Christmas in Texas

I had a wonderful Texan Christmas. This time of year has been an excellent time to talk about Jesus Christ and what Heavenly Father's gift to us really meant for us.

We've seen a lot of wonderful miracles in the last couple weeks. One person we found, we started teaching him about God's love for us, expecting to teach him all about the restoration of the gospel, but instead he told us about how stressed he was because his his wife just had twins and he's been out of work for a couple months. He said he feels like God is punishing him for some mistakes he's made and his whole family is paying for it. As we taught him that there was a way out though Jesus Christ, he started to cry. Instead of teaching him about the Book of Mormon, or Prophets, or Revelation, we taught the ordinance of Baptism and what it would mean for him to receive that. He said he'd like that very much.

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:

Carmelita

Hey Y'all!

We have had a good week. Carmelita Quintanilla was baptized and confirmed. She is 12 years old, and her mom is a member of the church, but hasn't been in years. Carmelita has a 22 year-old sister named Marlen. Marlen was very active growing up. She went to church and to young women's all the time, but when Marlen was 19, she moved to Mexico with her fiance. She stayed active in the church in Mexico, even though she mostly had to go to church alone. She recently moved back and began going to church with Carmelita.

While she was gone, missionaries had been working with Carmelita, who really wanted to be baptized ever since she was nine. The problem had always been that it was difficult for her mom to get her active. When her sister returned, the game changed for Carmelita, who had the opportunity to prepare for baptism, even though her mom still struggled to become active. Carmelita was so excited to be baptized. Even though she is young. She had been waiting for it for years. It was special to see how happy she was to finally be able to follow Christ through baptism.

Love y'all!
Elder Stephen Watts

P.S. also photographed is Elder Sutton and Elder Anderson, the AP's, who both served in Sherman earlier this year.

Zach

Hey y'all!

So far I've been loving my new area and new companion. We have had a crazy week, but a good week.

I'll share a cool story about one of the people we're teaching. Zach is 15 years old and 6'5". His Dad is from Panama and his mom is African-American. Everyone at school likes him, but he really only has one good friend: a boy in the Van Alstyne ward named Caleb. According to Zach, Caleb is the only real Christian at school, so that's why he likes being friends with him. Because Zach admired Caleb's virtue, he decided to go online and order his free Book of Mormon to learn more. Elder Isaacson received his request a little before I got here and had taught him about the restoration. We had a short Skype lesson with him during the week, then on Sunday we had dinner with Caleb's family and Zach.

Together with Caleb's family, we taught about the plan of Salvation. Zach asked the best questions I've ever heard a 15 year-old ask, including "how can I find strength to be a Christian when everyone around me makes it un-cool?" And, "how can I teach people to be better Christians?" At the end of the lesson, we invited Zach to be baptized if he knew what we were teaching is true. He agreed.

Love y'all!

Elder Stephen Watts

P.S. I don't have any pictures yet with Elder Isaacson, but I'll attach some from my last couple days with Elder Curtis. People pictured are Ashley and the Sproul family, for those who have been following stories.

The Sproul Family was Baptized in December

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