Teresa was baptized!

Elder Coronado, Teresa, Bishop Colohan is baptizing her, and the ward mission leader there, Brother Crockett, confirmed her. He is the one that served in Mesa.

Teresa got baptized this week. It was great to have so much help from a great ward. They set most everything up, and we just filled the font and showed up. She is already halfway through the recent convert lessons, because we had started doing them even before she was baptized, because she wanted to learn more so quickly. Things will go well for her. She stood up to share her thoughts at the end of the baptism and told everyone she had waited a long time and wasn't sorry that she did it. Her next day was the confirmation, and she was very happy, as was Garland. They had to leave right after sacrament, because Garland can't last through all of church, but she will usually stay and maybe they will bring the sacrament to him; I am not sure.

SO now we are just looking for other non-members to teach! Keep praying for us finding new people. Yesterday, we had a lesson with Gavin...he hadn’t come to church the day before, because his aunt took him to a hockey game. We talked about who he wanted to be as far as values and asked his mom what kind of person he wanted to be. He told us, and we talked about how baptism will bring that. Then as we were wrapping up, his Mom kind of nudged him to tell us something. Then he said thank you for teaching me, but "I won’t be needing your assistance anymore." He felt like he had learned enough ways to feel the Spirit and didn't think he needed anymore than that. He can read the Book of Mormon if he gets time, or go to church, but doesn't need the lessons. I guess he really just didn't get how much we were stressing the necessity of baptism. So then the ward mission leader took over and talks for 10 minutes about I don't know what, and we shared our testimonies and left. So that was too bad, never thought I would get dropped by a 12 year old, but it happened.

Cecilia has not been keeping her commitments at all and is losing interest it seems. She hasn't been reading or praying at all so we are praying hard for some help with her.

We started teaching a nine-year-old girl named Hunter that is being adopted by a family right now. She probably can't get baptized though for a couple months until the adoption is finalized. So our stake president is discouraged and putting a lot of pressure on the wml's and bishops to find people.

Sunday was a rough day...almost everyone in our zone lost all of their baptismal dates. So last week we were consistently 20-25 dates per week and now our zone has increased by four missionaries and is down to 3 dates total. rouuuggghhh. I stayed up pretty late that night wishing we had a punching bag or a bench sacar a little koraje (It’s like getting out stress...take out anger kind of). But things will pick back up. I am sure it's my fault since I have been praying for gratitude, the Lord is making me really search for things to be grateful for, luckily I have plenty.

Elder Coronado and I woke up the next morning still a little aguitados, and I talked to president that day. He asked how I was, when he had called me for numbers, he had sensed the frustration in my voice. He also helped me renew my temple recommend, it's so crazy it has already expired. I remember when I first got it. So we think the main problem is that people aren't inviting to baptism. They are too timid, or just not urgent enough, so we will train on that this Thursday when we have our zone study to set February baptismal goals. It's hard for us to lecture or preach what to do when our area isn't doing very well, though. But things will pick up. Our stake president is determined, and so are we.

I went on exchanges with Elder Senn for two days last week. Actually, he came on exchanges with me. It went pretty well, he is still funny old Elder Senn. It was good to reminisce on the good old days of Preston. We had a zone temple trip last p-day. Three people showed up when most of them said they were coming, but I didn't let it bother me and just enjoyed the temple. It was a good day; it been a long time since I had been, so it was relaxing.

I am so so glad we have the gym in the mornings to get stress out. The high school lacrosse team always comes and works out there, too, when we are there. They do a core circuit at the end and you have to have a partner. One day they didn't have the right amount of people so they needed one more and one of the kids asked me to partner with him for the core circuit. I can take that one of two ways. I was the least intimidating looking of all ten missionaries there and looked old enough to be a high schooler, or I was the only one he thought handle it. Or maybe a mix of the two. Either way, it was fun being a high schooler for a few minutes and having a coach yell at me.

This past week I bent over to pick up a couch, and the pants of my suit tore in four places all the way down the legs. The hole is huuuuge. So there is not way it can be fixed, because it didn't tear on the seam, and the fabric is so thin it can't be fixed anyways. (If you remember the same thing happened to one of my suits last transfer). Then yesterday I looked at the pants I had been wearing that day, and there was a hole in those ones, too (not on the seam)! Three suits in two transfers. Either I have really worked hard in these suits, or what I have been saying is right; I am getting fat. But the ones that tore yesterday, the whole is smaller so hopefully men's warehouse can patch it for me.

Today I think we are going to go bowling with a couple missionaries in our zone. Elder Ward is the new assistant so he will do a great job. I am happy; he is such a great missionary. One of our wards got a new wml, which is excellent news. I’m sure the old wml is a great man, but he has been burned out for the past six months...so hopefully things will start to happen more in that ward. I think that's all I can think of for now. Keep praying we will find new people! Take care,

Elder Bassett