This was a realization from one of my AD3D conversations with Elder England this week.
I couldn't help but laugh at Mom's subject line for this week's email, hoping I'm still "All Right." I was just joking about that with my last subject title because I got my left foot ran over, so I was literally "All Right." So no, I'm not still all right in that sense! My foot's fully healed, and i know it's a blessing. But in the other sense, I'm even better.
Mom seemed to really want to hear about my investigators, which works out since that's what I want to talk about anyway. WE SET A BAPTISMAL DATE! All yall in other areas probably would get excited about this, too, but it's especially exciting for me. I hadn't had an investigator at church for the entire time I was in Mason City, and all of the baptismal dates I set there fell through pretty quickly with less-dedicated investigators. And when I came here we ended up with investigators with all sorts of things to overcome first, like custody battles and marriage and smoking and blah blah blah SO when Dena, one of our investigators, decided that she wanted to get married to her live-in boyfriend, Casey, a member, Christmas weekend so her mother would be around for it, we jumped on the chance! And for as solid as she was before, she's WAY solid now! I LOVE what baptismal dates do for people who really, really are willing! She is now trying to talk to us about planning a wedding and making sure she has a modest dress and all the stuff we'd tell her to do anyway! I do NOT know ANYTHING about planning weddings, though. Helping someone find a dress and all sorts of junk is WAY beyond me. While many missionaries have had to marry people on their missions, I've never had to do it before, so this is exciting but sort of scary, too. But Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, I'm getting to see my investigator married and...Happy Birthday! A Baptism two days before the anniversary of the day I entered the world. So, yeah, be excited. This should ring a bell with my previous emails and my belief it's a principle of the gospel that bad things and good things tend to go near each other. It took a long time of sickness and pain but now the Lord's sending blessings. Ok, I shouldn't get so excited, in case it falls through, but I have faith it won't and I'm praying hard for them!
Oh! Whoops! I completely forgot to mention this part, but you can probably guess already: transfers are this week, but neither of us are going anywhere. Thank goodness.
Oh, Thanksgiving! Well, this week was pretty lame in most ways of missionary work, but some cool things happened. We had both a Lunch and Dinner appointment on thanksgiving. I hate stuffing myself like a turkey but it was all just so good. Lunch was at the house of a couple of our investigators, where we also got to meet his parents, and the dinner was at a member's home.
Anyway, I gotta go! One last thing: I may be able to SKYPE home for christmas! I don't know how feasable this will be for you or even for us to get a member that can do it but i'm gonna try. Just so ya know!
"As for myself, I am an optimist. It doesn't seem very much use being anything else." -Winston Churchill
Elder Charlie Gates
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