So right now Elder Gomez and I are doing the 12 week program, which means I'll be in this area for three months. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that, so there you go! Basically all it does is teach me how to be a more efficient missionary faster so that by the end of the three months I can be a trainer if necessary. We have more study time, and we sometimes don't even leave until about 1 pm in the afternoon. Last week during laundry....it happened. Keith told me the story of a pen in the washing machine that destroyed his shirts. Well, a random pen exploded into one of my shirts. The others got a little pen splatters here and there, but I was able to get it out. Just one is out of commission. All is well!
This past week we had a training meeting for all the new missionaries here in St. George. President Leonard taught us about what our purpose is as a missionary, and specifically for here in the St. George mission. It was just what I needed! Pres. Leonard will be leaving in July, so I'll finish with a new mission President. Anyway, this week has both been slow yet rewarding. We came across this guy called Max Pope. He has grown up here in the church and his mom told all of her kids to get baptized whenever they felt it was right. Max says he feels like it's about that time. In fact, he just got married a few days ago to a member, and he was talking about how he wants to get sealed in the temple. We were stoked! That's the perfect answer! That's the last ordinance here on earth, and it's already a goal for him. Unfortunately we have to refer him to the sister missionaries because he's married. At least we finally found another elect investigator! Later on in the week we got a random text from a member who said they had a friend that wanted to meet with us. The member who is an RM took us to Golden Corral for dinner and then we went off to teach Robbie. That was probably the best lesson we've had on my mission! We didn't even have any time to prepare for it either. All those months teaching lesson 1 in mission prep have really payed off haha. I put him on date for September 1st, and he's excited to be baptized.
I love it when golden investigators just show up at our doorstep like that. It makes things so much easier for us and much more effective. President Leonard talked about the progression of investigators...find; teach: faith, repentance, baptize, Holy Ghost; Melchizedek Priesthood; endowments; sealing. When the members take the roll of finding investigators, us missionaries don't have to waste any time doing it ourselves. We just get to do the things in bold. Then we hand them back over to the members to take care of priesthood and temple ordinances. If I could go my entire mission without having to find anyone, I would be happy!
Well so this past Saturday we had the baptism of Gil Cataluna! It was awesome and reminded me a lot of the baptism we had for David (especially since it was in the same chapel). I said the opening prayer and Elder Gomez gave a talk. Gil's testimony was powerful. He isn't the best public speaker and he stumbled over his words, but his effort to testify allowed the Spirit to carry it to the hearts of the congregation. He had a ton of family there, and we all got refreshments afterward! haha it was a blast!
The only other thing I can say is that St. George actually does have more beautiful skies than Thatcher. I keep meaning to take some pictures of the awesome sunsets, but I never have my camera with me haha. I figure after my mission I'll hopefully have time to come back. Oh and is there a way that you can send some mini Preach My Gospel's? Elder Gomez wants one, and I think it would be cool. We could send some money for it or something haha. I thought I saw some at CMI somewhere...if not that's fine don't worry about it. Well I love you all! Remember to get me those addresses! Happy birthday again QP! Good old Denny's haha. Until next week!
Elder Payne :)
The car was in Salt Lake for a few days, so we rode bikes and walked!
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