Monday, April 5, 2010

Ocala, FL Letter #7 April. 5, 2010

Hello to everyone!
Hey guys, this week was a pretty good week! My new companion is Elder Porter so we have two Elder Porter's in one apartment! My Porter has been out for 3 months, so I am the senior companion again this time. My companion also has a cousin serving in the Jacksonville mission who is Elder Hill, they are both from Utah.

My companion this last week was Rogers; so we took the time for him to say good-bye to a lot of members. They are going to miss him; he has been in this area a long time and has grown close to many of the ward members. Then on Thursday Elder Rogers left for his new area. Elder Porter and I are back on bikes, which is not so bad. My companion - Elder Porter is a bit older guy. He came on his mission when he was 23 years. He seems like a smart kid and he is a really hard worker!

On Friday we tracted our guts out, and got 9 people to commit to a baptismal date. Unfortunately, we had to drop all of them because they were not answering their doors when we came around to pick them up for conference. However, there is this one guy named Cory, (he is friends with a bunch of members) and so he has come to several Sunday meetings already. We heard he was planning to show up for the priesthood session of conference, so we managed to call him and told him to come a bit early.

Cory was there at the church when we got there so we sat him down in a room for a bit and talked to him about all that he has learned so far. After that we went over the life of Joseph Smith briefly, and then taught the first lesson. Following that, we invited him to be baptized. He said, “Yes he would”. We told him if he wanted, he could be baptized on Easter Sunday, since he has already been to church 3 times, but he told us he had an Easter party to go too. Then he said he could do it the next week on Sunday, so we were like sweet!! So we gave him the book of Mormon and assigned to him a chapter to read. We will try to see him tomorrow, to get his mom to sign the baptismal form (since he is only 17) but he said his mom would be cool with it. We also have a meeting with him this Wednesday as well, at his members’ friends’ house. Yeah pretty sweet miracle there!! We are praying that all goes well with him this week for his baptism. Yeah and of course, it was conference weekend, which just added much more joy to the whole day!!

I am glad you got to meet Elder Bowen, Yeah, I love that kid!! We had such a blast in Fernandina Beach, it was an awesome area. Man we had good times! And isn’t that sweet that Jason is being dunked finally!! It is going to be a way sweet experience. Jason is just an amazing individual, I have never met anyone like him. His faith is so strong and he will be an amazing member! And for the other great news, Elder See and I have special permission to go to the baptism, even though it is out of our areas. Elder See gets to come with me, as well President Newman. President Newman will be dunking him! What a special day that will be! I can’t wait to see everyone from Fernandina again, that is an amazing area. They have now been made a Ward, and are no longer a branch because they have enough members to make up a ward now! Woot!! And Jason will be part of that ward now too!! It will be a miracle day for sure!! Mighty miracles, Mighty miracles!

I really loved the Easter and April fool’s day packages. They were way sweet! The books you sent seem pretty awesome as well, thanks for everything. The April fool “prank boxes” were hilarious! I totally fell for it! I really thought they were actual gifts. I looked at it and I was like... “Cocoa talkies? What the freak?, then I looked at the self-propelled rolling pin...and I thought...“ I'm not that lazy!” Now the alarm clock fryer...I was a little upset that one was fake! I would have liked that one to be real!! Ha-ha! But I gotta run, talk to everyone more next week.

Love from the Elder (who is seeing double with the Elder Porters…ha-ha) Blair

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