Thursday, April 8

We have had a great week up until today when we had a cancellation of our main appointment. Darn!! We have been teaching Eric and he has received the first three lessons. We were going to teach him the commandments today. Specifically Prayer, and the Word of Wisdom. His house is always full of cigarette smoke and we are pretty sure it is his. So we have been excited to see what his reaction would be.

Eric has been excited about the Gospel, but we have not been able to get him to church or any other specific commitments. He basically has listened to the principles. Now comes the commitments to obey those things yet to be learned. I know if he would come to church he would feel the spirit and be able to embrace it. Now we will not be teaching him until next Wednesday, We were hoping to keep up the momentum. We will just have to rely upon the Spirit to sustain him.

We loved General conference on Saturday and Sunday. The Brethern were outstanding and we lapped it up like we were starving puppies. Our time was well spent feasting on the messages. Yesterday we went to Zone meeting. It was very good. The Elders always have good ideas for us. President Packard, our Stake president, was our special speaker and then the zone leaders taught us from lesson 2 in Preach My Gospel. They always motivate us to think.

This morning we went out to see Cef Christie. On the way out there, Elder Whiting mentioned that he really thought we were scheduled to meet with him tomorrow instead. As soon as he said it, I knew that I had just written it down on the wrong day. But by then we were almost all the way to his home so we kept going. We had thrown in a couple of muffins that one of our investigators had given to us. So Elder Whiting, (feeling foolish,) went to the door and knocked. Cef was still in bed, but came to the door. Elder Whiting told him we had been thinking about him and just decided to stop by and bring him some muffins!! That was true.

So he came out to the car and visited with both of us. I asked him how he had been feeling since the blessing that Elder Whiting gave to him last week. He thought about it and said that it really had made a difference. I then ask him if he had prayed since them. He said, "No." We tried to help him realize that Heavenly Father had blessed him with the good feelings that he had. I then challenged him to go into his home as soon as we left and fall to his knees and thank his Heavenly Father for that blessing of feeling better and ask him to keep blessing him with that feeling!! Cef said, "I will!"

Wow, that was a first for him. We do so want him to keep progressing. Cef also agreed to come to our monthly missionary Pot Luck that we are starting next Thursday, and bring his wife who is not a member yet. This is the most progress we have seen in him. We are excited. We are going out again tomorrow morning. When we left he told us that we had made his day!! That helped us to feel posative about things.

The Franklins are doing well. Boyd has one more week. I am sure that Christy will want to follow him in being baptized soon also. Boyd told us last week that he knew that the things we had taught him were true and he has been reading in the Book of Mormon. He will be working on his coffee this next week. No other habits to change. Yay!!

We taught Donnie last night, the first lesson. He has already had lesson #3. These boys are fun to teach and seem to be very sincere about their progress. They come to Sacrament meeting each week and Seminary on Wednesday night. It is so fun to watch them as they want so badly to be a part of these things they see the youth participate in. They are good and righteous young men and women.

Donnie is easy to teach because he wants to learn and seems to have an eagerness to understand and know the truth. We taught him the restoration last night. I think it was hard because the other boys were not there. But he did fine. Juho and Johnny had other things going on. We are going to meet with all of them at the home of the Moaks tomorrow night.

Today we met the young man who lives directly below us. His name is Mark Ernst. He was very nice and we were able to discuss a little about the Gospel with him. He expressed a desire to attend church with us. He was moving to the next building over for a little larger apartment. In a couple of days I will bake bread and take it over and see if we can't get to know him and invite him to church. He was telling us that he had cancer when he was 10 years old and nearly died. He took off his hat and we could see that he had had some serious surgery and maybe radiation to his head. He said," I can tell you about God." He works nights so we will need to catch him in the afternoons. I know that he needs to be taught the Gospel.

We have about Nine progressing investigators right now. We just need to finish teaching them and get their baptism dates set. We pray that they will have the witness of the spirit of the truth. We keep telling them, they will not know the truth if they don't do their reading. We actually made up a calendar for them with scriptures for them to read every day in the Book of Mormon. It is for April. We may pass this on to Johnny, Donny, and Juho. Elder Whiting and I are having a great time teaching the Gospel. I am so grateful for all that my Heavenly Father has given me and blessed me with. This is sometimes lonely, but so meaningful to both of us.

Too often I am reminded about my weaknesses, which are many. It is so good for me to know that any success that we have is because of Heavenly Father and his miracles and not because of me. But it is so meaningful to be an instrument to help to bring people to the Gospel. I know that the spirit truly converts. And it helps so much that Leon is so wise and experienced in the work. I'm never worried about him because he is such an outstanding missionary.