November 10, 2009

Hey!So we got transfer calls this morning. President Olson called at about 6:40am this morning and called my companion Elder Williams to be a Zone Leader in Boutiful so he is being transfered there. I will be staying here in Layton for another transfer. This means that at the end of the next transfer I will have been here for 6 months! It's bittersweet for both of us. We have a lot of fun together and are having a lot of success, but at the same time, it's nice to move somewhere new and learn and grow somewhere else. I guess it's just not time for me to leave yet. There must be something left here for me to do. My new companion is Elder Gunther. He has been out for a little over a year, and will be the new district leader. I don't really know anything else besides that so we'll see how it goes! Elder Asplund is coming to my district which should be fun...he came out with me and we had a lot of fun in the MTC together. Elder Demming is coming back to the district as well. He was here when I got here, got transferred, but now he is coming back. All of us will switch and get our new companions tomorrow. We picked up 2 new investigators on Monday. One of them is named Debbie Townsend. When we first met her she seemed like a member of the church already...she just looks and acts like one. She is married to a less active named JJ...they are probably in their 40's. She was a JW but hasn't practiced for over 10 years. I guess she has met with missionaries before but she felt pressured into baptism so she stopped. Things are going great now and she is getting close to baptism. We asked her to pray about a baptismal date for Nov.28th and so far she says she is feeling good about it. Debbie and her husband JJ are coming to church and things are going really well...I really enjoy teaching her. She is really progressing fast. The first time we met with her she told us that for the past two weeks she's felt like she needed to get baptized. As a missionary that's really good to hear. The other investigator that we picked up is a 9 year old boy named Chase. He has a baptismal date for Nov.21st. His mom and dad have been having marriage problems, and are inactive, so we are trying to get them active in the process of getting Chase ready for the 21st. It's going good so far! On Saturday one of our investigators Jeff Carlson (12 yrs. old) got baptized. The service was very nice. They had a beautiful musical number with the piano and violin, refreshments afterwards, and I think about 60 people were there. We even had 2 of our investigators that came to the baptism which was nice. Jeff got confirmed at the baptism and the family asked us to participate. There were soooo many priesthood holders in the circle it was crazyyyy! It was nice, but we could hardly squeeze in. After the baptism, we mingled for a while and then one of our investigators, Liz Beattie (17 yrs. old) got interviewd for her baptism this coming saturday. The Zone leaders came to the interview and it went great. My companion and one of the zone leaders had to go pick up a baptismal record, so Elder Gifford did the interview while I stayed with Julie and a one of our Ward Mission Leaders out in the foyer. We found out earlier that night that her mom Julie wasn't a member, and we thought she was the whole time. Oops. Anyway, I had a chance to talk to Julie during the interview. I started to talk to her and we talked about how she had met with missionaries before. She said she had stopped meeting with them because one of them told her that she was going to Hell. She told me she wanted to be baptized, but that she needed to quit smoking. She has been trying to quit already, so we gave her a Stop Smoking Workshop. After that I talked to her more about baptism. I told her that by following the workshop exactly, that she could get baptized on Nov.21st. We talked for a while about it all, and then I decided to use the comittment line for baptism and I committed her! She answered, "Yes!" Ahh I was so excited! It's hard to explain how the whole thing went, but it was amazing! You don't even know how cool it was. After Elder Gifford was done with Liz's interview, we interview Julie. Julie has been at all the lessons, so she's pretty much been taught everything. She passed the interview, and all she has to do is not smoke for 7 days and she can get baptized. We helped her get rid off all her smoking materials, and she has started the workshop. We are really excited for her! We found out yesterday that one of our investigators, Deona, might be going to jail for 6 months. She is 20 years old, single, and about 8 1/2 months pregnant. I guess her boyfriend got jumped and so to defend themselves she took a bat and hit one of the guys on the head and cracked his head open. Some lady saw her hit the guy, but didn't see them get jumped so it looked like she was the one attacking him. I guess it's gonna be a felony, so she might be going to Jail. She pleaded not guilty, so hopefully everything will work out. Our area is doing great! We still have 4 investigators with a date, and 4 other investigators. So far in the stake that we cover, we have had 10 baptisms in the past 3 months. This place is on fire, and I can't wait for more! I am enjoying the work, and my testimony is strong. I love you guys and miss you soooo much. The church is true! Spread the gospel! Every member a missionary. You don't have to have a name-tag to do missionary work. Hope to hear from yall soon! ~Elder Watts