LAST DAY OF 2012!!!!

Run and tell that.

Hello Everyone! And Welcome to the last day of the year!  This is the last day of the year I was a missionary!  AHH! How did it come to this??!?!

Okay, I'm alright. I still have time to enjoy this great work before I am tragically ripped away from it.

For example: 

Yesterday we had

2 BAPTISMS!!!!!

Yes that's right! Thanks to our wonderful District Leader, Elder Toeava, we were able to have 2 souls enter the waters of baptism and open the doors to their salvation. 

Roger Allen Antwon Caleb Battie and Brandon Miller.

Both are super happy and doing quite well.  

Roger met the missionaries on his birthday when they knocked on his door. He's come to church a few times since that day in November and set his own date a few weeks ago and followed through on it! His son was even there (but slept through the actually baptism!)

Brandon's story is a little more complicated. His dad was a member referral from a semi-recent convert and they were both taught back in October. Brian (the dad) got baptized then, but Brandon didn't. He had some issues with smoking and crappy friends, but came to the Christmas eve party and quit his job.  We saw him on Thursday (my first time) and talked to him about what he wants in his life. He basically told us that he has no reason not to be baptized but didn't want to do it. We told him to pray about it. Then on Saturday, we had Elder Toeava come and interview him unexpectedly. When Brandon came out of that interview, he was a different person! He was so happy and excited to get baptized the next day! It was incredible! (apparently, 20 year old boys can relate to 18 year old boys better than 23 year old girls can!)  Anyway, Brandon was so happy yesterday! and so was his whole family! It was such a wonderful experience!

The rest of the week was interesting. It was filled with a lot of broken dreams, but we won't talk about those. There were also some really great moments, including the support of members! On Christmas day, we went to the Herzig home and spent a wonderful day there eating, talking, and playing music! (Bro. Herzig found a ton of old music and let us look through it! We didn't know most of them but I'm sure dad would have loved them!)

We also had a great moment harvesting this week. Here's what I told President:

"We biked to an area that was a little farther than we usually go to and found a street. As we knocked, we found a few people that let us pray for them but weren't interested in listening to us. Then we met Pierre. He immediately let us inside and we gathered his whole family together and prayed for them individually.  They loved the blessing! When we asked Pierre to be baptized, he said he doesn't like church because the always ask for money. As we kept talking, we could see the change come over him and by the time we left, he and his wife were asking for us to come back and were excited to be a part of our church! It was awesome, especially because we didn't really say anything, it was just the Spirit working through him!"

Well, I have people to go find and a testimony to go share.  I hope you all do the same!

Have a wonderful New Year! Don't forget to include missionary work in your New Year's resolutions!

Love,

Hermana Sheffield