Baptism

So yes, I baptized a dude on Saturday. It was kinda weird. Mike keeps telling us "I wont forget this for a long time". I believe it too. He loves the new friendship that he has with us and the friends that he is making in the ward. The tough part of this all is that we are trying to transition him from the missionaries to the ward. We need the ward to step up and be friends with him. He doesn't have a car so he needs a lot of help getting places. This past Sunday there was a stake choir concert and we had the Goveias take him to that. We had to go up to Brother Goveia and tell him to go up to Mike and invite him to the concert. Its hard work getting the ward to be friends with recent converts. The transition is happening though. Elder Boswell confirmed him and gave a really nice blessing. After the blessing Mike asked if he could have a copy of what Elder Boswell said. We told him that it was all done by the spirit and he was amazed. He is always so gracious and cordial.

I don't know if I told you about mike... He is a clinical psychologist, but isn't currently practicing because he isn't in great health. He lives humbly because he cant work right now but is in the process of getting knee surgery and maybe surgery on his shoulder. He had a stroke a few years ago and is still trying to fully recover. He's getting there. But until then he can't drive and somehow all his assets are frozen. I dunno. He hasn't gone into too much depth about it. He has never been married so he was worried he wouldn't fit in in the LDS church. We reassured him he would but I don't think he fully believed us until he experienced it for himself. He regrets not having a family but he loves the new ward family that he has.
He reads every day and is so curious to learn more. We just gave him a triple combination and a LDS edition KJV Bible. He reads all the time. He is just an awesome guy. I cant expect to ever find anyone as great as him again on my mission. We met him, and 20 days later he was baptized. That's insane. Elder Boswell and I were Blessed.

Because we were devoting so much time to Mike last week, the rest of the work slowed down a little bit. We realized that we don't have very many people to teach... So now we are back to finding. And teaching the few people that we have to teach. Staci thinks we're weird because the last time we were over there baptisms for the dead came up and she thought we baptized dead bodies. We explained what it was but I think she still is a little freaked out. We still meet with her but whenever we talk about religion she kinda puts on a front of "Mormons are weird". Next time we see her we will probably bring it up and see what she says. We're going over there tomorrow afternoon.

We also have Roman still, he is something else... He came to church in a pink polo and short plaid shorts with a virgin Mary pendant around his neck. Ridiculous. But he came to church! He is in the MLM business but he is on the end where he is getting taken for a lot of money and doesn't know it. Nothing like ASEA haha. Whatever he thinks he is doing its not working. But he is convinced that he is making millions within the next few months. one time he said "I'm making 5 million dollars on Saturday" Saturday came and went and somehow the check didn't come! shoot. Hopefully he shapes up.

Anna. She is a nice lady who wants to be baptized. She wants to come to church with her son Daniel too. They are way nice people. We are working with them. Its going well. They could be baptized soon. They are moving forward. We just need to meet with them more often.

That's about it. I attached baptism pictures and pictures from the temple. The small group is my district and the large group is my zone. The temple was great.

I love you all. Where are the letters? they stopped coming...

Love,
Elder Paxman