So last week, I guess I sounded sad or something, since everyone has commented on it. Let me tell you about this crazy week we just had.
We picked up 3 new investigators. One is a 19ish year old kid named Brian. He was a referral from the spanish sisters, since he said his english is better then his spanish. He's real quiet, so we just got to know him and gave him a Book of Mormon. Our other two investigators are 9 year old twin girls. They are the daughters of less active members who are returning pretty well. They just recently turned 9. We've been teaching them for a while, and we had a date set up for them to be baptized before they turned 9, but that date slid. It's kind of a bummer in that aspect. We tried to get them baptized as soon as possible, since the parents have been dragging their feet for over a year. But, I guess this is the way it was supposed to happen, so I'm ok with that. We'll work really hard to help them get there. We basically had 2 baptisms fall into our lap, which is cool.
Bill is doing good. One day we went over to his house and his crazy little dog got our and we got to chase it all over the golf course behind Bill's house. We caught him before he got too far, and Bill was very grateful. Yesterday, we went over and introduced Bishop to Bill. We had a nice visit, and he really wants to get baptized before Elder Baldwin leaves, but he still won't get over his want of proper clothes, and he still won't let us help him. He still wants to feel independent. He has changed an incredible amount. He believes and has a testimony, we just can't seem to get over the last hurdle. He'll go. Hopefully sooner then later.
This week, we did our 20 lessons/ 140 contacts. I haven't done both of those in the same week the whole time I've been here. I feel like we've got the area to a place where we can do that consistently now. The mission is moving up as well. We're baptizing at the pace the mission was when I first got here, which is huge jump from 2012. All the new missionaries will help that. We got the first 19 year old sister in the zone this past week. It's kind of scary, since she graduated high school in 2011.
The priests did a great job. They got out 5 copies of the Book of Mormon. We had them share experiences in the beginning of priest quorum and everyone had good things to share. We beat them, but we're going up against them this next week as well. We have a pretty charismatic bunch of priests, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this.
I'll probably be here 2 more transfers, for the standard 4, and then do my last 3 in another area. I have less time left on the mission than I spent in Newark or Salinas. weird.
Anyway, a pretty good week.
-Elder James Richards