January 17th

To all:

It's freezing! This morning it was -14 degrees celsius and tonight it's supposed to get to -17. yuck. Oh well I'll survive it! Plus I only have one real winter here, so might as well enjoy it. This week has flown by! I love it when the days just blurr together because we're so busy. On Saturday we had back to back appointments for the majority of the day, and today and tomorrow is the same thing. The best part of Saturday was only one appointment fell through, usually half do, but we were extremely blessed. I hope today and tommorrow go just as well.
We met with Chad everyday last week and are going to meet with him every day this week to prepare him for his baptism this Saturday. I'm so excited for him. He's so easy to teach, he's been going to church for so long that he knows it's true, it's almost like our lessons are just a formality to get him to baptism. He's having one of his friends in Young Men's baptize him and the youth are going to sing a musical number. The members were the missionaries in his case. I feel like I've done nothing, the members helped him get to where he is 100%. It's amazing. If only all missionary work was like this, then I'd be out of a job!
We had our first district meeting of the transfer, we normally have them sooner but it got delayed because of bad weather. What's crazy is that our district leader came out a transfer after me, and he's training, and the other 2 Elders, one came out the same time as me and he's training. So Sister Peaden and I are the oldest in the district. It's weird. All of the other missionaries I've worked with were going home pretty soon and well, are home. But I really do like have newer missionaries in our District, they are so focused and they work really hard, it helps inspire me and make me want to work that much harder.
Our other investigators are doing well. Casey and Eytan have been consistently coming out to church which is exciting and Matt is all set to be baptized on the 29th. I hope I don't get transferred before then, but it may happen. Jerry is still hung up on Anti stuff. It really stinks. We only saw him once last week and he said for sure he'd be at church and then didn't come. What stinks even more is that every talk and lesson we had went along with all of the questions he keeps asking us. They were on false prophets, Joseph Smith, receiving answers to prayers, etc. It's so sad when you see someone's potential, but then they excercise their agency and miss out on the blessings of coming to church. We really love Jerry and Michelle and hopefully with a bit of patience on our part, one day he'll receive those answers that he wants so badly.
Sister Peaden got to borrow a flute from a member here and we played a musical number "Beautiful Savior" from the primary book in Sacrament Meeting. I think the branch enjoyed it and Sister Peaden was pretty happy she got to play the flute! Also a member who teaches Yoga is letting us take a yoga class from her on Mondays and Wednesdays, she still has to get it approved, but we tried it out this morning and it was awesome. I think it will really help with my back problems.
This week I feel especially grateful for personal revelation. I was having trouble answering one of our investigators questions and had been pondering it and praying about it for a few days now, then this morning during personal study I found the answer. I searched the scriptures and used cross references and then pondered a lot and I got the answer I needed. It was amazing. I have a testimony of pondering on the words of the scriptures. It makes a huge difference. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knows us each so personally and so well that he answers our prayers. Sometimes we have to do a little work on our part to receive that answer, but the answer will always come. The church is true! I know it! Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for your letters and prayers, I really am grateful for them!