June 1, 2009

Thanks for the welcome to June. Its still a shock to my system that its June, I still feel like it should be April! Its starting to get really hot here, its been in the 90s for the majority of the last week and I can already feel the humidity is starting to pick up a little bit.

Our baptisms fell through again. Matt feels a little like he's being pressured, and that's because he is but we're backing off a little bit. We're trying to get some more of the ward members to give him support to quit smoking because that's all he needs to do. Of course its really easy for me to say that 'all he needs to do is quit smoking' like its something really easy when really I have no idea how hard it can be. I've heard several accounts on how people have quit, some are they decided that their done and that was it, they never smoked again. Others are they couldn't quit smoking for several years until they made a big sacrifice, like Brother Sweat in this ward who fasted for 5 days. I don't know, I'm struggling because I really know that having the gift of the Holy Ghost will help Matt immensely, but he needs to be worthy first. I also don't know how to help him any more then I already have. Its all on him now I guess. I'll keep praying for him, and I ask you to do the same, I'm pretty sure Mom put his name on the temple prayer roll already but if its not could you put it on there. He's a great guy, but he needs to humble himself a little bit and put his trust in the Lord.

Then Ben has had a rough week. Apparently a death threat was put on his life and he was instructed by the police not to leave his house. We found him again however and asked him to meet us at the church. We took him around the building teaching the 3rd lesson, faith, repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end by walking around the chapel looking at different pictures of the Savior as we talked about each principle. We stopped at the one of the Savior calling the twelve apostles and conferring the priesthood upon them. We talked about how the priesthood is the power to seal, and that baptism cleanses you from your sins, and by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost and enduring till the end you can be sealed to our Savior and live with Him again. The Spirit was really really strong. The church was a much better place to meet then the coffee shop in Hastings. He said that he now knew that it was all true, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, President Monson, everything. He is however going home to California on Saturday or Wednesday, and he thinks that he wants to be baptized there among family and friends. We said that it was great as long as he got baptized we'd be happy for him. I did want him to pray though, and specifically ask if he should be baptized before he went home, and then I went on to explain opposition, and he's well acquainted with opposition, the last month or so has been really hard for him, really ever since he started investigating the church.

Barbra and Norman are doing very well. They want to take things really really slow. They've been believing one way all their lives and some of our teachings are different then theirs so they want to take it slow and be sure. They're however doing very very well. They're sincerely reading and praying so I have no doubt that they'll find the truth of the things we teach when the time is right for them.

Its really weird that Mitch had his farewell last Sunday! Geeze! He goes into the MTC a week from Wednesday? That's just crazy talk there. I know he's ready. From the letters he's sent me I can tell that his testimony has really grown. Its no surprise though, after all in D&C 4 the first thing that qualifies you for the work is a desire. Mitch has that desire, you combine desire and effort and apply yourself and everything else will fall into place. He'll be an incredible missionary. His personality is such that he'll talk to everyone and they'll see the sincerity of his heart, and the power of his testimony, and for many people that alone will be enough to spark their interest in learning of the restored gospel, the greatest thing that's happened since Christ brought his gospel in Jerusalem.

Hopefully Ali gets feeling better soon. Having your eyes acting all funny is no fun at all. No fun. I haven't gotten a package yet, but now I can be looking forward to one. If we're not there when the mail comes (which we almost never are because it comes between 1-3 PM) then they usually will just leave packages on the doorstep. Then there have been a lot of break-ins in our apartments recently, I don't think someone would just come by and take it in the middle of the day though.

We also know all of our neighbors and we're really good friends so I'm sure if they saw anything they'd let us know or probably go after the person. There's a crazy bunch of people who live around us. Noah and Leah live across the parking lot and they have a party every night with country music blasting from inside and Noah getting drunk and yelling at Nascar. Kyle who lives a few doors down makes his own liquor and loves to drink it, he has a carbonator and offered to make us some carbonated apple juice sometime, then we have a gay couple who live next door, and a drug addict on the other side. Every week they all get together on Friday night and have a grill out at Noah and Leah's. They usually start around 8 so when we get home at 9 they have some burgers and brats for us, we have a prayer with them and talk and eat until about 9:20 then we go in for the night. They all know we're missionaries and they all know the mission rules. None of them want to investigate the church, but they always know where to go if they decide they do. More then once we've had a note left on our door or a visit early in the morning or late at night asking us to pray for someone. Its a really fun group, really nice people. A bit lost spiritually, but still really nice. Anyways that's a really long way of saying that I have not gotten the package yet, maybe it'll come today though, I'll let you know next week.

Anyways, I love you guys a lot. We'll talk next week.

Elder Carpenter