Teaching the Lord's Way

Dear All,

This was a pretty solid week. We had Elder Piper, from the Seventy and part of the Mexico area Presidency, come visit. It was way awesome. He taught us how to teach "The Lord's Way". It was way powerful and the few times we had a chance to put it in practice it was way dope. It was all based on two talks from the New Mission President's Seminar in 2014, from Elder Bednar and Elder Nelson. About "Teaching the Lord's Way" and "See the End from the Beginning". Way cool and definitely some serious revelation.

We also had stake conference this week, which meant that we had about 3 real days to work. So that hurt some numbers, but it all turned out good cause WE HAD A BAPTISM! We baptized one of the kids of a less-active family. It was kinda cool cause he wasn't going to be home on Saturday, because of a family activity, and didn't tell us until Friday, and so we had to do an emergency shift and have the baptismal service on Sunday before the Conference. So we were at the church at about 6:30 filling the font. Which was weird.

So in order to fill the font here you first have to make sure the drain is closed. The valve for the drain is found in a hole outside about 6 feet below ground level. And we had no idea how to close it. So we grabbed a broom handle, and then we took turns leaning into the hole and holding the one leaning into the whole, and whacking the heck out of this little knob, trying to get it to turn. Not exactly effective. But it worked finally, and so never fear the water was able to stay in the font. But then we realized the water heater was broken. Actually no it wasn't broken that's a lie. When we went to go check it I thought it was turned off and so I started pushing buttons and by the time we realized it had already been on, it was off and did not want to change it's state of being. So the water was rather refreshing. Let's just say when this kid was getting down into the water he let out a little squeak and when I put him under he started to yell. And when he was coming out he was shivering and gasping. Whoops haha at least he's gonna remember the day.

But yeah this week was pretty normal other than that. We had and amazing "I'll share this one AFTER the mission so that Mom thinks I'm safe" experience, but like the title says, you'll have to wait a year ;)

I think it's way cool the ward is getting divided. Lots of new opportunities for lots of new people. When I tell people how big the ward was, how many were in Seminary with me, how many Preists there were, they just kind of freak out. It's unreal how blessed we are.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, college football kicked off this week. Maybe I'm wrong but either way a general update would be dope. Maybe you can get McKay to do it.

You guys are way cool. Keep being as good as you can be and remember, if the prophets in ancient times could be here today, they would go crazy for being so happy. We need to apreciate these time, resources, and chances we have to share the Gospel and hasten the work. We've seen amazing increases in these past years but here comes the question: Will we (you) keep up the pace?

Los quiero mucho,

Elder Rawlings

PS I got to see Elder Vega the other day. That was way cool. He's going home in two weeks so it was good that I got the little chance to say goodbye. He's a solid dude. And I'm gonna get pictures of the Temple and the giant Christ this week so you can see what's up.