June 13, 2011

North Carolina is great, and as far as the baptism's go, things are just crazy here, Heavenly Father just takes care of everything. The one this last week was J, his wife is a member, and he had been taught on and off for 19 years. (which is a lot) We'd met a couple of times but nothing to serious came of it. Then he called us out of the blue and was like, I read and prayed, I'm ready to be baptized. So we went and taught him, he'd already come to church a bunch, and got baptized! so that was awesome. :) We are also having a baptism this weekend, which is another cool story. It's a way awesome lady who actually used to live in Saint George! and she's moving back in 2 years, so that will be awesome if it happens cause I'll be able to make sure she's doing good, but anyways, she was being taught by missionaries in Durham, NC, and she moved here 3 weeks ago, and we started teaching her, she knew the Book of Mormon was true, she just had a couple little concerns, mostly family related, but she got over those and is good to go, so she is getting baptized this week which is awesome. We're also teaching a part member family that is really awesome. She's the non-member, but she loves the churches emphasis on families. He's been less active for years and years, he's originally from California. 2 weeks ago they just walked into church, he was like, I'm a member, I want to be active, and she wants to learn about the church. So we are teaching her :) She has a problem with smoking, but she really wants to quit, so we're hoping we can show her how to lean on the Savior and quit, and then she wants to be baptized once she quits, so that is incredible. The retired baptist minister has been out of town so we haven't gotten up with him recently, which is a bit of a bummer, but things are going good, as far as we know he is still reading and praying. The greenie comp. is good, he is a great missionary, super excited to be out here. He sings and dances all the time. It's kind of like being companions with a musical. but it's good I suppose ;) At district meetings I present training lessons based on what our district is struggling with. For example, right now we are finding a lot of people to teach, but the ward members aren't very involved in teaching the investigators, in all 3 areas I'm over, so this week we will probably talk about how to help the members get involved to friendship and help the investigators come to church and stay active after they're baptized. but yeah, sometimes President Cotterell gives us specific lessons, like the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion, and sometimes he lets us choose.

So yeah, that's what is going on here, Elder Rider