Coming to Church

It has been a really neat week. We met someone last Sunday who came to church with one of the members. His name is Jarod. He happened to be working for said member. We got his number and asked about coming by for a lesson. He said that would be OK, but he was really busy, and lives far away, so we weren't able to visit him. Yesterday, he showed up to church again. We asked him if he would still be interested in having us bring a Book of Mormon by his house and teach him about it. He said, "If I wasn't interested, I wouldn't have come back!" Also at church was Kacey (two times for her now) who has recently discovered general conference and has been sending us her thoughts on just about every talk from last conference. She is so awesome! And the Thompson's also were able to be there, I think I talked about them 2 times ago, but only the husband is a member in that family, and the wife and daughter want to be baptized. It's been incredible how many people God has allowed us to meet recently.

Included in the pictures is us fixing a roof and trimming trees for a member, and us tracting a porch that was well equipped.

Love,
Elder Stephen Watts

Recent convert, Angel, would not let us take a normal picture of her

Kacey

Kacey was introduced to the gospel by a member because she was the first grade teacher of the member's daughter. I'm not exactly sure how the conversation was brought up, but the member invited her to read the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy. The member then gave us her phone number.

So for about three weeks we would call Kacey and text her and answer her questions and keep her excited about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. And, for three weeks she would tell us that she would love to meet up and take the lessons, but that her husband wasn't ready yet. She mentioned that her husband was reading the Book of Mormon and studying online and stuff, but wasn't convinced yet. 

Yesterday, Kacey came to church and introduced herself to us as Kacey _____. We were shocked and Elder Twitchell asked, "You mean, the real life Kacey, the girl we've been texting for the past few weeks?" She said yep. She said that she was done waiting for her husband and was ready to take the lessons. After asking a few followup questions we discovered that she had been doing her research, and had even chatted with missionaries on mormon.org. She mentioned that she joined a Facebook group called Mormon women whose husbands don't go to church. We're not sure what we're going to teach her because she already knows everything there is to know about our faith. She's ready to join. It's incredible.

Many of the other people we've been teaching are progressing rapidly as well. We are very excited for many of the future converts we are teaching. 

Hurrah for Israel!
Elder Stephen Watts

Teaching Families

Hey All!

So, these past two weeks we've been going crazy finding part-member families. Part-member families are tricky because most of them have seen missionaries a lot in the past, so you have to figure out a way to teach them that's different. But, we have had a lot of success nonetheless. One family that we found was a member, Bradley Thompson who went through a divorce a year ago, and was remarried 2 months ago to a non-member. Before we even taught them a lesson, he had talked to her about going to the temple and having an eternal family. Teaching them was a blast. They asked all the right questions and promised to come to church.

It's sometimes more rewarding teaching families (part-member families included) because we get to see the family rally around their faith, and become more united as they choose to follow through with commitments. The gospel of Jesus Christ exists to bless families. I wish I had more neat stories to tell this week.

Love,
Elder Stephen Watts