And the Heavens Open...

August 1, 2016

Hi guys!

We had a really great week! We almost hit Standards of Excellence. The only thing was we only found one new investigator and we only had two investigators make it to church. But we did our best, worked ourselves to exhaustion, and accomplished a lot of good!

On Monday, we got permission from President Smith to watch the movie 17 Miracles with Reagan for family home evening. It was really good (I love that movie) and we also had a good discussion about the pioneers, and what we can lean from their example. I also feel really bad for complaining so much about not having a car. The pioneers had it way worse. And they didn't have church buildings every mile to stop at and rest for a few minutes. I can deal with a little heat (as painful as

it may be).

Anyway, Reagan's doing super good. We're just waiting to hear back from the First Presidency because of her parole thing. Hopefully we'll hear back soon and hopefully they'll grant permission!

We finally got Mona and company home! And we finally started teaching Maria, Mona's friend who lives with her! Mona's been doing some missionary work, and now we've started teaching her, and she's on date for the end of the month! A she's really solid. She shared an experience with us about when she prayed. She's never been a super religious person, so she wasn't really sure about it, but she said she prayed and just felt peace and love and joy as she did it, and she said she's felt a lot better since then.

Unfortunately Mona's kids have been all over the place, and we still haven't been able to teach them again, and they missed church this Sunday, which means we'll probably have to push their baptism back yet another week. It can be kind of frustrating sometimes. I know that they want this, and I know they're pretty solid, but keeping appointments seems to be a real challenge for them. But things are looking up for this week, so hopefully it does go better on that front.

Ryan still won't commit to live the Word of Wisdom. That's really frustrating. He's actually progressing pretty well, and he wants to get baptized, but that just seems to be his only hang up. He feels like he should be exempt from the Word of Wisdom...or something like that. We can't seem to get him to understand that this is something God has asked us to do, so whether or not we understand it, we still need to live it. And if he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the truthfulness of this church, then the Word of Wisdom, and any other commandment for that matter, should be a no-brainer. Anyway, I hope he comes around to it eventually.

Well everyone else is doing pretty well. And we should have some baptisms coming up this month. We're expecting 4 or 5 this month.

Well, this week was hot! I don't mean to complain (see pioneer speech above), but man! It was brutal! Walking in 114+ degree weather with no clouds to block any of the direct merciless sunlight is pretty rough. We walked across our area one day, and we thought we were going to die. I love hiking, and I'm good at it, and this was just bad. We only went about a mile and a half, but it felt like trudging across freaking Mordor. And we were having trouble staying awake the rest of the day because we felt so drained. But the pioneers still had it worse, and I'm still grateful I don't have to do what they did. I have to wonder though, what did the pioneers think when they went from Salt Lake to settle St. George? :)

And the good news is...we got the car back! It's all fixed up and it's really nice to not have to walk in the heat! And it couldn't have come sooner. We got it part way through one of the hottest days of the

week.

And that's not the only miracle. We actually got rain yesterday! Real proper rain! It was super nice. When we got home last night, Elder Fairbanks and I actually went out and ran around in it. It felt great! And the temperature for the next few days is supposed to be a bit cooler too!

So in both physical ways and in terms of missionary work, the Heavens have been opened on us. I like it, and I hope this week is just as awesome!

Have a great week!

-Elder Oswald