Hey Friends and Family,
I hope everyone is doing good and enjoying life. I had maybe
one of the longest weeks of my mission this week. I don't know if it is because
I am training now or if the week that I had was above normal in craziness. At
times it seems overbearing with the amount of stuff that is going on over hear,
but my faith is strengthend each time I tell my self that God will never give
me more than I can handle.
Well my sons name is Elder Keddington. He was born in ‘93, super young! He is from Centerville
Utah; I knew I was going to get a white boy from Utah before he even came. He’s
pretty cool, super humble, perhaps being overly humble because it’s coming off
as a lack of self-confidence. One of my goals this transfer is helping him
build his confidence up as a missionary. He has an awesome testimony, and even
though he doesn’t understand what anyone is saying he is really willing to
learn. One of the members here said that they knew he was going to go far as a
missionary because of how badly he wants to learn and be involved. He is such a
greenie, one night I went to bed at 9:30 and he got in bed too, then I decided
to read my Book of Mormon for a little bit, and so he hopped right up and got
his, then at 10:20 or so I got down to pray and I heard him follow, and lastly
I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I came out he was outside the door to
go right after me. It has made me ever so aware of my actions. I know that he
is watching my every move and that how I act now will probably set up how most
of his mission is. I want to try hard to set the example for him that I never
had. But I will tell you something, it makes me so proud when I see him use
something that we learned in studies or that he learned from when I was
teaching, in a lesson. Is that what child raising is like?
Like a good father I had to play a prank on him, but he
turned out to surprise me. At one of our investigator's homes we planned to
play this prank on him with a Habanero. The member ate one with him and he ate
this hot, hot, hot chili in two big bites. The member, who is used to eating them,
was super worried cause he thought that he was only going to take a small bite.
His face got sooo red with sweat pouring down his face. Then his eyes started
to water. He tried to play it off like it wasn’t hot, but finally accepted a
glass of milk. It was one of the funniest moments of my mission; I was worried
at one point though.
Well other than that, we have had to deal with so much this
weekend. There has been a series of issues going on with the main family we are
teaching. Marsha was baptized this last Saturday. Which was so nice. But the
battle to keep the family from fighting along with the other problems that I
cant tell anyone about due to privacy is really weighing me down. I feel so bad
for Elder Keddington to have to go through all this in his first week. I have
been in the field 13 months now and have never had to deal with the things that
happened.
Anyway Marsha was baptized and she asked me to do it.
Because of some things that happened in the past, she had to be interviewed by
one of the counselors in the mission presidency. Apparently in the interview,
he did not ask a single one of the questions that are asked in the baptism interview.
She was surprised and at the end of the interview she asked why he had not
asked her any of the questions that we had prepared her for. He said that he didn’t
need to, that he could feel the repentant spirit that she had and knew that she
was keeping all of the commandments. He also told her that he feels or
"knows" that she will have a happy forever family one-day. It was an
awesome experience that I am so happy that Heavenly Father allowed me to be
here when she was baptized.
Well I didn’t have much time today to email, I will make
sure I have some more time next Monday.
Love,
-Elder Stewart
