact with an investigator who is set to be baptized but like ceased contacting us! She answered her door and we found out that we had both been trying to call each other all week but our phones have stopped sending calls and texts to each other. So we set of Facebook messenger and now we are back in business! It was fantastic. 

Wednesday that happened was we got to eat dinner with this family that was awesome. They're a semi active family that has a pretty run down house but surprisingly really well kept inside. It was cozy. Their little granddaughters named Meredith from the movie brave and she is adorable. She HATES church people and strangers so didn't expect to get much interaction with her. But as we were eating she came right up to me and started talking to me in little girl English (she is like, no more than two I'm sure) and we started talking, after I finished eating she came and sat in my lap in the big arm chair and brought a coloring book and crayons and wanted me to sit and color with her so she and I colored for about 45 minutes. She would give me a color and point to what section I should color and that's how we did it. The family was amazed and was all, "how on earth did you get her to do that? She never likes strangers! Not anyone from church!" So I am apparently a friendly person or something hahaha, I had her and then their little dog squirrel who also hates other people come and plop down on my other side and I colored, pet squirrel, and enjoyed it hahaha. It was awesome. 

Thursday was a weekly planning day. Much planning ensued and it went extremely well. We afterwards went to the church to meet Clarence and try on baptismal suits for him. We found one that fit well and then practiced how the baptism will go. He is such a humble guy and he is so happy. We then had a lesson with a lady named Judy who without being asked has read all of ether and then decided to read all of 1 Nephi and she had a ton of questions about it. It was superb, we got to talk about how the Book of Mormon and the Bible coincide and showed a timeline of events that corresponded. She ate it up and said she wanted to find out its true to either be baptized or not. So she's going well! We also saw some of our young investigators which was good but they're difficult to reign in. Teenagers can't seem to focus ever. So we were there a long time but finally got somewhat of a lesson in. We got to have some deer spaghetti (deer meat instead of hamburger meat) and it was super good. 

Friday we had lessons with Betty and the Lockridges. Betty is golden and we talked about tithing with her, she had no issues with it. Her roommate came over and he's super tough to understand wit how old he is and so he rambled on for 45 minutes and I picked up probably 10% of what he was saying hahaha. It was so odd Elder Fox taught the rest of tithing well though so Betty got a good lesson. She is so excited to be baptized and is telling everyone and their dog they need to open their heart and meet with us to see the truth for themselves, she's on fire! The Lockridges went super well top. We had a lesson plan but bagged it and taught the plan of Salvation after hearing him ask some key questions the plan of Salvation could answer. So we did and it couldn't have gone better. I swear I've never seen such success before and I think it's because I finally figured out how to do missionary work. Elder fox is loving it and says I'm basically training him again and I just laugh at that. 

Saturday was bomb. Clarence had his baptism and TONS of his family came. It was a really great service and I was honored to do the baptizing. It felt great to be able to do it, we then had our ward mission leader take us to a gas station where we got these like, Buffalo chicken things that look like taquitos on the roller heaters at gas stations. Then get some Ranch and it was honestly freaking good. We then did some studying and went over to our ward mission leader again for dinner. We had to clean out the font that morning and it was ghetto as heck hahaha cleaner, a toilet brush, paper towels, and a pitcher to rinse stuff off. It got it good and clean though.

Sunday we had 3 investigators at church and one was Betty, Clarence got confirmed, and it was just a great Sunday, I always love taking the sacrament. I feel like I can't live without it. 

So it was a great week. Cannot complain in the slightest.

Love yall!

Elder Hiatt