Another week has flown by! As usual I don't have much to say. I feel
like I just barely emailed home yesterday.
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| This is William. He is the handicapped kid we are teaching. He is getting baptized mid March. |
Last week Elder Samia (assistant) came out on exchanges with us for
24 hours. He served in West Point a year ago, so he brought us to a couple
families he had built relationships with. Both were excited to see him and both
set up appointments. One of them is tonight. The other one was Saturday, but
they didn't open the door. I guess it's just not their time yet. He thought we
working well, which is good to hear, and being as productive as possible. I
needed that. Not having tons of experience in the English program, I kind of
wondered if we were just spinning our wheels on some things, but he said he
thought we are being productive even if sometimes it doesn't feel that way. I
guess, as usual, I just need to learn to find joy in the journey and recognize
the little bits of progress that occur.
So Cecilia got baptized! She had told us on Monday she was ready,
and we set everything up and told auxiliaries and everything. It was a small
service, but that's ok. Chris didn't know he could baptize people until we told
him, then he got really nervous when we asked him to do it, but it happened.
Then we suggested bishop confirm her, and she agreed to it. He had visited her
the week before on visits for ward conference, so him confirming her should
create a little bit of a bond. (Cecilia is the one we have been teaching for a
few weeks. She was living with the Vallette family, and so Brother Chris Vallette
{in the picture} just got the priesthood six months ago and was able to baptize
her this past weekend.)
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| This is Cecilia. The recent convert she is standing next to is Chris Vallette. He was able to baptize her. |
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| Cold cereal is the best way to celebrate a baptism. (It's not considered sweets.) |
I have been studying the doctrine of the first three lessons in
depth the past few weeks. It has given me a new perspective on lesson 1 and 2
especially. About how basically, the point of lesson 1 (one of the many) is
however many times we or the world screws up, God still reaches out in love. The
Book of Mormon is the direct evidence of that. Lesson 2, I have liked a lot
more lately just because I think more about people being in the celestial
kingdom and tell them how much I want them there with me. Being half-committed
doesn’t cut it; the Lord expects everything...especially with the less active
people we are working with. They just need to get the plan of salvation and
have more desire to be blessed with exaltation. All over the place here.
Last minute, we invited all the elders over this morning to Elder
McGrath’s house to sing to him and put his face in a birthday cake. We had a
good turnout. While we were waiting for them to show up, I taught everyone how
to play the animal game, Brasher-style, and they loved it.
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This is Elder McGrath’s birthday surprise this
morning...most of the zone is there.
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There is a place called The Burger Bar from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives
that is close by. I am going to go there as soon as this month is over since we
have a goal of no going out to eat this month.
We saw the Facer’s this past week, and they completely sold me on
juicing! They got out their really nice juicer and juiced spinach, celery,
bananas, beets, and a few other things for us to drink and sold me on how
healthy it is. Elder Coronado and I are spending all the money we saved not going
out to eat on produce at Winco today so we can juice at their house for a
couple days. Zone insanity has been insane. Four days a week still, and two
days at the gym when the football team isn't there. I have lost five pounds since starting insanity,
so hopefully it was fat and not any muscle. Dinners still offer dessert
every night, but we have been eating with the Spanish elders and just have them
eat double dessert every night. One of them really wants to gain weight, and
the other one is 6'6" and weighs as much as I do, so he can eat as much as
he wants. It’s good to have them with us to back us up, so the members don't
get mad we don't eat their dessert.
They started to do the weekly coordination meeting with all of our
wml's together which is fantastic and so much easier than having to coordinate
on our own every week with all nine of them. It also holds more accountability,
because we put on the progress record how many lessons are taught in each ward
each week, so we see how close everyone is to their three lessons a week with
us. We try to go to lots of ward councils, but haven't able to recently because
of speaking in sacraments and confirmations.
This last week, we spoke in just one ward. They asked us to talk
about family history. I tried to act as enthusiastic as possible talking about
it, but I mainly just talked about how family history and missionary work is
the same work and then talked about member missionary work for a little and how
to gain more of a desire to do it. The past couple wards I have spoken on reading
the scriptures and delighting in fatness and feasting upon the important things
and talk about how Jake and I used to force down as much food as possible at Thanksgiving
and wondering where I would be if I put that much effort into my scripture
study at that age. It's interesting to see which wards listen when you speak,
and which ones don't at all. It's definitely easier to be more passionate about
it when you see people making eye contact with you.
Well that is all I can think of for now. I love the gospel and love
my mission!
Love,
Elder Bassett
And for anyone who knows, are Grandma and Grandpa going on a mission?
Mom, I'm glad you're such a great primary president! You're
right. I need to focus on the good the missionaries are doing. Hearing about primary reminds me of
our meetings and how hard it is to get the elders to settle down. I feel like a
primary teacher too! We are teaching primary next week I think part of sharing
time so that should be pretty fun.
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