2nd Baptism - Charles

I had a pretty interesting week, to start off I have a funny story. So one of the zone leaders I live with got transferred to guess where???? My old zone.  I really like that guy and I'll probably never see him again. Anyway because of that I was in a trio for like 5 days till we got a new zl. We were covering both areas and we were at a lesson in person, at one of the zls's investigators and I'm looking out the window and i see this challenger just fly right into the concrete blocks that were blocking the street. There was a super loud bang, and his front fender just starts flipping across the yard. Tons of smoke started coming up. This black man with a dew rag on in a wife beater gets out and I can see him digging around inside the car. He gets out goes to the other side and digs around some more. He emerges with his phone, charger, speaker, backpack and a bunch of other various items and just starts running down the street. He was probably on his phone and just crashed right into the most obvious thing, the most out in the open thing in the world, then gets out and just leaves his challenger. 

That was probably the craziest thing I've seen in person. It was even funnier because I was in the middle of a lesson telling the first vision. I was looking at this lady, testifying and all this is taking place and I keep looking out the window haha. I was trying so hard not to laugh. Believe it or not I'm actually glad I have to wear masks sometimes because if you're laughing, or it smells bad and you're making a face, the mask just covers it up for you so i guess the masks are a blessing in disguise.............

..........I baptized Charles on Saturday. I haven't talked much about him but just like Jason I connected really well with him. Friday night we came to his house and elder Brady and I both shared our simple testimonies and the spirit was so strong. Charles started tearing up and it was just the perfect night before the baptism experience we wanted for Charles. On the way out though, I saw 2 beer cans right on top of his trash can. When we got out side my companion asked me if I saw them and I was like yeah we gotta go back and talk with him.  So we go back and I asked him 4x times if he drank the beer and he said no every-time, and that they were his friends. I testified of repentance and how I've seen the great blessings of it in my own life and said we just wanted his baptism to be an amazing experience for him, and it would only be that way if he did it worthily. He said he didn't drink it again and it didn't seem like he was lying so we went through with the baptism the next day. Baptizing Charles was a cool experience. I was way less nervous and the water wasn't only 11 inches deep this time. Unfortunately, when we got to the church at 7 to fill up the font, there was already people there in another ward filling up the font. They said they had a baptism at 10 am too and that their's  takes priority because it was an 8 year old girl who was going into surgery in 2 weeks, so in case she died she needed to be baptized.  We called everyone and told them it got rescheduled to 12. Both our speakers canceled and a bunch of people said they couldn't come anymore, it was a bit of a mess, but everything turned out ok in the end......

God Won't Bless Us Against Our Will......

Hello it's your fellow brother, I hope you are all doing well.......we've got someone on date to be baptized this Saturday. Before I got here he wasn't on date and wasn't really progressing. Once again I add my little testimony to those of the prophets, where ever you are on the mission you are meant to be there, that doesn't mean I'm not going to be disappointed about not being in Mexico, however I do know that there are people here that I can help.......

.......being here in Hazelwood has made my teaching abilities grow exponentially. When I got here I was really bad at teaching and that being the case, it made me go through a forced evolution to become a better missionary. When you realize something is wrong you can either Choose to change, or you can Choose not too. That's what's so good about the gospel. God loves us and wants to bless us, but he isn't going to bless us against our will, he will not force us follow him. We have been given agency to choose to follow Him. It is that simple. You are either choosing to try your best to follow God's commandments or you are not. You always have a choice. For me it is never the easiest or funnest path, but I know that if I follow God's commandments, in the end I will be eternally more happy than if I didn't. If you don't believe that, it is ok cause I didn't for awhile. That is where faith comes in. If you don't have the desire, then pray for the desire, then put in the work and as you work your faith will grow, and that desire will come. It is up to you an no one else. You always have a choice........

.......there was a hurt dog wondering around our apartment complex one night. It was super skinny and looked like it had been hit by a car. We fed it a couple hot dogs and then it scampered off. In the morning it was still out side so my companion let him into our apartment, and it ended up spending the whole day there. We called the pound to come get it but they said they didn't know when they would be able to send someone to pick it up so we made a post on a facebook hazelwood community page, and this lady came and got the dog. Just as she pulled away this black man drove in and parked right next to us. He was coming in hot so I had to hop out of the way of his car. He rolled the window down and asked if we were the Mormons and we said yeah. Then he started getting all mad and said we were racist and all this stuff and got out of his car. He started yelling and walking closer and puffing out his chest like he was about to square up so then I started preparing my self to throw hands. I remember thinking "dang I'm about to get sent home for fighting this dude!.... but he started laughing and it turned out he was a member that used to live in hazelwood and he was just messing with us. As we were talking a lady was walking past and he asked if she had 2 minutes. He shared his testimony and it got spiritual real quick and she said she would be down to meet with us. That's how easy it is to share the gospel. Just talk to everyone. It is easy for me to say that now tho since I am on a mission.  We will have to see how I do when I go home. 

Also we did some service picking dead plants and weeds from flower beds at the temple. That's all I've got for today. PRAISE GOD IN THE NAME OF OUR REDEEMER, OUR BROTHER, OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST AMEN!!!!!