Brook Rodriguez' Baptism

This week was so amazing as Brooke Rodriguez loves the gospel so much and made another step back to our Heavenly home by being baptized.  Everyone needs the gospel and the Lord has entrusted us with his message so that all of his children may learn how to find peace in this crazy world.  General Conference is coming up soon and so we have been listening to old talks in our apartment and one that I greatly enjoyed was Pray in Faith by Elder Bednar.  It really got me thinking about the things that I am praying for and about and how I can better plan to act on things instead of asking.  In his talk he mentions that we do a great job praying for missionaries to find people to teach, "But ultimately it is my responsibility and your responsibility to find people for the missionaries to teach. Missionaries are full-time teachers; you and I are full-time finders." I reflected upon his statement it reminded me that we have so much to learn here on earth and that we have many great works to be about like, family history, temple work, missionary work, magnifying our callings, and strengthening our families.  I miss and love you all so much,

Stressful sounds accurate, our ward mission leader and assistant ward mission leader were out of town and neither of us had ever set up a baptism, so we learned a lot and she got baptized, which is the most important part.  

For easter we didn't do anything special other than eat jello eggs and other goods from members.  My favorite meal was the one on Easter, they hap funeral potatoes, juicy ham, rolls, salad, ice cream and apple pie, it was really good.

The most in one day is maybe like 15 or so, I am not really sure.  I just like being in the north, we have a smaller area.  The south elders can bike 8 miles south, and still be in ward boundaries.  

Is Taysom being allowed to play one  more year?

Mission rules are so much fun, here we have been asked to call it preparation day, in trying to avoid slang and casual language.  My favorite was probably when we were able to play tennis, but usually it's lots of chores and cleaning.  I am not sure what is the hardest, I rarely teach lesson 4 or 5 and the first lesson, the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ seems to me the hardest for people to understand.  We have a loving Heavenly Father and in order to help his children he calls prophets to teach us his gospel and how we can follow him.  Sometimes people don't listen and reject the prophet but God always calls more to lead the people to happiness like Moses or Noah.  They also testify of Jesus Christ, that he would come, teach us his gospel or how we can return to him and he atoned for us so that we may repent and live again.  While he was here he set up his church, The church of Jesus Christ with his 12 apostles and others to spread the word that through him we can be saved.  Then people show that they don't know what a prophet is or that they think revelation ended or some other theory but rarely do they seem to understand prophets or that there is more revelation of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon.  I guess I am really learning that one of the hardest parts of a mission is all the hard work that goes into finding those that are ready to accept the gospel and makes changes so they can receive the blessings.  The Lord prepares people in many different ways, but it seems to me one of the biggest ones is through members of the Church.  Take Brooke for example, Saturday was the first time I was able to be a vessel of the Spirit and help them join the church.  She went online and asked for missionaries to come by because she noticed her boyfriend was different and Mormon and wanted to know more.  The other part is that in teaching, the goal is to have a member of our ward at every lesson possible, we help teach and share the gospel but the love and fellowship of friends and ward members is so ridiculously important.  Like with James, the best scenario for teaching is teaching investigators in a member's home and having them sit by them at church, take them to activities and all we can do to love and help them.