Sherman, TX

It is a good feeling when your last week in an area is your best one. We set a handful of baptismal dates and had 7 investigators come to church, 6 of those having a tentative December baptism scheduled. What better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ than by following his example and joining his church?

One of the people we began teaching is an 18 year-old young man named Joseph Rollins. He was adopted into the family in which he currently lives. He found out that one of his brothers who lives elsewhere in Texas had joined the church, and he was curious to learn more. Joseph loves history and was very interested when we explained the great apostasy and the formation of religions as we know them today.

As we neared the end of the lesson, the Spirit was very strong and we invited him to be baptized and he said he would. We challenged him to prepare for a baptism on the 22nd of December and he said he would. He came to church and seemed to really love it!

Tomorrow I will be transferred to a town called Sherman; it's about an hour North of the Dallas suburbs, and not far from the Oklahoma-Texas border. I will serve in the Sherman 1st ward and the Van Alstyne ward. I will serve as a zone leader over all the missionaries in the Sherman, Shawnee Trails, and Frisco stakes. My new companion's name will be Elder Isaacson, but I don't know much about him yet. The area is a bilingual area- there's not a Spanish branch yet, but there's a Spanish group, which means they meet together with an English ward, but have their own Sunday School class in Spanish. I was kinda hoping for a real Spanish area, but I guess I'll take what I can get. All things considered I'm very excited for this transfer!

Love,
Elder Stephen Watts

Our district (before transfers)

Elder Robbins

I mentioned last week that we were having a 3-day mission tour with Elder Lynn G. Robbins. The conference was incredible! He taught us about how to become more Christlike and introduced some new goal-setting strategies. He also taught about the power of the Book of Mormon in conversion. We discussed how Christ-like teaching incorporates teaching correct principles, but allowing people to govern themselves. Come to think about it, a lot of topics were covered in those three days. The whole time, there were 11 Elders from distant areas staying in the same, one bathroom apartment.

Last week, I also shared about miraculously finding Ashley. This week, she drove 45 miles to Tyler, Texas to see a convert be baptized, and she came to church with us on Sunday. She shared with us that the day before we met, she had decided to give up on finding a purpose to life. She decided if God really loved her, he would send a sign, so she prayed and asked God to send a sign if He really loved her and had a plan for her. When we took her parking spot that night, she was not having a good day, and to take some of her anger out, she was planning on not letting us leave, but keeping us boxed in all night. Then, something told her she couldn't, so when we knocked on her door, she allowed us in. When we told her we were missionaries, she instantly knew that it was the answer to her prayer from just the night before. She has listened carefully to everything we've taught, and read a considerable amount in the Book of Mormon. It will be a long road for her to be able to be baptized, but for now, she's off to a good start.

I love y'all!

Elder Stephen Watts

Wednesday Miracle

Hey Y'all!

Missions are always crazy and the last couple weeks have been no exception. Today we have a shortened P-day because we had a meeting with all of the mission leaders and Elder Lynn G. Robbins. It was great. Tomorrow there will be a conference with him and the whole mission. Wednesday we will have another leadership conference with him. It's been great. I'll be sure to tell more about it next week.

Last Thursday Elder Curtis and I got permission to go to the temple. I hadn't been since June 2017. It was both peaceful and revelatory; just what I needed.

I'll share a miracle, as I try to do each week. On Wednesday, we were teaching a lesson late at night in an apartment complex and we headed to our car to drive home. We then learned that this complex had assigned parking spots, with signs that we didn't see at first because it was dark. The person who's spot we stole parked behind us, blocking our exit. We assumed they planned on making us pay a parking ticket or something of the sort. The door was one we recognized, we had tracted it and the man living there wasn't interested. When we knocked, we heard a woman's voice say come in. Awkwardly, as missionaries always are, we knocked a second time in hopes she'd come to the door. Again she said, come in, so we did. She said her name was Ashley, and we introduced ourselves as missionaries. She asked if we could share a message with her. We looked at our watches and decided we could teach a quick lesson and still make it home before our 9:30 curfew. 

We taught just the first principle: We have a Heavenly Father and He loves us. We gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to start reading. She told us a little bit about her history, she'd been kidnapped as a kid. She had a hard growing-up that included being abused by her father. She said she recently discovered who her birth father was: A faithful member of the church that lives in Utah. She said she wanted to come to church with us and continue to learn. 

Love y'all!
Elder Stephen Watts