February 16, 2015 ~ Week 82

Why hello,

I have had a pretty great week this week. We have had a lot of great opportunities to learn and serve. But the highlight of the week was Brother Hall getting baptized! He has been working for a long time to get to this point, and we were super excited for him. He'd been taught for a long time, and wasn't really progressing.   He has had baptismal date after baptismal date just come and go, but in the last month we really tried to teach him straight from the scriptures. That's what it took to finally help him get it. Since then he has done awesome, and
I'm super excited to see him go to the temple and get sealed. His wife has been a member for a few years, and he actually was taught before she was. So he has been waiting for a while for this. 

Other highlights of the week, since getting the sister's area, we now have 256 new formers and potentials we can go see. The field is white and all ready to harvest. We have set up appointments with like 3 or 4 people, and plus one of our investigators, Ray, gave us a referral that we have an appointment set up with for Saturday, and we received an HQ referral on top of that. We've got so many things going for us right now. We are going to baptize all of Newark at this rate. On that note, we also have a baptism scheduled for next week.  Her name is Ernesta. Then another one that'll probably be in the first couple weeks of March. We also get to go to the temple again with a family we reactivated that is going to get sealed. So as far as the outward results of missionary work go, we are doing fantastic. As far as the inward results of missionary work, we are doing even better.  I had the chance to go on exchange with Elder Eves, one of our zone leaders, and it was an enlightening experience. I learned a lot on that day.  We also found a fun friend out in the parking lot.  

Meet Lorenzo.  Lorenzo also loves Jesus Christ.
{Note Elder J's family hanging on the wall behind him. }

Elder Payne is doing great. He is so full of energy, and has such a desire to improve. They say Goldens come out with this golden fire... It's true. He's amazing. Lately I've been studying a lot about why people don't accept the gospel, and what makes someone hard hearted, and why people choose to be prideful. It's a fascinating subject that goes a lot deeper than I would have ever guessed. One particular scripture that helped me understand this quite a bit was John 3: particularly 19-21. I love being here and I love being a missionary! Have a great week!

~Elder Jorgensen