2014-07-07 ...so I guess he's planning on getting his answer quick.

Hey Everyone,

This week went by really fast. On Tuesday Pamela and Claudia got baptized.  Kevin didn't but I'm ok with that. We had a really good lesson with him this week.  I think he needs to be more sure that this is the true church before he gets baptized.  In our lesson we talked about why a firm testimony is so important and about how he can get a stronger testimony.  He told me the moment he's sure that he needs to get baptized, he'll call me and get baptized.  Since we had the lesson though, he's been telling everyone that he's going to get baptized on Saturday so I guess he's planning on getting his answer quick.  

He probably can get it quick.  One of the things that impresses me is that the people here seem to be very open to receiving revelation.  Instead of wondering if they've received an answer from God, they tend to accept that they have.  They truly expect God to answer them when they pray.  It's not common that someone has been praying to know if what we teach is true for even a couple weeks without believing that God has answered them.

 

crossing a river in my area (I've never fallen in)

Carlos Raul (9 year old son of Mery and Raul) is still doing great.  He prayed every day for  month before he told us that he'd gotten an answer that the church is true.  He continues to affirm that God answered him. During a lesson this week after reading John 3:5, I asked him why he wanted to be baptized (fishing for 'it's necessary to enter into Gods kingdom').  He surprised me by answering that God had told him that it's the true church so he needs to be baptized to do what God wants.  His Mom is also getting closer and closer to the church.  We just need to figure out what to do to help the dad.

Pamela and Claudia are doing great.  They were confirmed yesterday.  Claudia bore a very nice testimony in her baptism.  They are also talking to their grandpa, who lives in our area, about the church and we are going to visit him this week.

The stake young women's president asked me about how young mens worked in my ward in utah after youth conference didn't go very well.  Since then I've met with the stake president and stake young women's presidency a few times to discuss ideas for the youth.  Later this year they are going to have a stake-wide youth leadership training based on what our ward did at Rasbands' cabin to encourage a shift to youth leaders being more involved in planning activities and reactivating their quorums and classes.

 

in my area (on one of the windiest days of my life)

We are leaving for Sucre tonight and we are going to be there through Wednesday night.  We have a conference and interviews with the new mission president.  I'm pretty excited for that.

It was a bad week for cameras between me and my companion.  Mine is broken and his whole memory somehow got erased so I don't have photos from the baptism this week.

We had a zone meeting on the 4th of July so the Americans all sang the National Anthem.  That was pretty much all of the celebrating we did.  I also went to a restaurant and ordered an American breakfast that wasn't really very American but was pretty good.

I hope you had a great 4th of July!  Don't forget to go to the temple this week.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. D&C 128:17-18