Week 45: Sweetwater, TX (Transfer 8)

July 1, 2013

Greetings from Texas! It's been pretty dang hot here the last week. But the work continues!! Our teaching pool has increased dramatically after putting in hours and hours of knocking doors/street contacting. We are teaching Blade, Shelby, Diane, Earleen, Tarin, James, and Daniel. All seperate investigators. Blade is getting baptized on July 20th, Tarin on the 27th, and we're looking to plan more baptisms in the next lessons with these great people. Being here in this area for almost seven months now, I've really developed strong relationships with the members here. There is a trust between them and the missionaries now that they are more willing to refer us to their friends. We are getting members out to lessons with us and showing them how to engage in missionary work. The broadcast from last week is really taking effect in the stake and you can see a new desire for member-missionaries doing their part. A cool experience from last week----We were on our bikes just on our way to an appointment when we saw this lady sitting on her front porch. As any normal missionary would, we went up to talk to her. After a minute or two of chatting, we asked if she had ever talked to missionaries before. She said a couple of years ago, she was out front doing some yardwork when some elders stopped by and offered her a hand. They ended up taking care of her whole front yard in mowing the lawn and raking leaves, etc.. The missionaries said they would be back to finish the job the next day, if it didn't rain. It rained the next day and she never saw them again. She never got to really thank them. Ever since then she has been praying to see missionaries again, and when we showed up her face lit up so bright and she was just as excited as can be. She called us angels. We ended up giving her a blessing to help her with a sickness she is fighting. It was a very spiritual experience for me and a real testimony builder on how God is preparing his children to receive the gospel. Her place is kind of hard to find, so I'm assuming those missionaries probably forgot how to get to her home or something. We are now teaching Earleen and helping her to come closer to Christ. So legit!----I'm starting to really like the open country-side land of West Texas. It's great scenery and very peaceful. Oil and wind energy are booming businesses around here. The heat is pretty intense (106 average, 56% humidity), but I know that if we're out there sweating and hustlin' & rustlin', the people of Sweetwater will think to themselves, "Why are these guys out in shirts and ties in this heat walking around? What do they have to offer?"... It's important for everyone to see you reaching out and giving service to the community. I just feel like the luckiest guy to be one of the 70,000 missionaries around the world. As my mission president says, these are journal-entry days. Historic times. Love you all, make it a great week! Elder Rios 1729 Hailey St #E53          <<<----- WRITE ME ! ! !Sweetwater, Tx 79556