Knocking Doors

It has been a great week. We met Tomi and her mom, Geena, knocking doors. They told us we could come back and share a message in a couple days. When we came back, they immediately invited us in. They shared with us that they have been having a hard time trusting in God because of some mistakes they made in the past, and some of the actions taken by a church that they used to attend. We addressed their concerns, and went on to present the Restoration of the Gospel. They loved it. That very night they stayed up late reading the Book of Mormon. They texted us to thank us, and to tell us that they had already learned so much from the book and that they knew what we had taught then was true.

In other news, Katrina got her limited-use temple recommend! We are so excited, and we will probably go to the temple with her next week, since she is working a lot this week.

Love y'all!

Elder Stephen Watts

Baptisms

We had an awesome baptism service this week for Julio of the Durrant Ward and Katrina from the Sherman 1st Ward. It was so fun, every missionary in the zone came to support them, many of them brought people they were teaching to watch. It was definitely one of the greatest baptism services I've ever been a part of. I did a side-by-side Spanish translation, which was tough, but fun.

Love,
Elder Stephen Watts

Family History

There are too many incredible stories to share this week. 9 different people that we have been teaching were able to attend church. I'll talk about just one of them.

Katrina Miller first met the missionaries a year ago, and has been working with them off and on this entire year. She has the Spirit of Elijah, and is very familiar with all of the family history online tools. She asked us to teach her why members of the church are so interested in family history work. We taught a very powerful Plan of Salvation lesson and thoroughly explained the redemption of the dead. She said she felt like her dead ancestors were speaking to her from the other side. She said that over the past two weeks she has been thinking a lot on whether or not she wants to be baptized. After we taught the plan of Salvation, she knew it was right. She said she wanted to be baptized when her cousin came into town, which just so happened to be the week of the 16th. Her cousin is a member and has been giving her a ton of support. She came to church yesterday for the first time ever and said that she knew her decision to be baptized was the right one.

I love y'all!
Elder Stephen Watts

Investigators Fellowshipping

One miracle we have seen this week was with two street contacts. One, was a 19 year-old named Samuel who had prayed to know how to handle his homosexual feelings. When he met us, we explained that it wasn't a sin to feel that way, only a sin to act in that path. We explained that Christ's atonement was there, and he offers us the gift of a new heart. He told us we were an answer to his prayer. Later, we talked to Amanda and helped her unload some materials from the bed of her truck and gave her a church invitation. When Amanda met Samuel at church she said: "is this your first time here?" "Yes" "it's my first time, too. Are you going to come back?" "Yeah" "me too, see you next week!" There is nothing cooler than investigators fellowshipping investigators.

Pass Along Card

This week, we gave a pass-along card to a man named Paul. He informed us that he was Catholic and he probably wasn't interested, so we gave him the card and told him to go to the website if he ever wanted to contact us. Not two days later, we received a referral from the online missionaries, it was Paul. It turns out that he had a real need in his life. He had been having nightmares and said he feels surrounded by evil spirits. He also had a fiancee who was Christian, but not too happy with her church and looking for another one. She was also experiencing frequent nightmares. Paul somehow decided that maybe we could help. We went over and taught the restoration. As we were teaching, the thought came to me that we needed to give them a blessing to help them sleep better and help them build their testimony in priesthood power. As I was wondering if the thought came from God, or was my own, Paul's fiancee, Kat, got up off the couch, got a kitchen chair, put it in the middle of the floor, and sat in it. So, we gave the blessing and ever since they have been able to sleep fine, without nightmares, and they have been reading the Book of Mormon, and they should be with us at church this Sunday.

Felisha and Jordan, the people we met last week, were able to come to church yesterday, and they loved it! They said they'd be back, and they are planning to be baptized in February.

It has been an awesome first week with Elder Richards. Attached is a picture of him with our investigator's pet raccoon.

Love,
Elder Stephen Watts

New Companion

We had a conference last Saturday with Elder Teixeira and Elder Ochoa from the Seventy, and Elder Jones who is an area seventy. It was a really cool meeting, and yesterday Elder Teixeira was present at a special stake conference that we had.

Tomorrow is transfer day. Elder Isaacson is being sent to Quitman TX, and I will stay in my present area with my present assignment. My new companion will be Elder Richards, who I know well. He's an awesome missionary, so I'm excited.

We have received six referrals this week from Salt Lake, which in itself is a tender mercy as we set out this week with a very high goal of finding a lot of new people, which we were able to accomplish with the help of those referrals. One of the referrals was for a family of three that had made a promise that if God would keep them together until 2019, they would go to church. They didn't know what church they wanted to go to, and as they were looking around, God lead them to request a free bible from Mormon.org. When we went by to deliver the bible, we offered to share a message, they accepted and were very interested and excited as we talked about the restoration of Christ's church. At the end, they promised to begin reading the Book of Mormon and come to church, and even be baptized if they felt like that was the right move for them.

I love y'all!
Elder Stephen Watts

Here's a possum we found tracting.

Juan Feeds Every Missionary in the District

Mountain biking today for P-day