Fat Dark-Skinned Missionary with More Hope

Dear family and friends,

 

As of last Friday, the 27th, I have currently been on my mission for seven months.It's amazing to think how fast the time flies and looking back at my journal entries (yes I have an entry for almost every day. I think I've only missed two or three days) I can see my own growth and progression. Yet I know there is still much to work on and much to improve.

 

Let me give you all a current update on our 24 karat golden investigator, Ricky. We've had two lessons with him this week covering all the big issues: tithing, the word of wisdom, the law of chastity and keeping the Sabbath day holy. He didn't have any issues with any of them! AND HE SAID YES WHEN WE EXTENDED THE INVITATIONS! My goodness he's so awesome! Seriously there's nothing holding him back from baptism! He's come to church every Sunday since we've met with him and he's kept all of his commitments! Right now we're making sure he knows enough to pass his baptismal interview. Speaking of that it's this Saturday. Everything seems to be on track so there will be no obstacles to getting him baptized on June 11th at 2:00 P.M. Sister Crabtree (our ward mission leader's wife) is working with our other ward missionaries in trying to get Ricky his very own set of scriptures. They're all pitching in and Sister Crabtree will probably order them with his name engraved too.

 

Speaking of Sister Crabtree on Sunday evening, when we were teaching Brother and Sister Crabtree's children, Sister Crabtree made a ravioli/lasagna dish. Literally it was a combination of the two foods in one dish. IT WAS SO GOOD but Sister Crabtree didn't like the way it looked so she lost her appetite and didn't very much of it. Hmmmm....I remember someone else doing the exact same thing. I wonder whoever that could be. Anyway I must have been really hungry because I ate both of my servings in under 3 seconds. Sister Crabtree was amazed at how fast I ate her food. We've been over at the Crabtree's a lot because that's where we've been having Ricky's lessons. Brother and Sister Crabtree are amazing missionaries and they've been a FANTASTIC support not only for us but also for Ricky. I told them both that they should have nametags too and go out with us adn teach. Sister Crabtree then hid my scriptures and made me find them before I left. Oh isn't she wonderful!

 

I had an uplifting experience on Sunday. I was going through "Preach My Gospel" chapter 6 for the study guide we missionaries have to do and I was reading the section called Hope and I felt the Spirit really strong. I realized that I haven't had a whole lot of "hope" recently because we've had to do a whole lot of tracting and our results have been pretty discouraging. I read this section right before going to bed and I realized that I need to have more faith and hope and trust in the Lord. Just because we haven't had a whole bunch of people to teach doesn't mean that we'll never get that. We just need to faith in Christ and have hope regardless of our numbers for that week.

 

Before I close I should also tell you that Sister White in 4th ward sent me a package. I've written her a "thank you" letter for it but I figured all of you would appreciate knowing that I'm being thought of and taken care of. I've also had to eat two dinners on multiple days this week. I'm going to come home as a fat, yet really dark skinned missionary.

 

Love,

 

Elder Boothe