Hey Girl Hey!

J. was baptized this weekend.  It was wonderful -- she is so happy!  B. was also baptized in my last area.  What a birthday present! 

Update on investigators:

We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with J. on Monday, watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration on Tuesday, and she had her baptismal interview with Elder S. on Wednesday.  The video was wonderful; the Spirit was so strong.  The hardest thing was teaching S. (J.'s daughter) what was going on.  She couldn't understand why the saints kept getting kicked out, and why people hated Joseph Smith so much.  It was a great teaching opportunity, though. J. was so touched that when she closed our lesson with a prayer, she couldn't finish; Ma. had to finish it for her.

We had an appointment with Mi. and a member on Tuesday, but we had zone conference and were running late. We had the member, Brother H., go without us and they had a great discussion.  Mi. and brother H. really get along really well.  It was a huge step for Mi.  Brother H. was on cloud nine, too.  He is loving sharing what he has learned.  Mi. also came to J.'s baptism, which was nice.  He seemed to enjoy it.  On Sunday something funny happened.  We honestly haven't been able to visit Mi. very much the past couple of weeks -- not on purpose, of course.  So he came up to us at church on Sunday and said that he's pretty open this week except for Wednesday, and when would we like to meet with him?  Now look who's setting up appointments at church! :)

L. is our newest investigator.  He is currently dating one of the young women in the ward.  She came bounding up to us at church and told us that she and her boyfriend had had a conversation about the gospel, and that he wants to learn more!  She was ecstatic.  She set up an appointment with us, then came back later to tell us that he's coming and is excited to meet us.  The meeting went well.  He's excited to read the Book of Mormon and we're meeting with him again on Thursday!

I mentioned earlier that we had zone conference this week.  Guess who won the clean car award AND got celestial planner awards!!  This was the first time they've given awards for planners -- I'm sure glad mine was in good shape!

Serve Fest was this weekend, too.  It was awesome!  A bunch of churches got together and cleaned up downtown.  I ended up scraping and repainting a fence and fire escape with a bunch of other people.  P.S. There is no good place to sit while painting a fire escape -- my thighs are super sore!  We were also painting the escape black, so a lot of the people at the baptism had black smudges all over them from Serve Fest.

One other story: I had a crazy allergic reaction on Wednesday.  It had to have been something I ate because I had it all over my body.  They were little boil-hivy things that got so big that they eventually became one giant boil-hivy thing, all up both my arms, on my tummy and behind my knees.  There is an anesthesiologist in the ward who ran to the hospital and got some steroid stuff and gave me a shot, and I was definitely on a lot of Benadryal for a while -- it took two days to clear up!  I still don't know what it was, but I definitely don't want to eat it again!

Transfers are this week!  Pray that the transfer angel passes us by!  I love you all!

My baby is all grown up and savin' China (Ohio)!"

Hello everyone!  Thank you so much for your birthday letters, cards and packages!  They have been wonderful!  I can feel your love even out here in Ohio!  Shout out to Elder Bham who hits his one-year mark on my birthday!

J. is getting baptized this week!  I can't believe it's here.  We taught her about the word of wisdom, tithing, fasting, and fast offerings this week.  Everyone pray for her, that she'll be able to keep the adversary at bay.

B. is getting baptized this week, too, at the same time as J.  It's so exciting!  I'm sad that I won't be able to go. 

Mo. has an amazing ability to feel the Spirit and has already figured out how to apply the scriptures to herself.  She loves the Book of Mormon.  When she reads it, she doesn't want to smoke anymore.  We were finally able to teach her the Restoration.  She is progressing toward her baptism on September 8.  Sister T. and I both hope we're still here -- transfers are next Thursday!

We found a new investigator named K. while tracting.  She's so cool.  She has two young kids and is really excited about the Book of Mormon.  She believes that the Bible has been altered over the years, agreed with the idea of a Great Apostasy, and loved the idea of eternal families.  We'll be visiting her again, later this week.

Our service project this week was helping a family blow up and tie balloons for their son's wedding reception.  They strung each balloon onto fishing wire and hung the wires across the ceiling.  They had the ceiling covered in balloons by the time we were done.  We blew up (with a compressor, luckily) and hand-tied 500+ balloons and helped string most of them, too.  It was definitely an adventure!

Well, I'm out of time!  I love you all and hope that everything is going well!  Happy birthday to Grandpa Morrow, Aubrey Bice, and Aunt Pam!

"She needs to sort our her priorities!" [Harry Potter]

Hello all!  It has been a good week, but next week is going to be even better!  Yeah!

J. is still progressing toward her baptismal date of August 25.  She has it all planned out, including who's speaking, playing the piano, etc.  And she's already making plans to go to the temple.  She is awesome!  J's daughter S. asked us yesterday for a list of scriptures to read.  She can't be baptized for a few more years, but she is doing all of her Personal Progress and scripture study so she'll be prepared.  So cool.

Mi. is still trying.  He enjoyed the 17-points talk.  He has come to church for the past six weeks straight -- he loves church.  I'm optimistic that he' will be back on date soon.

It has been a hard week for Mo.  The adversary is working on her hard core.  Please pray for her.  She had a priesthood blessing last Monday and had a super cool experience.  She said she felt all tingley and felt her load lightened.  She was honestly a little breathless when it happened.  It was wonderful to see her experience the peace that the priesthood can bring into our lives.  We taught her about the Book of Mormon and asked her to read it.  We got this text from her Saturday night: "I started reading the Book of Mormon last night and slept like a baby.  I woke up feeling refreshed and my stomach hasn't hurt all day so far.  I feel calm and at peace for the first time in years."  She told her cousin E. about the Church and how much it has helped her with everything, so now he wants us to teach him, too.  Awesome!

We taught D. the full Restoration lesson this past week and it was so cool.  When we drove up, he was sitting on his front porch reading the Book of Mormon.  He has committed to read two pages a day!  He has many questions about the different denominations and churches that exist in the world.  He is also reading the Koran, sooooo . . . we'll see how that goes!

I got a letter from Sister K. in Powell this week; she says that B. is working towards August 18 for baptism!  That's this weekend!  I hope all goes well there.  So cool to see seeds sown begin to sprout!

The B. family gave us a huge bag of Amish apples.  They are so good!  They don't look like our apples [Jonathan], but they taste like them -- crisp and tart and oh, so delicious!

We got a mini missionary this morning; her name is Sister C.  She'll be with us through Friday and is super cool!  We are excited to go out and have an amazing week!  We are going to teach, find, and find some more!

P.S. Mitt Romney is coming to Zanesville on Tuesday!

"When you're a professional pirate . . . you don't have to wear a suit (dress)."

Hello family!  It has been a fantastic week in the Great OCM!  Here's an update on our investigators:

We showed M. a few video clips this week -- one was the Restoration, the other one was about Wilford Woodruff searching for the true church of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.  On our way out the door, Sister T. asked, "Does M. have a DVD player?"  We were tempted to assume that he did, but felt that we shouldn't.  I said, "Let's stop by the church, just in case, and borrow a DVD player from one of the TV carts in the library."  So we did.  When we got to M.'s apartment, we found that neither of his DVD players were working.  Crazy awesome!  Between the Spirit, Sister T. and myself we managed to thwart the adversary!  Hooray!  It was a pretty awesome feeling.

Tuesday we committed M. to make a list of the qualities of Jesus Christ's church as found in the Bible.  He seemed really excited about it.  After he's made his list, we plan to show him a talk about the 17 points of the True Church that Bro. B. (our ward mission leader) found.  It's really good.  It's about five college friends who make a list like I've described, come up with 17 points, and begin a quest to find the church that has all 17 points.  They are split up by WWII and eventually reconnect years later -- only to find that all five of them have joined the LDS Church.  It's the only one with all 17 points.  It's pretty cool!

M.'s car broke down last week, but that didn't stop him from coming to church.  When we called him Saturday to check if he had a ride (having already lined one up for him if he needed it), he told us that he had already borrowed his friend's truck to get to church.  Wow!  I was tickled silly!  Look at him -- he's all grown up and savin' China!

My GPS's favorite thing to do if we're south of town and it doesn't know where our destination is: It sends us to the same gravel pit . . . every time!  It's ridiculous!