August 5th

Remember me telling you about Micah? Well he got baptized on Saturday:)) It was so awesome! He was the quarter back of the High school football team so there was tons of people there, we had to move to the chapel because their wasn't enough room. The week before his baptism was rough though. His family is pentecostal & so they were not supportive at all. They were all sending him texts with bible verses, & trying to talk him out of it. On the day of his baptism it was way rough. That morning we received a call saying he might not be baptized & that we should pray for him. We kneeled together as a companionship and prayed for Micah. When we concluded the prayer the phone rang & we were told that Micah was for sure going to be baptized. Well when it was time for him to be baptized everyone started showing up except for him. We were so nervous. We walked down the hall & said a kneeling prayer like right in the middle of the hall as a companionship, when we walked back into the the foyer we saw him walking in. Apparently his mom & his pastor pulled him aside & tried to talk him out of it. He showed up anyways:) it was amazing. Skye Barton his best friend baptized him. The Spirit was so strong during his baptism. [ He was confirmed on Sunday & received the priesthood. He leaves this week to go to Dixie college in Utah with one of his friends who is a member. It all worked out. He is so awesome, & has such a bright future. He has so much faith and truly wants to follow Christ. The day of his baptism was such a testimony builder of the power of Faith and Prayer. I know that as we have Faith and pray to our Father in Heaven that he will answer our prayers.We got a new investigator from that baptism as well. 

The work here is still going strong. We are still teaching Cruz. He almost dropped us this week because last week we had him read a scripture about baptism & he told us he knows that everything we are teaching him is true but that it puts him at a crossroad because he wants to be buried a catholic & doesn't want to go against his family. So we told him to continue reading & to do a little soul searching. We came back this week & he said that he did a little soul searching & decided to figure out what it meant to be a Native American. He had always thought he was hispanic & just recently found out he is Indian. So he found the Native American ten commandments & wanted to go with is roots? We told him how the Book of Mormon is about his heritage. He showed us the ten commandments & one of them talked about the Great Spirit. He asked us if we knew anything about it. We all kind of sat there & out of no where I remembered the story about Ammon & King Lamoni. When King Lamoni asks about the Great Spirit & Ammon explains that it is God. It was definitely the spirit because I hadn't read that story in a while. I showed him it & he said that he was back at the cross roads. I really think he is headed towards baptism. Every time he tries to drop us the gospel answers the questions he has & leads him even closer to being baptized. So we'll see what he has for us this next week:) Work wise Fallon is doing great. It's exciting to see.

Recent Photos

July 22nd

I have an extra hour for language study, but if something comes up it's the first thing to go, since it's only for me & not the companionship. That's rough, but there are some days where I just want to go out and work so I justify it. I shouldn't though, I'll definitely work on it this next transfer. We got our transfer calls this week. President told me he is going to keep me here until I get my visa, but things could change. Sister Toft is going to Reno (just like all my other companions) Sister Silfies & I are staying here & Silfies is training a sister fresh out of the MTC. We are also taking over another area that is over an hour away, so that's stressful. It's just a little branch in Austin, but apparently a family of 7 is being taught there that has a lot of potential. We are taking over Austin because they are splitting our zone, & the elders that covered it are now in the other zone. Craziness.. I don't know how we'll do it we barely have enough time in the day/week for our own area let alone two that are miles apart from each other. We'll just have to have a lot of faith that it will all work out, & we'll have to rely a lot on the ward members to pick up the slack. I think it will be a good opportunity for the ward to be able to take on more missionary work and feel the spirit.This past week we set a baptism date with Kristin! She's getting baptized on August 24th :)) I am so excited, she is just the cutest little girl, she reminds me so much of Shelby it's ridiculous. We have a new investigator that we are teaching tonight, his name is Micah & he wants to be baptized which is so awesome. Actually his friend Skye Barton is a member in our ward. Skye called us on Sunday saying that he wanted us to come teach his friend Micah and that he wanted to be baptized! It's not everyday you start teaching some one that already wants to be baptized. Our investigator Kevin is really starting to warm up to the idea of baptism, last week he said there is no way he would get baptized & this week he said he would but he needs to learn more. Hopefully he really starts to gain a testimony on the importance of baptism & having the Holy Ghost. We'll see though :) We taught the same amount of lessons this week, I've really come to see that I'm just an instrument in the Lord's hands & that this is HIS work. As long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing we will continue to see miracles. I truly do love being on a mission, & feel so blessed to be given this opportunity.

July 15th

My new companions are awesome! We all have the same ideas of what missionaries should be like, and how we want the work to go which is amazing. We taught so many lessons this past week. It was so amazing, we have tried to be exactly obedient and it has really shown us that miracles are possible. Our investigator Julie White came to church with us yesterday! Never thought that would happen, shows that I need to have more faith haha. We made a deal with her that we would go to Mass with her if she went with us. Sooo I went to Mass on Sunday haha. It was definitely an interesting experience, something I can say I've done at least once in my lifetime. It was good though, she agreed to only go to sacrament meeting & ended up staying all three hours. I really think she enjoyed it. Kevin is progressing. We are going to invite him to be baptized this next week, we'll see how that goes. One of our new investigators is a little girl named Kristin. She is 8 years old, so she is taking the lessons and wants to be baptized. Reminds me a lot of Shelby. We teach her on Tuesday, and she's really excited (so am I). Things are all around just going well here in Fallabama. I really love it here, & I am soo excited to see the work really begin to pick up.