May 14, 2018

Family,

I will probably keep it a little shorter today because I was able to talk to you yesterday for Mother's Day which was good! It was fun to see all of your faces and how much you all have grown but you all seem like your goofy selves still. ha ha

On Tuesday we had a really awesome lesson with a less active Part Member Family. We went over for dinner with a member and they had another couple who was there to have dinner with us. She is a member that was baptized 5 years ago and he is not a member. They both have had a super tough life with drugs for the past 20-30 years. He has been in and out of jail for 30 years which has been super hard. They just recently lost there home and they have one daughter who is 12. They are trying to change. They have been clean from drugs for 5 months and have been wanting to come back to church. It was good to be able to teach them and start to help them with that.

President Rasmussen also went out on splits with us Tuesday night so that was fun. Our lesson fell through so we got to find some investigators and do some tracting with him.

Thursday and Friday I was on an exchange with Elder Drabicki in the Spanish branch. It was kinda fun. Although I didn't do much because it was mostly in Spanish. But we did go to see a referral of a man named (A) that we had found in our area and he spoke Spanish so we said we would send some Spanish missionaries by. So Elder Drabicki and I went by and we taught him, his wife and daughter!! They were way prepared too. It was awesome.

Saturday was a day of miracles. We had a lesson with (G) who is a investigator we found earlier in the week. She was a referral from the Bishop that he gave to the missionaries about 3 months ago. The missionaries never went by. So he asked us if we would go by and visit with her. He had met with her for an interview to work at the DI. So Elder Wright and I went by earlier in the week and she is super solid! She had already been reading the Book of Mormon, she has member friends and has been inviting one of her less active member friends to start coming back to church with her.

So we had a couple lessons with her this week. On Saturday we went by and had planned on inviting her to be baptized. As we were teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the 4th Article of Faith we mentioned baptism. She told us that baptism is something that she has been thinking about a lot and something that she wants to learn how she can do it! We told her that we had planned to invite her to be baptized and she got super excited and started crying. She said that this is what she has been wanting and she is now on date for June 9th! She is a super sweet Philippino lady in her late 40's. Another miracle as well is that all of her family is super supportive of her and whatever choices she makes even though they all have different religions. On Sunday she came out to church as well and she loved it. It wasn't her first time coming, but it had been a few weeks. She loves it all. It's so awesome to see how prepared she is and how much the Lord has been working with her and preparing her to hear His message!

On Saturday I was also able to go to the baptism of Sister (N). She is a lady that I taught the past 6 months in my last area. She is super awesome and we have worked with her a lot. We have had her on a couple baptismal dates but they all fell through with her husband's sickness and then he passed away. The week I left we put her on date for May 12th to be baptized and that took place this past Saturday. It was good to be able to go back to that and to be there to support her. She has been taught since January of 2017 so some of the missionaries who had taught her have already gone home. Some of them are at school in BYU Idaho and they drove out to come to her baptism as well. It was cool to see all of her support.

That was about all for this week. It was good to talk to you all yesterday. I hope you all continue to read and to pray and to go to church. The gospel is true. It is important. It will bless your life. I love you all and hope you have a good rest of your week!
I love you all!!
Elder Ethan Stucki