Elder Schmutz's Greetings from Michigan : Jim and Marquiese's Baptism

Hey everyone!

This week was incredible. It ended with Jim and Marquiese getting baptized and confirmed. Wow. It was so wonderful. I'm going to send a bunch of pictures so you can finally know who all these people are. I see more and more how God prepares all of His children to accept the Gospel. As I said before, basically the whole branch consists of recent converts, each with amazing conversion stories. This is God's work and I want to teach the Gospel forever.

It's always the people you don't expect that get baptized. I wasn't there, but Jim during his first lesson basically bashed the whole time. He read the Book of Mormon though, and his heart was softened. His fellowshipper Chris Bates did a great job, too. I got here the day we taught his second lesson and he was ready to accept everything. Marquiese was doorknocked into and sort of forgotten for a month or so but he also loved and accepted everything we taught. He has changed a lot during the short time we've taught him. Both of them got up and bore their testimony yesterday and it was powerful. Marquiese said he has come to know the Book of Mormon is true in a way he cannot deny. So solid! I just love them so much!

So, cool thing. As a zone we set a goal to set 20 new baptismal dates by the end of the transfer (this week). The Elders and Sisters are excited and we've already set 4 of 20. We set a date with Adrianna and Eugene. Adrianna is the only non-member of her family and has been taught before but has not accepted a baptismal invitation before. We taught a powerful restoration that clicked with Eugene and both of them accepted baptismal dates. Unfortunately one of their sons puked right as we teaching about the Book of Mormon...Now all of them are sick with the flu...Hopefully they better really quick so we can start teaching them all of the time. :)

As far as other things in our area, it was a slow week. We were driving everywhere so we basically taught whenever we weren't in the car somewhere. We had MLC Tuesday which took all day and on Wednesday I was in Coldwater on trade-offs. Thursday was Jim's interview day and then we had to drive down to Sturgis to do a couple baptismal interviews. Longest drive. Then Friday night we had to drive to South Haven to do another interview. We had 5 baptisms within the zone this weekend! Exciting but means lots of work for us. Our zone is pretty large, there are 34 total (biggest in the mission since Lansing got split last transfer).

Conference was unbelievable. All of my questions and concerns I wrote down were addressed. In general my favorites (in no specific order) were Elder Lynn G. Robbins, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Elder Jörg Klebingat...I basically loved all of them.

Alrighty. I love you all! I think that was about it for this week. I love you all! Have a good week!

-Elder Schmutz