Today's Youth

I really love working with youth. Two weeks ago I talked about 15 year-old Zach Hunt, and last week the baptism of 12 year-old Carmelita. Both of which are still doing great, by the way, they love learning about the gospel and are doing all they can to follow Christ. We are also teaching another 15 year-old, who is good friends with a member. His name is José Perez. We've met with José a number of times at his friend's house, and he even came to church with his friend last week.

All of these wonderful young Christians have a similar stumbling block, and that is a huge lack of parental support when it comes to the gospel. It even seems like with each of these, their parents have issues with the church. Obviously, we try not to teach these people behind their parent's back, but while they have permission to meet with us, their parents don't seem to want anything to do with it. Yesterday, both Zach and José woke up and got ready to come to church, only to be denied permission by their parents. We wondered what kind of a reaction they would have after having their righteous decisions put down by their parents. To our surprise, their faith was unwavering. They both said they would continue to convince their parents to let them come to church, and asked when we could meet again to discuss the gospel. They both said that they would like to be baptized should their parents allow them to.

Many people have said that they are scared for today's children because of the evil in the world, but I'm not. I know that the elect of today's youth are stronger than ever before.

With love,
Elder Stephen Watts

Here's a picture of Ruthie Goode's baptism in Will's Point. Elder Twitchell and I began teaching her in September, and in September helped her set a goal to be baptized in December. It was a lot of fun teaching her. She was baptized by her husband, an awesome member of the ward.

And here's a couple pictures that were sent to me by a kind member who took the missionaries out for Texas barbeque: