Called to serve

This week was busy, busy, busy! 
We had TWO baptisms this week!  The Lord is really preparing his children in this area and I feel extremely blessed to have been a part of it.  Both baptisms were scheduled for Saturday, however Callie's baptism ended up being changed on to Thursday. 
Callie called us Wednesday and said she wouldn't be able to make it Saturday and said she needed to change her date to sometime in the future or to just get baptized the next day so of course we jumped right on it and called the ward to help out and get everything together and it all turned out so well!  This ward is AWESOME and was not hesitant to sacrifice their time and help out with everything.  We had such a great turn out.

The other baptism was for Travis (the guy I previously told you about who had an awesome story about overcoming addictions.)  I don't remember if I told you on Skype or not, but he had a date to get baptized on May 18 with his brother Marty and we went over for an appointment last week to find out that he had been put in jail.  We were devastated because we knew how excited he was to be baptized.  Well, he was released Thursday night, and I guess it was all a misunderstanding so he was released and had no conflicting problems with probation or parole so he was able to be baptized Saturday morning!  He had family come all the way from Hawaii to be there which was so awesome!  The coolest part about it was that his father who was recently activated in the church was able to speak at his baptism and the spirit was so strong it was undeniable!  He expressed how he had a dream that he was supposed to be the leader of his family, just as Nephi was for his family.  He expressed his excitement to be able to be that example and that he knew baptism was just the first step of doing that!  It was because of his example that his father started coming to church again after years of not going and now his entire family attends regularly.    On top of that, he met a friend in Jail named Wesley whom he now lives with.  Wesley was able to attend his baptism as well as church yesterday and was so excited he asked when he could be baptized! We are teaching him now as well and have a date set for June 15!  He's been begging us to move it to the first of June so we'll see what happens with that.

Callie had a little miracle of her own this week!  Callie's family is pretty worried about what she "got herself into."  Her husband is an atheist
and not interested whatsoever with any type of affiliation with the Mormon church. We got to meet him for the first time last week which was a HUGE step.  Her mother that lives in Michigan was talking to her Callie's mother-in-law on the phone last week and they were talking about how Callie was getting baptized and how neither of them knew much about the Mormon church at all.  Callie's mother mentioned that she had been praying for a sign that she could know what Callie was doing was right.  Just as she said that, she heard a knock at her door.  She answered, "Who is it?"  They replied, "We're the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints and we're here to share a message about Jesus Christ and his gospel and how it can bless you and your family." Let's just say that both the Mother and Mother-in-law are both taking discussions from the missionaries now! 

This was an incredible week and I was blessed with countless humbling experiences.  The longer I am out, the greater love I have for this gospel and each week I think, "Wow.  I couldn't possibly love what I'm doing any more than I already do." Every week, I seem to prove that statement wrong.  I feel SO extremely blessed to be a involved in such a great and marvelous work.  This gospel has been set up to it's perfect form and is a road map to lead us back home.  I like to think of how blessed I am to have the knowledge of this gospel and how our families will be eternal.  Then I think about how many others out there that are going without and I just want to work even harder to be able to share it with everyone! I hope that you will continually pray for missionary opportunities!  I know I've told you this before, but you don't have to have a name tag to be a missionary!  I cannot stress how important the members of this church are in the conversion of others.  My calling as a missionary is not above any other calling in this church.  The prophets have stressed it A LOT lately, but don't be afraid to open your mouth and be ready to give an answer. 

Thanks for all the support and love!  You're the best!  Hope all is going  well!