Week 56

I am doing swell! I have a brand spankin' new elder and he is great! More about him next week though.

This last week was the best week of my mission so far. We taught so many lessons I lost count! We are teaching repentance for sure! To add on to the excitement I had a surprise baptism. Ainar, one of my investigators in my last Ward was baptized and asked me to baptize him! I was so honored but due to complications I thought his baptism would be postponed to next week. But...... surprisingly it was not! I got a call at 1:50 last Saturday with Ainar's current Elders saying "Ainar's baptism is in 10 min. Where are you!?" I rushed half way across San Diego in 25 min just in time for me to baptize him. Literally, the person before him was getting in the water. I made he fastest change in my life and baptized Ainar. I was so full of adrenaline that I started saying the beginning of the blessing of the sick instead of the baptismal prayer... Lol then after a few tries I finally got it out. It was glorious!

Miracles!

That is what this week has been. Miracle after miracle after miracle. I honestly and truly believe that it is due to our diligence and exact obedience. We talk to everyone in this mission. And we have seen miracles because of it. Two nights ago we were walking back to our car with Paola, one of our most progressing investigators, and I looked behind me and Elder Mahoney was talking to Valerie. I did not see Valerie but Elder Mahoney did. By the time I got over to them Elder Mahoney was about to write down our number and then before we knew it we were teaching the restoration to this person neither of us had known prior to that moment. It resulted in Valerie taking, literally taking, both a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet from us and taking our number as well. She said that she would text or call us when she has read and prayed about both the Book of Mormon and what we have taught her that night. It was a great experience! It made us late to our apartment.... but it was well worth it in the long run. Lol!

We need to work on asking "who do you know" to everyone. That is how we find solid people round here. One of the fruits of this is Debbie. Debbie is a single mom who was talking to Paola one day and said "why don't the Mormons come to my door?". Luckily we asked Paola who she knew that could hear about what we are teaching her and she told us about Debbie. We are meeting her tonight and it will be glorious.

~ Elder Josh Alger