January 27, 2014

Hi Family,

I did remember my camera today so I can show you some pictures from it.

 

We have had a few new investigators. Mostly from part member families. We should have a few baptisms in February. We ended this month with 6, so it was pretty good. Most places only get 1 or 2, so we are doing something right I guess. The other 4 members of that family I told you about all got baptized on Saturday. When we were preparing them this last week the mom suddenly told us that she didn't feel ready to be baptized and that she wanted to wait, but let the kids do it now. We didn't know how to help her, so we ended up leaving for the night. We prayed and fasted for her the next day. When we went to go and see her that night we had an awesome lesson with her and were able to convince her to be baptized with her family. She said that even though she didn't tell us about the problem she was having, we had answered as if she had. It was like Ammon with King Lamoni in Alma 17. The spirit helped to answer her questions, before she asked them. Fasting really does work miracles.

 

I also got to ordain one of the people that we baptized before to be a teacher and gave him the priesthood. So things are going well here. 

 

I had to give a talk in church yesterday actually. I spoke on the Law of Tithing. Everything else during the day seemed to be focused on the family though and how important it is. 

 

The weather was warm yesterday, but it dropped again last night. and it is supposed to drop even more tonight. Nothing else is really going on. bye.

 

From, Other Elder Udy

January 20. 2014

I forgot my camera at home today, so no pictures. I need to go soon though. My companion and I have some differences, but we get along pretty well usually. 

My bike is working out well. The landscape is all flat here which makes it good for biking.

We meet regularly with the ward mission leader and go to ward council.  Bye.

Love, Other Elder Udy

January 13, 2014

Hi everyone,

 

In answer to your question, sometimes the members do the baptizing. It depends on who the person wants to do it. We let them choose. 

We are in cars this week still, but we should have bikes next week. The members tend to help out a little, but mostly only if it's convenient. It isn't too cold out here anymore. It was really bad last week though. It got down to about 8 degrees without wind chill. It is around 60 now though. Our transfers are halfway through February. We just had them at the new year. I'm still in the same place and stuff.

So this last week we had a baptism for two kids planned that were 15 and 16. We really had to fight for every inch. It took them about 2 months to finally be ready. As we went to fill the font for them on Saturday morning we discovered that the ice and cold storm that we had the week before actually broke the pipes to fill it. The water started leaking from the roof. We immediately turned it off, but then we weren't sure what to do. Postponing it would have been easy, but we didn't feel right about that. So we called the Walnut Grove bishop to see if we could use their font. They had something going on already that day. So then we called the Southaven bishop. He gave us permission to use his font. We then called the missionaries in that ward and asked them to go and start filling it immediately, as we drove down. We then called the investigators, members, bishop, speakers, and everyone else who was planning on coming. It got a little hectic. In the end we got everyone down there and had 2 baptisms. A lot of members showed up as well to show there support. The rest of there family was there as well. We now have 4 more dates with the rest of the family. Our persistence paid off this time.

Love, Other Elder Udy

January 6, 2013

They celebrate New Years weird here. At midnight, instead of party poppers and cider, a ton of people take guns outside and fire randomly into the air. It was pretty exciting, and deadly. We all were inside during it though. 

 

We do give church tours to our investigators. Our exchanges are with the people in our district (My companion is the district leader) and with the zone leaders. 

 

It is pretty cold here. It was about 18 degrees coming to the library this morning. My coat is enough though I did buy some gloves and a hat at Walmart today. 

 

We don't have facebook or anything like that set up yet and we haven't been told to. We are getting iPads on the 16th of this month most likely. If not we will probably have them next month. We still just use paper for now.

 

I forgot to tell you last week though. I did my first baptism on the 28th of December. I actually never taught the girl, but my companion had to do the interview for her. After that she chose who she wanted to baptize her. She said she wanted me to even though I just met her that night. Not the elders who taught her. It was weird, but kind of cool. So yeah. I also have 2 more baptisms coming up on Saturday.

 

Love, Other Elder Udy