Hey Everyone,
How are you? Hope everyone had a good week. It sounds like everyone had a good first week of spring break and that everyone is doing good. Thanks for the emails and letters I got this week! Uncle Jeff and Ricky really blessed me this week. Uncle Jeff and the Gwynns sent me a bracket on Thursday. Oh man was that a splendid suprise!
Elder L. saw it and because he doesn't care for sports said: "Hey thats going to distract you." So I just went to the bathroom and filled out my bracket. hahaha What he doesnt know is that sometimes I think less about stuff like that when I do hear about it. After getting the bracket I no longer really thought about it that day until we were about to go on splits with Bro. D. and then I wondered because he is a BYU fan if he watched the game. So after thinking about BYU and if they won but not wanting to ask him, he ended up telling me. And I was able to be happy and then refocus and I didnt think about it the rest of the night.
Then on Friday I got a package from R. He sent me a package with a BYU basketball shirt in it and a whole bunch of sports newspaper clippings he said he's been saving. So now to keep me focused I only read them at night after we have planned or on Pday and I read them when I'm in the bathroom or Elder L. is in the bathroom so he doesnt get mad. hahaha That all probably sounds really bad but I dont feel like its destracting me. There's so much other stuff going on that keeps me busy. But thank you to those who sent things.
Ok I have a quick question that Lauren may be able to answer. Any word on if J. F. has got a mission call? His bday is in March so I thought it might be comming. And that awesome to hear about T. That sounds like a fun mission. Not as fun as the MBM though!
We had a pretty good week. A lot of service which was good. We helped a guy who works at the mill go through their scrap pile and find giant logs to load up in his truck and take to this guy. And we helped Bro. P. who is like our mission Dad in Townsend prune about 10 small apple trees at this single sister's house. It took up pretty much the whole day on Sat. But we talked about a lot of good stuff and Sis. H. made us bread and he took us out for ice cream after so it was all worth it.
Zone confrence was on Wed. in Helena. It was good to see Pres. and Elder S. again. It was a lot easier being at this one because I knew the routine and what to expect. They talked about how we are supposed to use specific wording from PMG when commiting people to be baptized and that the mission has never really stressed it until now. So we practiced that and role played it a lot on wed. It involves praying about a date for them before hand and then in the commitment asking them if they'll be baptized on that date instead of just letting them pick a date. This makes it more of a goal and helps them go for it when they are ready and not set a date too far out.
Well Sat. night we found out since introducing this to two zones that we had over 20 commitments in 3 days. And since then even the numbers are going up. They said today they have 50 set for the first 2 weeks of april and our goal of 50 a month is looking like a real posibility. So this reminder of how we are to commit is really working and changing things. Wed. we also had a really good testimony meeting on the topic of Christ and Easter. It was really spiritual.
So after zone confrence since we were already up that way we decided since we were there with Bro. O. that we should go do our lesson with E. that afternoon at about 4:30. Well after meeting with her for about a half hour we had to leave to make it to our dinner. Elder L. said, "Oh man if only we had more time. And then Bro. O. said, "Well we could come back and have a lesson tonight if its alright with them." So we asked and they said yes. So after driving back to Townsend and eating, we drove back up with Bro. O. and had another really good lesson with E. She is progressing so much. Its like L. has slowed down and E. is on fire. She has even passed up L. in reading. We commited her to baptism and asked her if she keeps learning more and come to know its true if she'd be baptized and she said yes. So its only a matter of time and maybe we could have a sister sister baptism if L. comes around now.