Week #38 - Paper Mache Paper

It was a pretty awesome week here in ol' Benicia. The Vallejo 2nd Ward had a baptism for a dad and his daughter that went really well. One of our investigators went and LOVED it- so we're committing him to baptism this week. I got to sing a really cool song for the service called Savior Redeemer of My Soul (not the same tune as the one in the hymnbook). I pretty well biffed the last note but the rest went well. Then the following day (Sunday) I got to sing the Reflections of Christ Come Thou Fount arrangement for a fireside which was pretty cool...and I'll also be singing it this Saturday for another baptism. It's been pretty awesome to have so many chances to sing lately.

Life is spectacular.We got an interesting referral this week. A member of the seventy referred a 92 year old retired Baptist Reverend and basically said he knew this was the time for it to happen. What's a little more interesting is the referral isn't in our ward boundaries...but we got a call from the mission home and were told that WE were the ones who had to teach him. We're supposed to contact him tomorrow so...I guess we'll see how it goes. It sounds pretty solid...they explained things to me for about twenty minutes over the phone.

President Stoddard came to my District Council last week which was pretty intimidating at first. It was pretty cool though- everything went really well and I asked him if he'd give us his testimony since we don't often get to hear that from him. He was happy to and it was a really neat experience.

I received very little mail for the past two weeks.

So here's the 20 Lesson program that L. Tom Perry introduced (there were some questions): Each ward has been assigned to provide missionaries with fifteen people to teach every week. Five names from the Elders Quorum, five from Relief Society, and five from High Priests. These are idealy nonmembers/part member families, then less-actives, and if must needs be: active members. It's partly to give us plenty of opportunities to help us with our teaching and get people fired up about missionary work, and of course to strengthen/build up the wards. Anyway, the names that the ward provides us with are people whom the ward has asked that have accepted the invitation to have the missionaries teach them all the lessons. Once one name/family is done with the lessons or doesn't want missionaries anymore, a new name should be provided from whichever auxillary it came from so there's always a constant pool of 15 names. Anyway, this was Elder Perry's instruction to everyone about six months ago. Not just a suggestion, but something he told everyone to make happen- and people are still complaining and saying they don't understand or saying how ridiculous it is and whatever else. It's been six months...but it's alright because it looks like it's finally going to happen now.

Well there's the week. Hope everyone's doing well- have a good week!

Love-Elder B