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

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.