August 11th, 2009 (Email)

Hello!

This week was kind of crazy. We were supposed to baptize Raquel Piceno on Saturday but a bunch of things happened that made that impossible. We'd prepared the baptismal service and the program was all set and lots of people from the ward were prepared to attend the batpism. But Friday night at about 11:30 Elder Rada and I received a phonecall from Raquel's uncle Robert. He told us that Raquel's dad (her parents are divorced) came and picked her up that night and took her away without Sandra's (the mom's) permission. So we lost a lot of sleep over that. Then in the morning I called Raquel's dad and asked him what the deal was. I asked him if he knew that her baptism was supposed to be that day and he said he did and he came up with a bunch of lame excuses with the overall message being that he didn't care. I asked him "Is she going to be able to be at her baptism today?" He said "No sir." I told him "Well, I've guess I've just got to call the entire ward now and tell them the baptism's off." We've postponed the baptism until the 22nd. Raquel's mom came to church this Sunday! Our goal is not only to baptize Raquel but to activate the family of course. So we're seeing progress despite this little setback.

Yesterday we had a great appointment with a new investigator named Jessica. Jessica's in her early 20s, has a 2-year-old son and lives with her parents. We found her tracting around the neighborhood of one of our Samoan/New Zealand-ish members named Bro. Logan Ruru. Jessica quickly accepted our invitation to learn and was all prepared for our appointment yesterday. I love it when people set up a return appointment and then are actually there for the appointment! That was awesome! We taught her the message of the Restoration of the Gospel and it was a great lesson. We emphasized the importance of baptism and we asked what her understanding was of the purpose of baptism. She said that she honestly didn't know so we taught her. The Spirit testified to her and she received it. She listened attentively and answered all of our questions thoughtfully. We asked her "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" and quickly said "yes." Then we asked "we will be holding a baptismal service and the 12th of September. Will you prepare yourself to be baptized on that date?" She asked what she needed to do to prepare herself and we told her that we'd teach her and that we'd be the first ones to postpone the date if she wasn't prepared. She said that she didn't want to commit to a date just yet but that she was "definitely considering it." She was prepared for our message. She said that she was way glad that we came and talked with her and we're going back to visit her again tomorrow.

I've started a new study journal for my personal studies. I decided over the weekend that I want to be more organized so I got a binder and some paper and some dividers and I separated the study journal into sections based on the order set in Preach My Gospel: My Purpose, the lessons (5 sections), Recognize the Spirit and then Zone Conferences. Preach My Gospel says that your study journal should be a sacred place so I wanted to improve on that.

Hope you have fun in Yellowstone! Sister Chun vented some of her frustrations to us about President Obama last week. It was pretty funny. Sounds scary what's going on in the politcal world but it always is so that's nothing new. It's either bad or worse. Maybe things will change but we don't need to worry about that stuff if we just follow the counsel of the prophet. So I'm just going to be of good cheer and all that.

Thanks for the tidings of birthday joy and have a great week!

Love,
Elder Tyler Lewis