26 June 2012

Hello family!

I hope you've all had a great week.  We've had a good week here. 

Transfers are today in Vista, not the usual Carlsbad.  Neither Elder Mason or I are getting transferred.  But all the other companionships in our zone, except for the Spanish sisters, have a missionary going home or getting transferred, including all 3 of our district leaders.  We'll be getting a lot of new people to work with!

Also, I've been asked again to play organ at the transfer meeting.  And sacrament meeting the next two weeks.  Wish me luck!  I'm excited for Vista because they have a pull-stop organ like the conference center and not just a button organ like most of them.  It doesn't have 5 keyboards though, only two.

We've had good lessons with some people this week.  We reviewed the Word of Wisdom with Anthony.  He's been struggling with smoking again, but is cutting back.  He made a promise with God that if God helped him get up quickly in the morning and have an awake mind, he wouldn't start the day with the cigarette.  So it turns out he has had the opening shift at Home Depot almost every day for the past 2-3 weeks!  On Wednesday he was praying for help so he could come to FHE on Monday, and when the prayer was over, he got a text from a co-worker asking if Anthony could switch shifts with them, clearing up Monday night!  Anthony has a stronger testimony of prayer than most people I've met!  He always always gets an answer!

There has been a bunch of families in our ward that are moving the past couple weeks and this week.  One of them, the Lippards, will be moving to southwest Lehi.  We visited them to get some last-minute referrals, and found out they are a SUPER missionary family.  We are having all sorts of regrets that we didn't visit them earlier.  We've decided to visit a lot more families to not make the same mistake again.  They'll be inviting a friend and us over for dinner on Thursday, then they'll pack on Friday and move Saturday.  Found out last night too, that Brother Allan, our ward mission leader, and his family will be moving within the next couple of weeks to Yorbalinda (sp?) and will probably have to be released.  They put their house on the market a few months ago to check and see what offers they could get, and it just sold.  They'll be living in his parents' vacant house in Yorbalinda until at least October, then they hope to come back to Mission Viejo.  But for now, they'll be attending a ward up there.  Elder Mason and I are pretty unhappy about that, since both of us will be gone by the time they move back, but happy for them!  So we'll probably get a new ward mission leader soon.

On Saturday we had a zone fast for baptisms in the mission.  Last week President Cook texted all the zone leaders and said we've NEVER had such a low month in baptisms in the mission, and to make plans to make it better.  Sunday night, right after our fast, we had a lesson with Alex and Angie for the first time in a few weeks.  Their other grandma, Paula--who just moved in there a few weeks ago (yes, they and their two grandmas live in the same house) has borrowed their copy of the Book of Mormon and has been reading it.  She knows it's good and has been really interested in learning about the Church.  She told us yesterday ( when we helped them load and pack stuff for their month-long trip to San Jose) that she wants to be baptized when Alex and Angie get baptized.  We are pretty excited!  I won't be around for that when it happens, since there will only be a week between the time they get back from SJ and I go home, but the important thing is that they'll get baptized.

Later Sunday night, we went to the Peel's house for [edit] Peel's farewell open house.  We're really close to the Peel family and especially to Matt.  We've taken him out on many appointments.  He's going to enter the MTC in a week and a half to learn French and go to the Lyon, France Mission.  We're really excited for him!  Jordan [edit], another kid we've been working with has his mission call to Brisbane, Australia and leaves in October (he's cousins with Jackson and Jared [edit] from THS band.  Camille might know them).  It's been fun to work with soon-to-be missionaries and watch them go through the same mental process I did!

Well that's about all the time I have this week.  I hope y'all have a great week!

Love

Elder La Follette