WEEK 4 BAY CITY

It was another great week in Bay City!

The first half of the week was good. We taught a lot of lessons and started to meet our goal of picking up more investigators. We grabbed 4 new investigators this week! that is a ton for michigan haha. we were lucky enough to find a lot of prepared people!

then on thursday we had half-mission training in mt. pleasant. half the mission goes and is trained and things by President Hess, his wife, and the AP's. they really stressed using the BoM in conversion and in inviting people to be baptized NO LATER than the second lesson. Elder stevenson and i realized we had work to do in both these areas, so thats what we decided to do.

that night we went to check up on a potential who we door knocked into named alex. we met him a few weeks ago, but everytime we have gone to talk with him, he has been gone and someone different has opened the door haha that has happened like 6 times! but anyways, he was finally there and so he invited us in. he is probably like... 22 and is a nice guy. he works repairing rental properties and things so he is super busy. but he brought us in and we played pool and taught him the restoration. he was claiming to be atheist when we first met him, but he definitely isnt! haha we really stressed the bom and at the end we invited him to be baptized! in the first lesson, just what training had told us to do. and he said he would have to read the bom first, but that he liked everything and yeah! so he has a date for august 10! that was great to see.

the next day we met with mr hollerback haha he is like 60 and is a very nice guy, but a staunch catholic. we have just finished teaching him all the lessons and he has been softening more and more towards the church and is feeling the truth of it all. we read 2 Ne 31 with him, and asked him to be baptized. he resisted by saying that he was baptized already. this is a very difficult thing to overcome when teaching investigators. we showed him that it needs to be done by the proper authority of God, and asked him again and he said he will think about it. so he is temporarily set for july 20th. that was really awesome as well.

at dinner that night we extended invitations to be baptized to Dennis (60 year old who has been taught everything for a LONG time, like over a year) and his brother (probably about 50 something) and they both said probably! haha but we listened to elder hollands talk, "Safety for the Soul," with them. what a powerful witness of the bom! i suggest using that if people have a disbelief of the bom.

we also taught a 67 year old who is missing an arm named joseph. he is such a sweet guy and is sooo humble. he has had a tough life. but as we talked with him, he seemed so happy. we asked him to be baptized and he said he wants to, but he didnt have any clothes other than the ones he was wearing and wanted to go to church first and things. so we told him we would get him some clothes from salvation army and things. he just told us so many kind things. just that we are his best friends, and he trusts us and can feel our love and that when we are with him he feels like things make sense and he prays we will come back. it was very touching. then we went back yesterday only to find his nephew is evicting him from his sister's house.... joe started telling us all those nice things again and promised he'd call us as soon as he could. that was heartbreaking.

i am running out of time but last night we had a powerful lesson with jusin and chanielle, the people we taught the first night i was here. we committed chanielle to a baptismal date, and justin said maybe. he struggles a little. but we will try to help them both!

specific prayers get specific answers everyone!

we also met a few interesting people this week. one guy says everyone calls him cowboy and asked if we could give him a ride to his AA meeting haha. then a guy started telling us he was going to convert us to christianity and started slandering joseph smith and things. so i tried to testify to him, and he looked like he softened, then he invited us inside. so we went in and he started going off again, so we were trying to show him what he was missing and he wasnt really listening at all. so i just told him we were gonna leave. it was a frustrating and difficult situation.

umm so apparently the fourth here is a huge deal. like you cant drive anywhere cuz people immigrate from ALL over to watch the firework show on the bridge. its apparently a huge show and stuff and goes on for 3 days. haha so idk what we are goonna do really? there is a giant bbq at the martinezs though, which over a thousand people attend, so we will go contact at that all day haha but thats on the 6th. so idk.

i dont know if the humidity is helping my eyes and contacts be less dry. i will try to open my eyes wider outside to get more moisture in ;) haha

anyways, love you all! i am going to send a few pics as well. but just a few! haha