October 24, 2011

FAMILY,
Crazy week, it’s been getting a little cold here and Elder Purcell doesn't have any warm clothes with him. Two weeks ago he sent a letter home and asked for warmer clothes, so lately, in order to unify us together; I also have been on the “no coat until Purcell gets his package" campaign. Luckily it warmed up a little bit, and he did receive his package a couple days ago.
Oh, I never got back to you about classes. I talked to President Jergensen about signing up for classes and he said that I could take some time during the week and sing up on-line. I probably won’t do that specifically because I will be on line forever trying to figure everything out and probably wont have all the information I will need off hand, but if you could sign me up and get a schedule, and signed up for classes, then I could just jump on line and adjust some things
if necessary. If you want to send me a schedule when all said and done so I could look it over that would be sweet. Thanks.
We also met up with A again this week, the French/Swahili speaking guy. Last Sunday we set an appointment to go over and teach him with I (a recent convert from Africa), but the appointment fell through. All week we have been trying to get ahold of him to set something up. Saturday we were in the neighborhood and thought to give him a try. He was getting out of his car as we were walking up. He told us to come right in. There were some other family members in the house that spoke a little English but not enough that we could use them as a translator. We called I who was actually in the neighborhood at a friend’s house. He was over there in 10 minutes. He arrived and A started to pour out questions about the Book of Mormon and questions he had found while reading the Bible. It was awesome, he didn't want us to leave and kept asking us questions. It was crazy!
T's baptism is this Saturday the 29th. She has made so much progress, but she is still scared extremely scared of water. She has gone back and forth so much, but now it is crunch time. Last Saturday the other missionaries in the branch had a baptism and we were able to get T there so she knew what to expect. She was very nervous but sat through the whole thing. Afterward she said that she was not going to be baptized. She was not going to go through with it. She expressed her feelings with the members there and the members kept walking up to us and telling us she was not going to do it. Purcell and I were unfazed, T is prepared. We went over to her house that night because she had invited us over for dinner. We talked about the baptism she witnessed, and she said that she was not going to do it, but she was going to come to church the next day. That night Elder Purcell and I felt that we needed to fast for her, so we did. The
next morning we went over to have a little lesson before church (church starts at 11:30) and she went off on us about how she was not going to church and she wanted us to take all the Bibles out of her house and stop with the whole church thing. She had had a weird night the night before and was very scared about coming to church and meeting with us. We talked to her and calmed her down, but she was adamant about not coming to church. We basically invited pretty hard and told her that her ride was coming in 5 minutes and then we left. While we walked outside her ride was waiting there and we told them what was going on, then all of a sudden T walks outside and jumps in the member's car and heads off to church!! It was a miracle.
Later Sunday night she called us and told us that she is going to be baptized and she was ready to do it!! Please pray for her to be baptized on the 29th.
I LOVE YOU ALL!! -Elder Hale