January 6, 2013

"What a way to start the new year!"

Happy New Year Y'all!!

What a week to start off the New Year! We actually went on an exchange on New Year's Eve and switched back in 2014. Haha. However, even though we went to bed at 10:30, I set the alarm for midnight as a joke to see what Elder Pfister would do (One of the zone leaders). He threw a couple pens at me for waking him up for that. It was pretty funny though.

Jason is doing great! We had his 2nd to last lesson on Friday. We taught the rest of the Commandments. He agreed with everything and said that it all made sense to him. He is set to be baptized this Saturday at 4. We are putting everything together now. So I can't remember if I told yall this or not, but we found out from the member that he went to go see his dentist. And at his appointment, he started talking about the Book of Mormon with him and said that he should read it! I don't know if he really will but we both thought that would be so cool if he did! He said he is getting his wisdom teeth out on Thursday, but it won't stop him from getting baptizedthis Saturday. So he is really prepared and excited to get going in the Gospel.

Toni and Rona Vega had to get their date pushed back. We taught the Word of Wisdom to him and he has a smoking problem. However, he has been trying to stop. He said that he used to smoke 3 packs a day! That's 18 dollars a day. He is down to 3/4 of a pack a day and has a date set for him to be done by February 12th. We tried to push it forward to earlier, but he is set on that date. So that is where the Vega's stand at this point.

Story time. So Keva texted us this week saying that she didn't want us to come over anymore...She wanted to take a break and not continue the lessons pretty much. Me and Elder Hyde were seriously like What the Heck!! President Ames shared an experience last Zone Conference how he had an investigator do the exact same thing as Keva did and he still went to go visit them. So we decided to do what he did and go over the next day and just see what happened. So we went over and starting talking about it and she just wants to think about what she has been taught. Usually this is the time where the advisary starts to creep in and tempt people. So we starting talking about prayer and how the Holy Ghost talks to us and gives us answers. Elder Hyde shared his experience on how he received his answer and it wasn't like a slap in the face, it was a warm feeling, and he felt peace. She said that she has been feeling that and we told her to pray everyday to know. We really had a great lesson with her and now we are back to teaching her again! So President Ames helped us out like 2 months ago and we didn't even know it.

We also had a Less Active family finally come to church! The Mcknight Family. They were baptized in May and haven't been to church since I've been here. They came for the first time on Fast Sunday. Bishop got up and bore his testimony on the Atonement and Antonio really loved it. So it was a great Sunday for them to come.

Transfers are on the 22nd of this month. The odds are that I will be leaving. I really love Killeen, I have gotten to know the members really well and also gotten really close to investigators and even the Less Actives. But all will be well. I hope you all have a fantastic week! Thank you so much for your emails again! I love reading them!

Love Elder O'Brien