She Wants to be Baptized

Good afternoon! I sure hope everyone is still doing great. I love hearing from everyone on occasion and at least hear what’s going on in their life by reading the family news letter. Thanks for sending that—it’s really nice. This week was kind of sad because the Moaddeli family and the Sneary family “dropped” us. Sister Moaddeli after three weeks of not seeing her talked to us on the phone and said that it is causing too much strife in the home to continue with the lessons or a baptism so she said she’ll call us when she feels her family is ready. It is so sad for me because she was on fire and just so ready. Bro. Sneary called and canceled the appointment we had with him on Sunday and said he wants to take a break for a while. Fortunately we are going to eat with them on Halloween night, but it is sad he already doesn’t want to continue after only two lessons.

Thursday we ate dinner with the Cox family. Bro. Cox is going through cancer of the throat and kimo etc. and is not a member. They are super nice though and we had a great talk with them. They have four kids who are all moved out of the house, but they still have two dogs so those are their kids and entertainment now. Their house is amazing. Anyway, we had a really good spiritual thought with them and talked about the Book of Mormon and how it answers questions of the soul. Bro. Cox was then able to ask us a question of the soul that related to him about how he could find comfort/faith for his upcoming surgery and we answered it with the Book of Mormon. It was pretty neat.

We taught a couple Preach My Gospel lessons to members in the ward who were selected by the ward mission process this week. They were chosen through prayer and inspiration so it was neat to teach them, even though they aren’t less active—just in need of encouragement and the good word of God.

Saturday we had a temple tour. The mom of Bro. Emrich (a member we’ve been working with) was able to come and she really liked it. She is from outside the mission, but it was cool because she wants to be baptized. She is waiting for Elder Emrich to get off of his mission (he’s been out about the same amount of time as me) to baptize her.

Yesterday Edward went to church finally, though we had him go to the singles ward and we passed him off to the singles ward elders. We had dinner with a part-member family, the Lowengrubs. The wife is somewhat active and the husband and five kids (12 and under) are non-members. They are nice but have some pretty wild girls. It was a fun evening. Their kids are all swimmers and Sis. Lowengrub said they swim 1-3 miles a day. That seems pretty far for a 10 or 5 year old. They are all really fit kids. I played their piano for them and they enjoyed that. They also asked me to take a look at a new viola they are renting for the son. They wondered if it was broken or if it worked, but all it needed was rosin on the bow. It’s pretty funny to get a new bow and move it across the strings because it doesn’t make a single sound until you put rosin on the bow to give it friction.

It was a pretty low week on numbers, but we know if we keep working hard and keep the faith, it will work out and we’ll have experiences that will make it worth-while. As it says in the scriptures, especially while talking about Adam and Eve, you have to know the bad to know and appreciate the good. Have a wonder full week. Love,

Elder Curtis