Week 47

Well, after 5 weeks of being here we finally had an investigator at church! It was awesome. Her name is Alicia. She's super cool. She's a pretty cool old lady. For the last few weeks she has been watching kids on Sundays, but her granddaughter just had a baby (so now she is a great grandma) and her granddaughter watches the kids on Sunday while she comes to church! She liked it a lot. I taught Gospel Principles as well. It was awesome. It was Branch Conference as well. 

We were super worried, we weren't sure if she was going to be able to come. She has a super good fellowshipper named Evangelina. She is a solid member with an awesome testimony and impressive knowledge of the doctrine. She comes with us to every lesson, and this last week she told Alicia that she was going to be able to give her a ride. The problem? She just got a new job and was scheduled to work Sunday. So we prayed and fasted with Evangelina that she would get work off, and she did! So it was an awesome Sunday. 

I also gave my first baptismal interview on Saturday to two sisters. They got baptized, and our branch is baptizing weekly now! Which is awesome, since in the last year they only had 6 convert baptisms. Alicia should be getting baptizes either the 25th of this month, or the next week. She will be ready. We are trying to bring Joel to lessons on with her so that she will pick him to baptize her (she is a large, large woman.). 

In addition to that, we began teaching the husband of a less active woman. When they got married, he made her pick him or the church, and she picked him. But, unlike most situations, she kept her testimony very strong. She still says her Mormon style prayers every night with her daughter, and studies from the Book of Mormon. We have to be pretty... unbold (if that's a word) with him, though. He does have potential though. 

However, we have begun to notice a problem in the branch... Everyone in the branch thinks that it's a sin to drink caffeine. I don't know where they are getting that belief, or what's going on, but just a strange thing that I haven't seen in any other branch that I've served in. 

Elder A and Elder Vwere at leadership training at Camp Liahona for 3 days, a long with 3 of the 4 sisters from the branch, so there was pretty much no one in the branch for a little while. We held it together pretty well, if I do say so myself. Except for Elder S was sick, so we did have to take it a little slow. 

All in all, a good week. Finding some new people, and teaching lots. It's about to be week 6 of the transfer. We will be baptizing in 2-3 weeks, and so far we have 3 less actives that are becoming active again. So a lot of success here in Woodland! 

Elder Foster