ELDER WALKER:
- So I am very excited to be staying in St. Anthony. I love the people here and the work that we are doing. I am creating this bond with this area that when the time comes to leave I really wont want to. When President Colton was talking about splitting this area I had a hard time with even thinking about other missionaries "poaching" my area.
We are still seeing a bunch of success. We set another baptism date on Saturday which brings our total to 5. Our goal is to beat Decembers baptisms with 7 instead of the mere 6 we had last month. haha - While tracting we ran into this boy named Shawn. He was visiting a member family for Christmas. We asked if we could share a message with him and shared a brief restoration. He had wide eyes the whole time and his response was that he thinks it is so great that God would call a prophet once again to lead and guide us today. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and he already read the chapter we gave him (Moroni 10) and prayed. He said that his Mom is Christian and his Dad Catholic; his whole life he has been confused. When we went back today we taught a more detailed 1st and asked a few more questions. His answers were so profound and so genuine. He's 14 and had more interest in the gospel than most adults we teach. The only problem is that he lives in L.A. and was flying back home today. He said that he would really like to continue learning from us and that he wished we could keep teaching him. We said, "that's alright we have missionaries in California too." He had no idea the church was around the world. We described the L.A. temple and said that was a temple of our church. He was so excited. Too bad he isn't our investigator anymore. We just set up a golden investigator for the L.A. mission.
- Yesterday I experienced my most spiritual low of the mission. We have been teaching a boy named Carson H___ for a while and yesterday when we went back to teach him his Dad came to the door and told us that Carson wasn't interested anymore and that we shouldn't come back. I get sad thinking about it because Carson is such a great kid and knew so much about the church. We don't think that Carson actually said that and that his parents are still bitter towards the church. It's terrible because Carson's dad served as an Assistant when he served his mission but now is less active and doesn't like the church. I was asked just the other day by our Zone leaders what the hardest part about serving a mission is. My response was that It's hard to see somebody's potential and then watch them not reach for it. That's how it is for Carson only worse; he has great potential but his parents are restricting him from achieving it.
- Here in Idaho we teach so many over aged youth and part member families. Most of our converts are teenagers or pre teen kids. It really makes me appreciate the way I was raised in the gospel and the structure I have. Some families are so closed minded and restrict their children from growing. As a missionary you really want to sit the parents down and tell them how to raise their children but we don't necessarily have the authority to do that.
- Yesterday Sarah Ferwerda, one of our investigators with a baptism date, bore her testimony in church! It was her first Sunday in her new ward and the first time we heard her say that she knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true! Elder Call and I sat there with our jaws hanging down in our laps. We were about to fall of the bench out of shock! The Lord works in mysterious ways...
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