But Y'all Are So Close

      Sorry, this email is for the previous week. I'll send another one for the most recent week.

      This week has been great and it's gone by so fast. I'm still doing fantastic and I've been excited to be doing the work. 

      I don't exactly know what to say so I'd like to tell you guys a little bit about who I'm teaching. Saige got baptized this week, which was exciting and now we have a lot of people who at least to me seem to be ready for baptism but for one reason or another won't commit to baptism right now. It's not like my opinion should just be discounted either, I've been a part of quite a few baptismal interviews and have seen the people we're teaching grow beyond the level of some of the people that did get baptized. Ultimately though it's not actually my opinion that matters. Only their opinion and how they feel should really be considered and I know that, but still. 

      Jeff is doing fantastic. He's finally been able to get a job after having trouble finding one. He reads the Book of Mormon everyday, he's been listening to President Nelson a few times a week, he keeps getting personal revelation, he's getting to know everybody in the ward, he's fellowshipping (helping others come to church), and doing everything you could ever want. Seriously, his testimony has grown each time we meet him because he's spiritually self sufficient at this point. 

      Amirah is a 9 year old who wants to be baptized. Amirah's family refuses to come to church because they were offended by people there, but they're ok with her going with one of her friends. Her friend happens to be the bishops daughter which makes things convenient. Amirah's a fun girl to teach, she's pretty shy though she's gotten a lot more comfortable around us and we're seeing more and more of her goofy side. Amirah will probably be put on date pretty soon, but they don't want her to get baptized until the end of January so like 3 months away. 

       Benson is 10 years old and also has wanted to get baptized for a long time, at least since I've gotten to Clinton. The only reason he hasn't been baptized is because his dad wants to be the one to perform the ordinance and won't let anybody else do it, which is fine. The only problem is he's neither worthy or making any effort to become worthy, so there's not much we can do there except continue to help Benson strengthen his relationship with Christ even though it won't result in baptism. 

      Josh is 16 years old. Josh's family got baptized about 18 months ago, but he didn't feel like the time was right back then so he didn't get baptized at that time. Josh has read the Book of Mormon, prayed to know if it's true, and got his own witness of its truth just like it says you can get. He also already knows just about everything when we go teach him the lessons. He's a little standoffish with his dad, so anytime his dad asks him to do something chances are he's not going to do it. He also didn't really talk to us at first only giving us 1 or 2 word answers, but he's now at least willing to have a conversation with us. I don't know, he knows everything is true and he's been keeping the commitments we've been giving to him, but we've brought up baptism and he goes right back to being standoffish. 

      Pania (Pen-ya). Pania is 11 even though she looks 16. We've been meeting her for a while now. She comes to church, she prays, she reads scriptures and she's recently expressed interest in being baptized and said she would commit to being baptized next week. Unfortunately her dad who's excommunicated told us to slow down and wants Pania to meet expectations that aren't required of her for baptism, but that's what we have to do now since he's the dad. 

      Sarah loves to meet with us and learn more about Jesus Christ. She's very skeptical of the Book of Mormon and when we go over we only cover the Bible with occasional references to the Book of Mormon. We've gotten to be good friends with her though and she'll be coming to church to watch us speak this week. 

      Emma is 9 and we've been teaching her for a long time as well. We found out from her dad recently that Emma's very much a people pleaser and was just telling us what we wanted to hear. So we're now starting over teaching the lessons and going a lot slower so that she'll understand what we're telling her. 

     There's quite a bit more people that we're teaching, our teaching pool is over 20 people, but these are the only ones who are progressing at the moment. 

      I also had more revelation while giving a talk in sacrament meeting. I was talking about how I bring Christ more joy than pain and I suddenly understood the concept of joyful repentance a lot better. As I mentioned before, Christ can feel more joy than we can imagine. So where would he get this joy? He would get it from us doing our best to become like him and most especially when we use his gift of the atonement. The thought of my repentance giving the Savior joy in turn brings me joy and it's changed the way I feel when doing daily repentance. Knowing that simply by repenting and making an effort to be more like my Savior, even though I'll probably make a lot of the same mistakes the next day, brings my Savior more joy than the pain the sins caused in the first place is such a marvelous thing to experience, so try it out! You'll like it. 

                       I love my Savior, Elder Blacker