Brett-June 29, 2009

Hey y'all how's everyone doing?? I hope y'all aren't partying too hard without me back in LV with all these birthdays coming up...We're going to be partying out here in the TLM with all these baptisms we're having. Elder Jenkins and I had 2 baptisms this Saturday and for the month of June, as a mission we had 38 baptisms, which is only 2 shy of doubling the baptisms!! I'm way excited. President has promised us that when we do double baptisms all of us are going to Lubbock to take a picture in front of the temple...It will be the only time all the missionaries in our mission are together. But this next week we are having a combined zone conference in Midland and the other half of the mission is going to Lubbock. I just got an email from President about it this morning. He's so cool!! I guess we're going to do a combined Zone Conference to celebrate the success we're having. The only other time that ever happens is during Christmas. So It'll be fun to see some of my mission buddies that I haven't seen for a while. Well as for our baptisms this weekend, it was amazing!! It was an awesome baptismal service and the branch is so supportive right now and so excited about missionary work...we're going to turn this branch into a ward. Ovidio's baptism was the first one that I've had to dunk someone more than once haha He has bad knees so he insisted on going forward rather than backwards so I tried it and he didn't make it all the way under so I just told him that we should try it backwards. He's kind of a big guy but I told him that I'm a strung dude and I could support all his weight so he was kinda hesitant but said ok and I got him all the way under haha he said it was a lot easier than he had expected. Ovidio's wife came down from Dallas for the baptism on Saturday and the confirmation on Sunday as well. She's way cool. She's going to be baptized pretty soon here as well. If she lived here it would be a lot easier but we'll figure something out. Zuli's dad came to the baptism as well which was really cool because he's not a member and we got a chance to talk to him afterwards. It was a great week. The best part about it was afterwards I asked them both how they felt and Zuli, after Elder Jenkins confirmed her on Sunday she came and sat down next to me and she just goes, "Wow!! I feel good." and Ovidio said that he felt like a new person. And he truly is. He's made so many changes since I've started teaching him and he just seems so much happier now. Before he was always way serious and now he's always smiling and happy. It's amazing!! This week we found a ton of new investigators as well. Two of them I'm really excited about. The first is Joel, he's a Puerto Rican guy that is in the Military. He's way cool and he's come to church for the last two weeks and we're going on the base tomorrow night to teach him. It will be fun. We're going to have to take our name tags off to get onto the base, that will be weird. Also we started teaching a girl named Kim. Her boyfriend is a less active member who just started coming back to church last week. They are both 18 and just had a baby together. They're not married yet so we're going to work on that and try and get her baptized. Well i hope things are going well for y'all back home as well. I love y'all lots and I pray for y'all everyday. Thanks for all your love and support. The church is true. Christ is the reason, baptism is the way, joy is the reward. Love y'all.
Elder Harber